I'm absolutely blown away. Mr. Sun's Hatbox is this incredibly deep stealth playground was made by a solo dev. Explains why he put his name on the box.

Think of Metal Gear Solid V's immersive-sim stealth mechanics: sneaking missions with lots of tools, balloon-extraction of knocked-out enemies, mission rewards for no-alarms and no-kills, and a base full of everything you carried home or balloon-extracted. Now add the silly physics of Duck Game, where there's tools like slippery banana peels and accidental deaths!

So, I went to beat a guy with a baguette, and didn't realize he was next to a red barrel. Suddenly everything starts exploding and out-of-nowhere I'm hit with, "Mission Complete!" Confused on how I won, I just started laughing. It took me almost a minute until I realized all I had to do was "neutralize my target," because my sneaky agents are completely expendable.

Similarly, I'll never forget the mission where I had to kill my target, but I couldn't be cause my agent's "spindly arms" weren't strong enough to snap the enemy's neck — nor were there any lethal weapons in the room. Fortunately, I had a support unit lined-up to join the mission in case that guy died, so I let him get killed, let the neck-snapper at it, and boom, we win. Teamwork!

Ever since falling in love with immersive sims like Deus Ex, Prey, and Metal Gear Solid V, I've always wondered if these kinds of systems could translate to a smaller-budget indie game.


Kenny Sun answered this question with incredible gusto. I'm gonna go dig around and see if he's made anything else, and I can't wait to see what he does next.

Reviewed on Dec 08, 2023


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