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" Volume is a stealth title from the mind of indie developer Mike Bithell, known for creating puzzle platformer Thomas Was Alone. A series of short levels were demoed at Eurogamer Expo, challenging players to navigate a virtual environment of basic blocks and shapes and access the exit, while avoiding patrolling guards. Guards have a binary state - either they see you or they don&amp;#039;t. End up within their vision cone, and they&amp;#039;ll come charging towards your location and begin firing on you. Precision without frustration Volume follows a seemingly growing trend that&amp;#039;s emerging particularly in indie games. It&amp;#039;s a tough game - it seems inevitable that you will screw up and get caught - but the high difficulty is offset by convenient, regular checkpoints and instantaneous respawning. &amp;quot;I think it&amp;#039;s a really good compromise,&amp;quot; Bithell told Digital Spy. &amp;quot;Nowadays, people don&amp;#039;t want to be punished by games so much in terms of their time.  &amp;quot;They don&amp;#039;t want to do loads of stuff, die, and then have to go back ten minutes. So either you make it really hard to die or you create checkpoints so you can always have that danger but punishment doesn&amp;#039;t send you back that far.&amp;quot; He opted for the latter, as he wanted precision and for players to figure out for themselves a route through the level. The illusion of &amp;#039;coolness&amp;#039; There are similarities between Volume and Hotline Miami; Bithell even called Dennaton Games&amp;#039; action title a big influence. However, one significant difference between them is Volume&amp;#039;s protagonist has a health bar and is able to take a few bullets before succumbing to his wounds. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m not a massive fan of instant failure,&amp;quot; Bithell explained. &amp;quot;I like the idea of just scraping through. If I made things instant kill in Volume, you would have to be perfect to complete.      &amp;quot;One thing that&amp;#039;s fun watching people play is, they&amp;#039;re brute-forcing. They&amp;#039;re running in, not being very clever, getting shot, and getting to the exit with that little bit of health left - and that&amp;#039;s exciting for those players. &amp;quot;I want you to feel badass and awesome, but if you&amp;#039;re not, I want you to have fun as well. I want to create that illusion of coolness.&amp;quot; The most obvious influence is Metal Gear Solid, although Bithell took inspiration from Hitman, Splinter Cell and stealth as a genre. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s a game that&amp;#039;s matured a long time in my brain,&amp;quot; he said. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s something I started designing when I was playing Metal Gear Solid as a kid, and like every kid, I wished I could do this, this and that, and thought, &amp;#039;It would be so cool if that worked!&amp;#039;&amp;quot;  Simple in design Volume features a few items that the player can pick up and use to sneakily get past guards. For instance, a bugle is handy to lure enemies to the opposite side of the room, while blackjacks put guards to sleep for a short period of time - though when they wake up, they become more alert. These &amp;#039;weapons&amp;#039; are extremely simple to use and understand; aiming the bugle presents a clear outline of the direction in which you&amp;#039;re pointing it and includes ricochets. Bithell&amp;#039;s desire to keep the design clean is reflected in the visual style of the game as well. &amp;quot;I fell in love with simplicity with Thomas Was Alone,&amp;quot; commented Bithell. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s why there are so many blocks and shapes in Volume. That&amp;#039;s intentional. &amp;quot;I wanted to keep things clean and understandable, and that&amp;#039;s a really useful style in many ways.&amp;quot;  A narrative to be announced One thing Bithell was keen to stress is that there is an underlying story to Volume, although details have yet to be unveiled. &amp;quot;There is a massive narrative. A lot of people are worried it doesn&amp;#039;t exist, but that&amp;#039;s very much not the case,&amp;quot; he stated. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re revealing it at GameCity in Nottingham later this month, actually. It&amp;#039;s an interesting idea - I hope so! I&amp;#039;m building it up, which is dangerous, but I think we&amp;#039;re going to do some interesting stuff.&amp;quot; Expectation is much higher with Volume than it ever was with Thomas Was Alone, but Bithell appears up to the challenge. It&amp;#039;s shaping up to be a satisfyingly solid stealth title, and is no doubt one to keep an eye on next year. Volume will be released on PC, Mac, PlayStation 4 and Vita in 2014. Volume gallery:  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/gaming/previews/news/a521077/volume-preview-new-stealth-game-from-thomas-was-alone-creator/>