Until this week there was one way to move. You tapped a tile, your character walked there, every step cost the same and made the same noise. This week there are three, and the choice between them is most of what the street asks of you.
Three ways to step
Sneak, walk, run. It’s a setting that stays until you change it, so you choose it per street, not per step. Walk is what you had before: middle speed, middle noise, and the cheapest step. Sneak is slow, quiet, and costs more per step than you’d think, because creeping is work. Run is fast and loud and eats the bar. Nothing about that is new to anyone who has played a stealth game. What I care about is what each one buys against the things in this city.
Sneaking is the answer to the zombie’s eyes. A zombie sees a fixed distance in the direction it’s facing. A sneaking survivor is a crouching survivor, and a crouching survivor can only be seen from half as far, standing still or moving. So the same zombie that would spot you across the road when you walk won’t see you until you’re half as close when you sneak. That’s the whole reason to bother. Quieter steps are a bonus. The point of sneaking is being short.
Running is the answer to the countdown. When the door is going and there’s a gap in the crowd, or when you’ve been seen and a corner is the only thing that will break the line, you need to cover ground faster than a zombie can, and you need it now. Running doesn’t make you harder to see. It makes you loud, so it tells every zombie in earshot which way you went. You run to a door, and then you stop running.
What each one costs
The cost per step is where the three meet the energy bar. A careful crossing of the city, sneaking the whole way, is more expensive than walking it and much slower. What you buy is not being seen. A running crossing is fast and costs the most, and what you buy is time, at the price of being heard. Walking is cheapest per tile, and what you pay is that you’re visible and audible at the ordinary distances. There’s no stance that’s just better.
The tap menu shows all of this before you commit. Tap a tile and the move says what it will cost in the stance you’re in and how loud it will be. Change stance and the numbers change. I want the choice to be legible at the moment you make it, the same as fighting.