A Look into Gameplay Mechanics - Sang-Froid: Tales of Werewolves

Planning:

The planning stage is amazingly complex and can be overwhelming at times. You will have to deal with up to 6 waves of monsters each night, with up to a dozen or more monsters per wave. These monsters can spawn from multiple locations each wave and it is not uncommon for multiple structures to be attacked per wave. You will have to figure out how to deal with each wave individually, planning out which monsters can be killed through the use of automatic traps, which monsters you will need to fight on your own, which structures you realistically have time to travel to and from. You will also need to look at the night as a whole, and ensure that the traps you've laid out won't be accidentally set off from a monster from another wave, leaving you vulnerable. Every monster has its own strengths and weaknesses, with various amount of HP, immunity to certain types of damage, traps and bait, and even its own speed.

Every trap has its own strengths and weaknesses. They also deal different amounts of damage and have different ways of triggering. Some are automatic, and will trigger when a certain amount of monsters run over them. Some require you to arm them before they can be used. Others must be activated, so you have to be in the right location, and sometimes luring the enemies to the right location before you set them off. There are 12 different traps in the game and the game gives you a lot of freedom in how you set up your defenses. You can set up fire walls to change a monster's path, allowing you to converge monsters and make your traps more efficient. You can bait monsters, slowing them down so that you have more time to reach a structure or to give other monsters time to catch up and be caught in the same trap. There is no right way to defend any particular night and players are encouraged to be creative in how they lay down their traps.

In addition to planning out your traps, you will have to account for things such as detection. Any monster that detects you will deviate from their natural path and head to your last detected location or straight for you if you remain detected. This can either be used to your benefit or it can severely ruin your planning if you didn't account for it during the day. I've had to restart plenty of times because I was detected and monsters did not go the path I expected them to, rendering my traps useless and taking up precious time as I was forced to fight them head on when I needed to be elsewhere. You can be detected either through sound or smell. Wind is introduced into the game early on, and changes each night in both intensity and direction. The wind will carry your scent much further than normal and you will need to account for this in planning, knowing which monsters will detect you based on where you expect to be when they spawn. You can also be detected through sound, from the shooting of your rifle to sprinting. You even have a shout that can be used to lower monster's fear factor or to entice monsters to come looking for you.

Even in combat, you will need to strike a balance between several gameplay mechanics. You and every monster has its own fear factor rating. Fear factor determines how likely it is for a monster to attack. When the monster's fear factor meets or exceeds your own, they will attack. You can increase your own fear factor rating through the use of skills, potions, or items. The monster's fear factor rating increasesd if it is fighting in a pack or as time passes and the monster becomes less afraid of you. You can decrease their fear factor rating by dealing damage to them and causing them to back off. Certain monsters also have the ability to enrage itself as well as other members of the pack, causing them to become fearless and attack constantly until killed. Stamina is one of the aspects of the game that you'll have to constantly fight with. You use stamina for everything, from sprinting, attacking, and dodging. You will need to conserve your stamina, attacking only so much as to keep the monsters at bay, throwing in a few rifle shots to give your stamina time to recover, and leaving enough so that you can dodge when needed. You will need to find that balance where you spend just enough stamina to keep a monster's fear factor below yours, while still leaving enough stamina so that you're not just caught exhausted and vulnerable to attack.

Rifles are useful in the game, though they are very situational and can be difficult to utilize properly. Rifles need to be reloaded manually, and this is a time consuming process which you generally cannot afford in the middle of a fight. They're great for setting off traps from a distance, getting in some quick damage before an enemy gets into melee range, or for recovering some stamina when there is enough of a fear factor deficit to afford the opportunity. Melee weapons will be the main source of damage in a fight, and investing skill points and money into melee upgrades will benefit you greatly in the beginning.

Character Customization:

One of the best things about this game is the deep amount of customization available through skill trees and loadouts. You earn experience from completing objectives each night and for each level you gain you also gain a skill point. You will simply not earn enough experience to get everything you want, and from early in the game you will have to make important decisions as to what to spend your skill points on. These skills make a significant impact on how the game plays out, and there is no option to reset your skill points. You do have the option of replaying a certain day, but doing so means you will lose any progress made after that day and have to restart from that point on. If you don't catch your mistake quickly enough, it could mean either sticking it out with an unoptimized skill tree or having to backtrack a considerable amount.

This game uses money brilliantly. You spend money on a number of things, from laying down traps, buying consumables such as potions and bullets, and buying new equipment. You can only earn money from either converting unused Action Points and from killing monsters. This makes planning out your traps each night not only about ensuring your buildings stay intact, but also how you can optimize your strategy so that you spend as little money and Action Points as possible to still be successful so that you can have more money to purchase new equipment. Money becomes slightly less of an issue towards the end of the game, but this may be due to the fact that I obsess over each day's traps, adjusting my layout constantly to try to spend as little Action Points and money as possible. If you aren't as meticulous as I am about your planning, money may be a constant issue for you throughout the entire game.

Your character can only equip a single melee and ranged weapon and 3 passive items with them each night. Monsters will be resistant to all types of damage except for one (holy or silver) and this means you will have to study the waves of monsters, and plan your loadout accordingly. A melee weapon can only either be holy or silver and you will have to figure out which is ideal to bring with you based on that night's waves of monsters. Ranged weapons are more diverse, since the weapon itself isn't enchanted, but rather the bullets so you can always have regular, holy and silver bullets with you each night.