The developers at Shy Snake released some lengthy updates on the progress of their indie-made, turn-based tactical espionage game, Spy DNA. The update consists of talking about how well the studio is coming along with things like mission structure and procedural generation, including some of the parameters that make up the random NPCs you’ll encounter throughout the game.

Civilians will be randomized from a pool of various attributes, including skin color, gender, body type, and hair, while military personnel will be restricted to only certain attributes that fit in line with what you would expect from military personnel, including classes defined as “average”, “fit” and “fighter” when it comes to fitness levels.

Appearance isn’t just a cosmetic overlay for the characters, though. You’ll be able to make some sort of prima facie tactical assessment of an NPC based on their physical traits alone. Those who have higher fitness level will likely also have higher strength and constitution attributes, making them a more difficult potential threat if the situation devolves and fists start flying or guns start blazing.

The developers have been overhauling and expanding on the character creation and differentiations in order to give players as many choices and stack as many different NPC alternatives as possible.

The NPC generation will determine a lot when it comes to the generation of level layouts and how players will tactically approach them.

This also ties into the clothing mechanics, where wearing different clothing items can and will change how people in the game world perceive that character, ranging from attributes such as Serious and Classy, to Scary. Different clothing items also have an attribute based around concealment. You can conceal certain weapons and armor under certain kinds of clothing. So something wearing something so you can carry out a clandestine hit would be best for missions taking place in the public, while wearing heavy armor and packing sniper rifles might be more useful in missions that take place away from prying eyes.

The developers are also refreshing and updating the UI for something more user-friendly and streamlined, as opposed to the more clunky but functional design they had when the game was in its early design phase.