The Bodyguard

In The Bodyguard, you won’t be taking down foes, rather you’ll be the living protection for the targeted VIP. You will be continuously on the move, predicting trajectories, choosing the best moment to jump in, with bullets flying at you from all angles. One wrong move can put the person you are trying to defend in danger. This creates a rather counterintuitive scenario in the 3D action gameplay: to accomplish the goal, you have to proactively intercept what most other games demand you to avoid.

When Your Body Is a Shield in The Bodyguard

The Bodyguard’s secret sauce is the way it makes keeping the target safe a puzzle of positioning and time. There is no need to find weapons or chase your opponents. Instead, you need to look at the bullet trajectory and place your character just between the attacker and the VIP.

Distance matters. Standing too far away will make it hard to get to the bullets in time, but poorly calculated movement might also let you lose the chance to save the individual. Every situation requires a different response, whether it’s jumping to catch a bullet in mid-air or leaping long to cover more ground.

Learn Your Jumps and Timing

The game controls provide several choices to move about to deal with emergency situations:

• WASD: Move character in any direction.
• Space: High Jump.
• X: Make a leap to get to where you need to defend fast.
• C: Crouch, change of character’s body position.
• Left mouse: Huge leap.
• Right mouse button: Use time dilation to slow down the action.
• Esc: Pause

Maybe the most interesting one of these mechanisms is dilation of time. If a bullet is about to contact the target, slowing down time provides you additional space to change your movement. But this functionality does not replace the ability to judge. You can still mess up even if you slow the situation down, if you are in the wrong position or pick the wrong jump.

VIP Protection Tips That Work

• Watch and then attack. Don’t only glance at the position of the attacker. Work out where to take cover based on where the bullets will land.
• Keep adequate spacing: You want to be close enough to your VIP to respond quickly if needed, but you need enough room to perform the necessary jumps.
• Choose the correct style of jump: High jumps are good for hazards above you, while lengthy jumps are good for quickly crossing a gap.
• Use Tempo Dilation at the correct time: Don’t use the time-slowing ability as soon as you detect danger, but hold it for difficult rescues.

The Bodyguard Reflex Challenge

The Bodyguard does not rely on fire power or offensive capability. The Bodyguard places players in an unconventional role for the action game genre: win by accepting risks for others. Your ability to understand the scenario, regulate your movement and respond at the proper moment will determine if you can shepherd the VIP through deadly gunfire.