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Thief fan missions and campaigns
- Thread starter SCO
- Start date
- Joined
- May 13, 2009
- Messages
- 27,231
More taffing:
"Serendipity/The Folly of Youth" by The_Dude
This is a prequel FM of sorts where a young and stupid Garrett picks up a girl at the bar and she gets the crazy idea to break into a Hammerite church to steal an icon. When she doesn't return for two days and Garrett hears rumors that the Hammerites have dealt with an intruder, he realizes that he must go look for her.
The fact that kfort beta-tested this FM should give you some insight what to expect. On one hand this FM breaks many of my 'Don't do this'-rules for enjoyable gameplay: The FM is a gigantic key hunt where too much time is spent running around to check whether the new key unlocks any of the dozen-or-so locked doors around (fortunately a key ring is provided), enemies are spawned into the map based on scripted events and there's WAY too much pointless running around, especially in the outside areas.
On the other hand there are loads of silly things to discover. Garrett will be uncovering the various 'skeletons-in-the-closet' of the higher-ups of the Hammerites, there's an inventor named Sinclair who has created something called the C5, there are 17 secrets in total to find, and what's this about a crypt underneath the church? Then there are the names - oh gods, the names. Every Hammerite in the place has a name, and they get sillier the further you progress. Brother Bair, Brother Simon, Brother Garfunkel, Brother Lee Love, Sister Sledge, Sister Hood, Sister Acht (and her sister, the sequel) are just some of the names you'll come across. (I lost it for a minute when a Hammerite was literally spawned right outside a room I was in, only for me to discover his name was Brother Wheredhecomefrom.)
Rating: 7/10 It's not one of the best FMs out there and can get frustrating at times, but it's worth a playthrough, especially if you have a sense of humor.
"Mysterious Invitation" by PsymH
Garrett is asked to meet with an associate of Cutty's at a lord's manor to help him get out of a jam. Things quickly go wrong and soon Garrett is out for revenge.
This FM did something I did not believe was possible: Infuriate me with every single thing it did.
# The map lies to you by not showing all the entrance doors.
# There's a room visible and marked on the map, but it's inaccessible.
# The map is arranged so that the second floor comes first, then the first floor. (The third floor and basement aren't even on the map.)
# The names of some items aren't translated.
# Sound-map is wrong, guards walk in and out of silence in the weirdest places, and lockpicking sometimes doesn't make any noise.
# Shadows are not calculated properly, one can be in pitch darkness according to visual environment, but the light gem shines like the sun.
# Any and all out-of-the-box thinking is punished.
# Mandatory ghosting (on Expert level) in a manor full of marble, bright lights and patrolling guards, with no blackjack, in a daytime setting.
# Tons of locked doors everywhere, but no lockpicks!
# Important characters 'teleporting in' once certain actions have been completed.
# There is only One Way towards the first objective, all the others are blocked off on purpose, but then all those blocks *magically* disappear once a certain point is reached.
# Tons of readables full of needless exposition, and all on the cringey scale.
# Readables not having properly formatted text, to the point that some of it is omitted.
# Creepy sound cues used seemingly at random throughout.
# Large, spacious and decorated rooms with plenty of opportunities for hidden secrets and loot, and yet most only contain a single bit of loot out in the open.
And that's before one realises that NewMantle breaks this FM pretty badly.
About the only part I can't pick at is the architecture of the manor. Sadly it's not used to full effect, but some of the rooms are quite lovely, like the swimming hall and the art gallery on the top floor.
It's clear that the author of this FM knew what they were doing, but their decisions leave me with Questions. I strongly advise against playing this on Expert, it's an exercise in futility. I also faintly recall some of his latter FMs, and at least 'Ultima Ratio' was just more of the same.
Rating: 5/10. Not bad. Not good either.
"Secret Breaking of a Pyramid" by Zmey
Garrett becomes an amateur archeologist and starts raiding some tombs.
Its biggest stand-out point is that it accurately portrays a pyramid - looooong, straight, sloping passageways, hidden traps, secret chambers, tons of treasure and walls covered in hieroglyphics, and perhaps a mummy or two. That said the mission isn't perfect - the start is especially tricky as you have to break through some barriers in a corridor, and each downed barrier reveals a slew of little spiders. You will learn to hate the little bastards soon enough, especially since there are over a hundred of them in the pyramid.
The author of SBoaP is Russian and his English is broken in a most interesting way, but that never becomes a problem due to how straightforward this FM is. It's also a delight playing a Thief FM with a loot count in the tens of thousands, and contains a treasure room that must be seen to be believed.
NOTE: Clicking on 'Continue' after the mission is completed is very likely to crash not only your Thief-game, but also your system. Please refrain from doing so.
Rating: 7/10. A fun change of pace for Garrett. I hope you're not arachnophobic.
"Rowena's Curse" by Lady Rowena
Some high-society drama has taken place at the Duncan estate, with a disappeared noblewoman, missing staff and a police force literally occupying the place. The noblewoman's father believes in getting the job done no matter what, so he hires Garrett to investigate and find out what happened to his daughter.
In the early days of Fan Missions this one turned heads, setting a standard for others to rise to, garnered rave reviews and strengthened a community that still thrives to this day, even though the author herself has sadly passed away. But looking back at it from 2020... there is plenty to pick and prod at here, especially if you have a Trope-Checklist on hand.
The biggest one by far is the Author Self-Insert-trope. The antagonist is an all-knowing, all-seeing, immortal sorceress who's an expert at casting the Summon Post-It Note-spell as she leaves little taunting texts all over the place. The manor layout and aesthetics are quite nice (artwork gets to shine throughout) but also let down by the design decision of linear progression - there is only One Way through. Despite numerous secret passageways and open rooftops hinting at freedom of movement, that opposite is true. Going off-script is forbidden and enforced with tricks such as invisible walls, a total lack of rope arrows and essential characters teleporting in only when needed. Progression is determined by finding the keys in the proper order, making this the Mother of All Keyhunts.
Special mention must be made of the readables. They are numerous, they are lengthy (Isabelle's diary goes on and on and on...) and they are Audiolog Syndrome personified. That said, they are also of extremely high quality - you will want to keep reading, unlike some of the works of Rowena's contemporaries (hello Purah).
But the two high points are also the ones that ensure its legacy - the attention to detail and the strength of the story. This FM is a Mystery to be unraveled by the player, and Rowena sure knew what she was doing on that front. The pacing is just right, the pieces come together nicely and the build-up to the confrontation at the end is masterfully done. And none of that could have been achieved without the details being on point, which they are on every front. Everyone has a name and every room looks and feels authentic. I'm fairly confident in saying that this is Lady Rowena (the author) at her worst - her subsequent works only improved in quality. "The Tower" is a miniature masterpiece, "The Seven Sisters" needs little-to-no introduction and even her unfinished final project shows marks of brilliance.
Rating: 8/10. Despite its age and quirks this is Mandatory Taffing, especially for modders everywhere as this FM serves as a very good "Dos and Dont's"-guide on many basic concepts.
"Shadows of Eidolon" by MasterThief3
Garrett is on the run from the law and takes shelter in a drainage pipe. With nothing but coppers outside his only option is to venture deeper into the pipe and see where it leads.
It's short, it's simple, it shows you how to do 'Dark-as-crap' darkness. It has more in common with games like Penumbra rather than Thief, but it's brimming with atmosphere and tension, despite being virtually lacking in gameplay.
As it's not 'proper Thief' I won't give it the usual x/10-rating, but will instead say "Worth a look".
"Lingering Whispers" by ScaryKitties
After sabotaging Soulforge, Garrett is hired by a nobleman to steal a centerpiece-mask for his collection from a Mechanist-facility that's been turned into storage-rooms for 'regular people'. The problem? The new owners of the facility haven't finished exploring the place, let alone clearing it out. That means YOU have to deal with the zombies in the mines, the haunted Mechanist chapel, the burrowing burricks and the trap-infested tomb at the bottom of it all. And that's BEFORE I mention the Pagan infestation, the ominous 'powered-down' status of the beefy security system and how the mask itself isn't very keen on being stolen!
I needed a long time to rate this one. On one hand this is monumental work and effort poured into an FM, there are so many layers of things going on here and the attention to detail is phenomenal. On the other hand it's not exactly working out as a coherent whole, and I'm having a hard time explaining why. Why do I have to do needless busybody-work (entering codes in a bother-to-reach place, then needing to flip the switch on the ground below to acknowledge it) to reach locked parts of the place, which I can only access one at a time? The layout of the place isn't exactly accessible either, and that's before we get to these locked gates.
Part of the reason (and I'll grant the author this one) why there are six hidden bonus objectives and four different endings is because the author is trying to tell what is essentially an epilogue to Thief 2 and a bridge into Thief 3. There are literary tropes being pulled here on a large scale. Some may find them ham-fisted, some may find them in good order.
While I see the effort put into this, something's making me hold off on the high praise. Why does only the toymaker (of all people) have a deadly safety hazard in his room? Why does one of the objectives require Holy Water, and then the FM supplies it in very scarce quantities, at exorbitant prices? Why have a visibly-frobbable book only become frobbable after Garrett has performed a task elsewhere?
And then... there's a unique bonus: The author himself made a Developer Commentary on his FM. It's always nice to get the author's direct input like this, and it also doubles as a neat walkthrough. Maybe the author answers the above questions in there, but seeing a commentary about an FM I just finished playing the FM that's 150 minutes long... :/
Rating: 8/10. It borders right on the edge of being Too Much for me.
"Fables of the Penitent Thief" - by Sliptip and Digital Nightfall
In the realm of cel-shaded buildings, sunny days and cheerful dispositions you play Busby the Thief, who's been caught red-handed from swiping the King's royal artifacts. In a moment of mercy you've been given the opportunity to find and return the six items, but since you pawned off the items faster than a bulgarian taffer, you'll need the help of everyone in town to get them back.
This is the quintessential "FM that tries to do something different with Thief", by turning it into an action-adventure game with stripped-down gameplay. If 'Rose Cottage' could be imagined as a FM for children aged 10-13, then Fables is imagined for children aged 7-10. There are no jump-scares, very few instances of stealth being required, but instead running errands for the townsfolk combined with some platforming segments take the driver's seat. There's a reason the FM gives you 50 Rope Arrows, and that reason is the Gardener's house, which also doubles as the most likely place for the lil'uns to stop playing and have a cry in the corner.
The FM is split into two missions, the first one taking place in town, and the second in the castle. The town-section feels to me like a Dizzy-game (anyone remember those?) while the second part feels more like a Zelda-game, with enemies to kill and deadly traps to dodge.
The radical departure in both art style and gameplay goes a long way towards making this FM transcend the Thief-games, as more often than I not I forgot I was playing an FM and not something off of Game Maker or the Unity-engine.
As it's not 'proper Thief' I won't give it the usual x/10-rating. but will instead say "Give it a look for a fresh breath of air".
"Serendipity/The Folly of Youth" by The_Dude
This is a prequel FM of sorts where a young and stupid Garrett picks up a girl at the bar and she gets the crazy idea to break into a Hammerite church to steal an icon. When she doesn't return for two days and Garrett hears rumors that the Hammerites have dealt with an intruder, he realizes that he must go look for her.
The fact that kfort beta-tested this FM should give you some insight what to expect. On one hand this FM breaks many of my 'Don't do this'-rules for enjoyable gameplay: The FM is a gigantic key hunt where too much time is spent running around to check whether the new key unlocks any of the dozen-or-so locked doors around (fortunately a key ring is provided), enemies are spawned into the map based on scripted events and there's WAY too much pointless running around, especially in the outside areas.
On the other hand there are loads of silly things to discover. Garrett will be uncovering the various 'skeletons-in-the-closet' of the higher-ups of the Hammerites, there's an inventor named Sinclair who has created something called the C5, there are 17 secrets in total to find, and what's this about a crypt underneath the church? Then there are the names - oh gods, the names. Every Hammerite in the place has a name, and they get sillier the further you progress. Brother Bair, Brother Simon, Brother Garfunkel, Brother Lee Love, Sister Sledge, Sister Hood, Sister Acht (and her sister, the sequel) are just some of the names you'll come across. (I lost it for a minute when a Hammerite was literally spawned right outside a room I was in, only for me to discover his name was Brother Wheredhecomefrom.)
Rating: 7/10 It's not one of the best FMs out there and can get frustrating at times, but it's worth a playthrough, especially if you have a sense of humor.
Right-hand side of double door at the bottom, underneath left table, on top of inner left table, on top of mantlepiece, side of inner right table. Don't pick up the key. You're welcome.
"Mysterious Invitation" by PsymH
Garrett is asked to meet with an associate of Cutty's at a lord's manor to help him get out of a jam. Things quickly go wrong and soon Garrett is out for revenge.
This FM did something I did not believe was possible: Infuriate me with every single thing it did.
# The map lies to you by not showing all the entrance doors.
# There's a room visible and marked on the map, but it's inaccessible.
# The map is arranged so that the second floor comes first, then the first floor. (The third floor and basement aren't even on the map.)
# The names of some items aren't translated.
# Sound-map is wrong, guards walk in and out of silence in the weirdest places, and lockpicking sometimes doesn't make any noise.
# Shadows are not calculated properly, one can be in pitch darkness according to visual environment, but the light gem shines like the sun.
# Any and all out-of-the-box thinking is punished.
# Mandatory ghosting (on Expert level) in a manor full of marble, bright lights and patrolling guards, with no blackjack, in a daytime setting.
# Tons of locked doors everywhere, but no lockpicks!
# Important characters 'teleporting in' once certain actions have been completed.
# There is only One Way towards the first objective, all the others are blocked off on purpose, but then all those blocks *magically* disappear once a certain point is reached.
# Tons of readables full of needless exposition, and all on the cringey scale.
# Readables not having properly formatted text, to the point that some of it is omitted.
# Creepy sound cues used seemingly at random throughout.
# Large, spacious and decorated rooms with plenty of opportunities for hidden secrets and loot, and yet most only contain a single bit of loot out in the open.
And that's before one realises that NewMantle breaks this FM pretty badly.
About the only part I can't pick at is the architecture of the manor. Sadly it's not used to full effect, but some of the rooms are quite lovely, like the swimming hall and the art gallery on the top floor.
It's clear that the author of this FM knew what they were doing, but their decisions leave me with Questions. I strongly advise against playing this on Expert, it's an exercise in futility. I also faintly recall some of his latter FMs, and at least 'Ultima Ratio' was just more of the same.
Rating: 5/10. Not bad. Not good either.
"Secret Breaking of a Pyramid" by Zmey
Garrett becomes an amateur archeologist and starts raiding some tombs.
Its biggest stand-out point is that it accurately portrays a pyramid - looooong, straight, sloping passageways, hidden traps, secret chambers, tons of treasure and walls covered in hieroglyphics, and perhaps a mummy or two. That said the mission isn't perfect - the start is especially tricky as you have to break through some barriers in a corridor, and each downed barrier reveals a slew of little spiders. You will learn to hate the little bastards soon enough, especially since there are over a hundred of them in the pyramid.
The author of SBoaP is Russian and his English is broken in a most interesting way, but that never becomes a problem due to how straightforward this FM is. It's also a delight playing a Thief FM with a loot count in the tens of thousands, and contains a treasure room that must be seen to be believed.
NOTE: Clicking on 'Continue' after the mission is completed is very likely to crash not only your Thief-game, but also your system. Please refrain from doing so.
Rating: 7/10. A fun change of pace for Garrett. I hope you're not arachnophobic.
"Rowena's Curse" by Lady Rowena
Some high-society drama has taken place at the Duncan estate, with a disappeared noblewoman, missing staff and a police force literally occupying the place. The noblewoman's father believes in getting the job done no matter what, so he hires Garrett to investigate and find out what happened to his daughter.
In the early days of Fan Missions this one turned heads, setting a standard for others to rise to, garnered rave reviews and strengthened a community that still thrives to this day, even though the author herself has sadly passed away. But looking back at it from 2020... there is plenty to pick and prod at here, especially if you have a Trope-Checklist on hand.
The biggest one by far is the Author Self-Insert-trope. The antagonist is an all-knowing, all-seeing, immortal sorceress who's an expert at casting the Summon Post-It Note-spell as she leaves little taunting texts all over the place. The manor layout and aesthetics are quite nice (artwork gets to shine throughout) but also let down by the design decision of linear progression - there is only One Way through. Despite numerous secret passageways and open rooftops hinting at freedom of movement, that opposite is true. Going off-script is forbidden and enforced with tricks such as invisible walls, a total lack of rope arrows and essential characters teleporting in only when needed. Progression is determined by finding the keys in the proper order, making this the Mother of All Keyhunts.
Special mention must be made of the readables. They are numerous, they are lengthy (Isabelle's diary goes on and on and on...) and they are Audiolog Syndrome personified. That said, they are also of extremely high quality - you will want to keep reading, unlike some of the works of Rowena's contemporaries (hello Purah).
But the two high points are also the ones that ensure its legacy - the attention to detail and the strength of the story. This FM is a Mystery to be unraveled by the player, and Rowena sure knew what she was doing on that front. The pacing is just right, the pieces come together nicely and the build-up to the confrontation at the end is masterfully done. And none of that could have been achieved without the details being on point, which they are on every front. Everyone has a name and every room looks and feels authentic. I'm fairly confident in saying that this is Lady Rowena (the author) at her worst - her subsequent works only improved in quality. "The Tower" is a miniature masterpiece, "The Seven Sisters" needs little-to-no introduction and even her unfinished final project shows marks of brilliance.
Rating: 8/10. Despite its age and quirks this is Mandatory Taffing, especially for modders everywhere as this FM serves as a very good "Dos and Dont's"-guide on many basic concepts.
"Shadows of Eidolon" by MasterThief3
Garrett is on the run from the law and takes shelter in a drainage pipe. With nothing but coppers outside his only option is to venture deeper into the pipe and see where it leads.
It's short, it's simple, it shows you how to do 'Dark-as-crap' darkness. It has more in common with games like Penumbra rather than Thief, but it's brimming with atmosphere and tension, despite being virtually lacking in gameplay.
As it's not 'proper Thief' I won't give it the usual x/10-rating, but will instead say "Worth a look".
"Lingering Whispers" by ScaryKitties
After sabotaging Soulforge, Garrett is hired by a nobleman to steal a centerpiece-mask for his collection from a Mechanist-facility that's been turned into storage-rooms for 'regular people'. The problem? The new owners of the facility haven't finished exploring the place, let alone clearing it out. That means YOU have to deal with the zombies in the mines, the haunted Mechanist chapel, the burrowing burricks and the trap-infested tomb at the bottom of it all. And that's BEFORE I mention the Pagan infestation, the ominous 'powered-down' status of the beefy security system and how the mask itself isn't very keen on being stolen!
I needed a long time to rate this one. On one hand this is monumental work and effort poured into an FM, there are so many layers of things going on here and the attention to detail is phenomenal. On the other hand it's not exactly working out as a coherent whole, and I'm having a hard time explaining why. Why do I have to do needless busybody-work (entering codes in a bother-to-reach place, then needing to flip the switch on the ground below to acknowledge it) to reach locked parts of the place, which I can only access one at a time? The layout of the place isn't exactly accessible either, and that's before we get to these locked gates.
Part of the reason (and I'll grant the author this one) why there are six hidden bonus objectives and four different endings is because the author is trying to tell what is essentially an epilogue to Thief 2 and a bridge into Thief 3. There are literary tropes being pulled here on a large scale. Some may find them ham-fisted, some may find them in good order.
While I see the effort put into this, something's making me hold off on the high praise. Why does only the toymaker (of all people) have a deadly safety hazard in his room? Why does one of the objectives require Holy Water, and then the FM supplies it in very scarce quantities, at exorbitant prices? Why have a visibly-frobbable book only become frobbable after Garrett has performed a task elsewhere?
And then... there's a unique bonus: The author himself made a Developer Commentary on his FM. It's always nice to get the author's direct input like this, and it also doubles as a neat walkthrough. Maybe the author answers the above questions in there, but seeing a commentary about an FM I just finished playing the FM that's 150 minutes long... :/
Rating: 8/10. It borders right on the edge of being Too Much for me.
"Fables of the Penitent Thief" - by Sliptip and Digital Nightfall
In the realm of cel-shaded buildings, sunny days and cheerful dispositions you play Busby the Thief, who's been caught red-handed from swiping the King's royal artifacts. In a moment of mercy you've been given the opportunity to find and return the six items, but since you pawned off the items faster than a bulgarian taffer, you'll need the help of everyone in town to get them back.
This is the quintessential "FM that tries to do something different with Thief", by turning it into an action-adventure game with stripped-down gameplay. If 'Rose Cottage' could be imagined as a FM for children aged 10-13, then Fables is imagined for children aged 7-10. There are no jump-scares, very few instances of stealth being required, but instead running errands for the townsfolk combined with some platforming segments take the driver's seat. There's a reason the FM gives you 50 Rope Arrows, and that reason is the Gardener's house, which also doubles as the most likely place for the lil'uns to stop playing and have a cry in the corner.
The FM is split into two missions, the first one taking place in town, and the second in the castle. The town-section feels to me like a Dizzy-game (anyone remember those?) while the second part feels more like a Zelda-game, with enemies to kill and deadly traps to dodge.
The radical departure in both art style and gameplay goes a long way towards making this FM transcend the Thief-games, as more often than I not I forgot I was playing an FM and not something off of Game Maker or the Unity-engine.
As it's not 'proper Thief' I won't give it the usual x/10-rating. but will instead say "Give it a look for a fresh breath of air".
Last edited:
nicked
Educated
Rowena's Curse is definitely the roughest around the edges of Lady Rowena's missions, but it's still fantastic. That and Ominous Bequest were big inspirations to me when I started making missions.
Fables of the Penitent Thief, I remember loving the art style but hating a lot of the gameplay. Maybe I should replay and give it another chance.
Fables of the Penitent Thief, I remember loving the art style but hating a lot of the gameplay. Maybe I should replay and give it another chance.
Krilmar
Educated
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2020
- Messages
- 27
Thanks pavis for the recommendation. I played Coaxing the Soul, really nice atmosphere and a lot of things to find and figure out. Unfortunately after 5 hours of looking all over the house for 2 glyphs I had to give up and look up a walkthrough. One of them was in a place I would never check and the other one somehow didn't spawn for me in the spot it was supposed to be so I had to finish it without the optional goal..
After this went back to classic Thief mission and did All for a Night's Sleep. Short and sweet.
And to my surprise DirkBogan's Compulsory Egress and Ascend the Dim Valley were really impressive. I fired up Compulsory Egress by mistake, somehow I mistook it for another fun mission Cracks in the Glass. I wonder if he's the author of Into the Odd, got the same vibes as it.
Also I have two issues that I'm wondering if any of you knows how to fix. First, how to change the size of the lightgem and HP bar. I saw some videos where it's a lot smaller than mine, but I can't figure out how to adjust it. I can change the other UI elements size, tho. And the second, my gamma settings keep resetting to the default every time I start up the game. Any help would be appreciated.
After this went back to classic Thief mission and did All for a Night's Sleep. Short and sweet.
And to my surprise DirkBogan's Compulsory Egress and Ascend the Dim Valley were really impressive. I fired up Compulsory Egress by mistake, somehow I mistook it for another fun mission Cracks in the Glass. I wonder if he's the author of Into the Odd, got the same vibes as it.
Also I have two issues that I'm wondering if any of you knows how to fix. First, how to change the size of the lightgem and HP bar. I saw some videos where it's a lot smaller than mine, but I can't figure out how to adjust it. I can change the other UI elements size, tho. And the second, my gamma settings keep resetting to the default every time I start up the game. Any help would be appreciated.
Komori
Novice
- Joined
- May 4, 2020
- Messages
- 9
Krilmar, streaming players most likely had much larger display resolution than 480p — base res for UI. As i know, there is no convenient way to downscale it. You probably shouldn't bother yourself with it.
Gamma values are stored inside the cam.cfg, mine has a line like this: gamma 0.8999999762. Works all fine on my end though. You may want to set cam.cfg as read-only file, if it's any help
I've made some cheat images for The Violent End of Duncan Malveine during my recent playthrough with all of the cards locations pointed out. It's a tad bit late however but someone might use them
Link for the archive https://files.catbox.moe/y6rpzi.zip
Gamma values are stored inside the cam.cfg, mine has a line like this: gamma 0.8999999762. Works all fine on my end though. You may want to set cam.cfg as read-only file, if it's any help
I've made some cheat images for The Violent End of Duncan Malveine during my recent playthrough with all of the cards locations pointed out. It's a tad bit late however but someone might use them
Link for the archive https://files.catbox.moe/y6rpzi.zip
- Joined
- May 13, 2009
- Messages
- 27,231
I downloaded the file, but I get error messages trying to view those images.
Komori
Novice
- Joined
- May 4, 2020
- Messages
- 9
Seems like they've been saved with arithmetic coding and that's the issue. These should do fine https://files.catbox.moe/qehbxp.zip
The way patrols abruptly turn around right before standstill routine starts to annoy me like nowhen before. I prefer not to rely much on blackjack cause it strips all sneaky fun
The way patrols abruptly turn around right before standstill routine starts to annoy me like nowhen before. I prefer not to rely much on blackjack cause it strips all sneaky fun
Last edited:
cowking
Scholar
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2016
- Messages
- 115
Played this iron man except for acrobatics, was ok but not top-tier.
Gameplay is too linear and heavy on the jack, you have to be a saint of patience otherwise (maybe different on lower difficulty level?). Mansion design while looks excellent is actually kinda bad from gameplay point of view as you have a three story mansion with essentially no doors and lots of interior windows/balconies making sounds propagate from top floor to bottom (compare this to like first mission of T2 with simpler geometry but flawless soundscape). Auto search bodies didn't pickup a plot crucial key (in addition to a somewhat deceiving readable which makes you think you've already looted that specific key) forcing me to consult a walkthrough and backtrack (thank god I KOed like every living thing on the map).
Visually really good looking fm, also has what is probably the coolest unique looking mansion I've seen in forever. Lots of nice details.
Plot & readables while not bad per se lacked addiction factor especially as the mission went on (usually a mystery of some kind delivered properly). Does environmental storytelling better than the actual readable plot.
A Night in Rocksbourg
An often mentioned FM series I've been putting off, except nothing of value was lost.
I was excited getting into it since it had EAX support, but even in the starting room you have bad room brushing causing sounds to bleed into your completely sealed starting room with the door closed. Sound is such a crucial part of thief I'm very intolerant of bad sound design. It's bad for gameplay and it's immersion breaking. It's just bad level design period.
You get outside and realize you don't have a map of the city you're in (you should since you're already acquainted with it). You know where you need to go but you have no idea how to get there, so you go through these narrow low vertical corridors hitting key locked destinations and what are essentially linear design blocks that tunnel you to go certain way. Thanks to bad room brushing any sound above footsteps will probably trigger multiple AIs through walls and whatnot.
You find a random key in a ditch that reads "key x" but you have no idea where "x" is because you don't have a map or information what these previously locked places were so you have to go frob every key locked door you've come across. Fun stuff.
This FM constantly gives you a cock tease such as giving you loads of crates but making sure you can't actually use them. See that key locked door with an open window outside jump mantle range? Yeah... can't get through it with crates. Must follow creator keyhunt. See that wooden plank above you between two roofs? Want to rope arrow it? Nope... must do it exactly as designed as your rope arrows won't attach to that plank. I mean why not put this level of autistic detail into roombrushing yes?
Did I also mention every lock in this fm takes like 2 minutes to lockpick?
If you want a good fm, look elsewhere. If you want an annoying keyhunt in a linear crampy city, sure torture yourself.
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cowking
Scholar
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2016
- Messages
- 115
Better Off Dead
Lookswise exactly what I was going for, it's a sturdy castle/fortress and especially being on the bastion tower roof was fantastic.
Too bad the plot is paper thin and the gameplay isn't up to par. It doesn't work as a horror fm because everything is revealed instantly and there is zero mystery. Gameplay doesn't work as a castle robbery because the castle is huge in spacing with too few guards, followed by a segment where it turns into read 9 pages of text -> find item -> going through motions. Not to mention exploring the castle itself is annoying because you either A.) explore the castle and then re-explore the same areas due to keylocks after a key event you know in advance B.) skip parts of the castle and explore the rest later except with more annoyance.
If the optional objectives weren't optional I would've dropped it.
T2 20th AC - My Favorite Year
The beginning of this mission really didn't impress me much, texture choices seem very generic and seen before (not to mention warehouses are not the most exciting of locations), but oh man does this nail mission difficulty just right for ironman play even if you use blackjack. Guard numbers, guard routes, amount of water arrows you get, torch locations, interior spacing, doors.... subarashii. Everything just clicks right.
The 2nd half of this mission even looks great and kinda unique. It doesn't have annoying keyhunts and loot goal is just right since the mission is kinda big and confusing due to lack of map it's even good for replay. Just rock solid super good gameplay fm. Definite recommendation if you haven't played it already. Kinda reminds me of some good OMs except it's much better at keeping you alert.
So good!
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cowking
Scholar
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2016
- Messages
- 115
Malazar's Inscrutable Tower
> https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150707
Wowzer, binged through it with lazor focus without taking a single break, very immersive and creepy (even when you get used to it, it'll still creep you out).
Every single room looks fantastic and unique, just like a wizard tower should be (easily the best mage level I've played). Playing through this you'll probably get like 4 different fm ideas, that's how good it is. Even the locations that normally look ugly like lava/underground just look great.
The puzzles and challenges rely mostly on your memory and brain rather than frob hunting for some 1 pixel sized switch or a key (I was able to complete it without consulting a walkthrough). Gameplay while specifically states is not thief-esque, actually feels like it since the fm is so immersive. Gave me throwbacks to shadowgate, resident evil, fate anime (for good or bad) and sith holocrons. Ughhh... so good! Should be on any recommended fm list for new players. Mandatory play for anyone really.
5/5
> https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150707
Wowzer, binged through it with lazor focus without taking a single break, very immersive and creepy (even when you get used to it, it'll still creep you out).
Every single room looks fantastic and unique, just like a wizard tower should be (easily the best mage level I've played). Playing through this you'll probably get like 4 different fm ideas, that's how good it is. Even the locations that normally look ugly like lava/underground just look great.
The puzzles and challenges rely mostly on your memory and brain rather than frob hunting for some 1 pixel sized switch or a key (I was able to complete it without consulting a walkthrough). Gameplay while specifically states is not thief-esque, actually feels like it since the fm is so immersive. Gave me throwbacks to shadowgate, resident evil, fate anime (for good or bad) and sith holocrons. Ughhh... so good! Should be on any recommended fm list for new players. Mandatory play for anyone really.
5/5
Last edited:
- Joined
- May 13, 2009
- Messages
- 27,231
Saturday Night Taffer, checking in:
"A Visit for the Knights" by DarkMax
Garrett hears of a rich knightly order, stops thinking after the first word and heads off for their cathedral for a quick cash grab.
The first and biggest thing that struck me about this FM is the cathedral - it's absolutely massive and awe-inspiring to see. A lot of taffing and shenanigans could go on in this place - except nothing really happens. There are some guards about, but too few for a building this big. There are very few shadows about as well, leading me to spending a lot more time listening at closed doors than I normally do. There are no secrets, no interesting developments, no clever loot placement, no ingenuity displayed, it's just going from door to door and cleaning out every room.
I'll be honest and admit that I don't remember having ever played this FM before... but afterwards I know why: It's quite forgettable. Just having a cathedral in an FM isn't enough, it must have a feel to it... but all I felt was how empty and samey it was on the inside. Only a handful of places (the clocktower most of all) break up the monotony. I was genuinely bored while playing this and would have fallen asleep hadn't the ambient audio been constantly ominous and subtly hinting at something. As a result I was always hoping things would pick up a bit... but sadly they never did.
Rating: 5.5/10. It doesn't do anything wrong, but it doesn't do anything proper either. Easily skippable.
"From Beneath the Sands"/"Whispers in the Desert" by nicked
Garrett follows an expedition to the far southern lands to enter Egyptian-esque ruins to improve his economic prospects. As can be expected he finds far more than he bargained for, be it traps, treasure or trouble.
These are two FMs that share the same plot, goals and general layout, though at the end of the day they are two seperate missions - just very very similar. There are intricate puzzles, cleverly hidden secret loot stashes and even more cleverly concealed traps ready to unleash death. 'Whispers' dates from 2008 and is the better-looking of the two, has some neat voice-acting and includes this really cool segment involving rising sand. 'Sands' dates from 2006 and is the better FM in every other regard, IMO. It has a nice mixture of puzzles, some of which can be brute-forced and others which really challenge the noggin a bit. 'Whispers' doesn't have nearly as many puzzles, but it has more platforming obstacles instead. It also has far more obvious forced sequences which kinda soured things for me.
Rating: 8/10 for Sands, 7.5/10 for Whispers. Regardless of differences or opinions I think both are worth a playthrough, but players can use these FMs to judge for themselves whether they prefer more cerebral elements or platforming in Thief.
"The Five Tigers 1: HBS Iron Butterfly" by Catman
Garrett sits out on this one, you control a thief named Nekosan (
) who is hired to steal a set of gems known as the Five Tigers. Each of the gems is in the possession of a different noble family, and by some coincidence four of the five families will be embarking on the maiden voyage of the City's first steam-powered ship; the Iron Butterfly. While this does not present an opportunity to steal the gems, it does present an opportunity to make copies of the keys of the vaults the gems are kept in, so that they can be stolen later.
This is the first FM in an ambitious six-part series with an engrossing storyline. You'll become familiar with the inner workings of the four families (plus the staff of the docks and the ship) and of their plans and ambitions. (If you can pick up on some of the clues provided you can even influence their actions to score bonus objectives.) The biggest problem with all of this is that it's all in written form - EVERYONE has a Audiolog Journal just lying around and lays out their innermost thoughts and desires in them. Yes, that includes the couple that just had sex (both of them). Even the poor woman who 'falls overboard' and ends up in the sewers has a chance to write down her thoughts in a journal and leave it lying around in the sewers before falling unconscious! Fortunately it's all of decent quality, so peoplecan are forced to swallow this exhausted exposition method and just roll with it.
Anyway, "Iron Butterfly" was a challenge to get running properly back in 2007, but NewDark makes short work of any performance problems. To put it bluntly, this FM is gigantic, larger than a recently-mentioned cathedral. A side-effect of the size is that everything is somewhat spartan - interiors lack much of the details we've all come to know and love. Thankfully it's all serviceable and gets the job done, but there are some really long and empty passageways here to run through.
"The Five Tigers 2: The Eye of the Tiger" by Catman
With the key copies in hand, Nekosan now begins the task of stealing the five gems. First stop: The Walker estate, a large mansion with all the extras: An in-door theatre, a sizable Hammerite Chapel, a three-story library, an art gallery, a dungeon, a game room, a mad Mechanist's laboratory, a large balcony for stargazing and a couple of miles of secret passages. And an underground vault, of course. The tales and tribulations of the Walker-family from the Iron Butterfly carry over into this one, and Nekosan will have to step in once again to sort out family matters.
Although smaller in scale than the Iron Butterfly, the Walker-estate is still a huge building with three vast floors. Finding the vault isn't that hard, but opening it requires finding eight switches and flipping them in the right order. That task alone requires considerable running around, but fortunately freedom of movement is one of the better aspects of the Five Tigers-missions. The readables are still the same - thinly-veiled exposition-bombs waiting to be detonated with the innermost thoughts of their owners. One bit which struck me as odd in the first FM (and pops up again in this one) is how 'commoner'-level folk seem to be able to spot original paintings among copies, when the highly-educated nobility cannot.
"The Five Tigers 3: The Claw of the Tiger" by Catman
With one gem secured it's time to grab the next one. Except... due to Nekosan's heart of gold the criminal activities of the Walker-family are now public knowledge and everyone's running around like headless chickens. This means martial law has been declared, making it trickier to obtain the remaining gems. Nekosan sneaks into the Southern District to try to nab the next gem, but is caught by the police and starts the mission in jail with no equipment. Fortunately there are friends in the strangest places and after a short detour to gear up, Nekosan is ready to strike again.
The layout of this one is sort of a mix between the other two: Part warehouses and part mansion/normal houses with the usual underground network of passages. Size is still a factor, but it still felt smaller than the previous two. Some interesting new tricks appear in the architecture, but at the end of the day it's still more of the same. By this point the incredible amount of readables lying around was starting to annoy me. I wasted several minutes looking for that one readable with the hint for a certain problem (I'm not supposed to have to take notes in a Thief FM!). Another nuisance are the series of puzzles leading to the MacGuffin itself; a series of riddles and busybody-work combined with random guesses and staring at symbols. The kicker is the final puzzle though, where three keys are needed to unlock the cage... except two of the three keys don't make any damn sense. Why is the key to an unrelated storage room and the Hammerite Acolyte's quarters needed here, in the 'family vault' of an esteemed noble family?!?
Sadly "The Five Tigers 4: The Heart of the Tiger" was last seen "in production" in 2012, and no further updates have been provided since.
The truly tragic bit here is that the high-point of this series of FMs is the story, but seeing as the story remains unfinished I find it hard to recommend it. They are easy to play as they involve large open spaces, 90% human enemies and plenty of gear to play with (I had over a dozen Gas Arrows by the end of the third one). I recommend "Iron Butterfly" as it's fun to muck about in the ship, and if you want more of the same then you may as well play the others, but sadly they don't have a gigantic ship as a centerpiece attraction. A final note is that these FMs didn't make me feel like I was playing Thief, but more of a voyeur/stalker-simulator of some kind. Not sure what to make of that.
Part 1 Rating: 7.0/10.
Part 2 Rating: 6.5/10.
Part 3 Rating: 6.0/10.
"A Better Tomorrow" by DrKubiac
This was the winner of the 2012 Halloween Competition, and rightfully so. Everything is monochrome, which is both its greatest strength and greatest weakness, as it means stuff you can interact with isn't so noticable. Saying anything else is spoiling things, just get in there.
Rating: 8.5/10. Bring fresh underwear.
"Death's Turbid Veil" by nicked
Garrett is asked by an associate of his to find his missing daughter, who disappeared at a Lord's manor a few days ago. To sweeten the deal the associate pretty much cases the joint for Garrett, pointing out where some fancies can be found. But it's the combniation of 'the old family secret', locked crypt and ominous-looking silver mine that hint at a greater story here.
This is one of the bigger FMs out there, both in file size and in straining the Dark Engine. Consequently this is one of the few FMs that doesn't play at full speed for me, at least while outside on the grounds. Aesthetically-speaking this one looks amazing, it makes me think of a seaside resort down by the Mediterranean. It also uses 'dark-as-crap'-darkness to great effect down in the mines and certain rooms of the manor. And even though it has neat puzzles, nice twists and turns and a combat-heavy endgame (my damage dealt during this FM: 496136!) there's just something about it that doesn't click with me... it feels off. The entire FM using high-res assets is a personal point of critique, I don't like those assets as they detract heavily from the Thief-experience. The audio deserves a mention, even though it's kinda hit-and-miss. Some parts sound amazing (particularly the boarded-up room and the mines) but other parts sound like crap. But the worst part is that most of the time I knew what to do, but not how to go about it. Once I had free reign of the manor it was an accidental discovery which showed me I could reach the attic, instead of any in-game clue giving me a push. What followed afterwards was a series of events where I mostly just stumbled along - at no point during that did I feel like I had any idea what was going on, or whether I was missing something important. The next thing I know the manor is crawling with unkillable zombies (I thought the unkillable-family reunion was next year!) and I'm watching people die whom I knocked out cold and stuffed into corners an hour or two ago. I was forced to consult a walkthrough to figure out what I had missed, and sadly I feel many others will have to do the same.
Looking back at it, I get what nicked was trying to do here, the sequence of descending into the mines, then trying to escape back to the surface with your life, then having to go back there to finish the job - it gave me a huge Alien-vibe, which is not quite something I'd expect from a Thief FM. Do I think that belongs in Thief? Oh Yes... but at the same time I feel that nicked only hit close to the mark here, instead of nailing it. The short build speed of the FM (only two months) may probably be a factor in that as well.
Rating: 7.5/10. Nicked is a brillant FM author, but to me this is testament even he can stumble. Have the walkthrough standing by.
"A Visit for the Knights" by DarkMax
Garrett hears of a rich knightly order, stops thinking after the first word and heads off for their cathedral for a quick cash grab.
The first and biggest thing that struck me about this FM is the cathedral - it's absolutely massive and awe-inspiring to see. A lot of taffing and shenanigans could go on in this place - except nothing really happens. There are some guards about, but too few for a building this big. There are very few shadows about as well, leading me to spending a lot more time listening at closed doors than I normally do. There are no secrets, no interesting developments, no clever loot placement, no ingenuity displayed, it's just going from door to door and cleaning out every room.
I'll be honest and admit that I don't remember having ever played this FM before... but afterwards I know why: It's quite forgettable. Just having a cathedral in an FM isn't enough, it must have a feel to it... but all I felt was how empty and samey it was on the inside. Only a handful of places (the clocktower most of all) break up the monotony. I was genuinely bored while playing this and would have fallen asleep hadn't the ambient audio been constantly ominous and subtly hinting at something. As a result I was always hoping things would pick up a bit... but sadly they never did.
Rating: 5.5/10. It doesn't do anything wrong, but it doesn't do anything proper either. Easily skippable.
"From Beneath the Sands"/"Whispers in the Desert" by nicked
Garrett follows an expedition to the far southern lands to enter Egyptian-esque ruins to improve his economic prospects. As can be expected he finds far more than he bargained for, be it traps, treasure or trouble.
These are two FMs that share the same plot, goals and general layout, though at the end of the day they are two seperate missions - just very very similar. There are intricate puzzles, cleverly hidden secret loot stashes and even more cleverly concealed traps ready to unleash death. 'Whispers' dates from 2008 and is the better-looking of the two, has some neat voice-acting and includes this really cool segment involving rising sand. 'Sands' dates from 2006 and is the better FM in every other regard, IMO. It has a nice mixture of puzzles, some of which can be brute-forced and others which really challenge the noggin a bit. 'Whispers' doesn't have nearly as many puzzles, but it has more platforming obstacles instead. It also has far more obvious forced sequences which kinda soured things for me.
Rating: 8/10 for Sands, 7.5/10 for Whispers. Regardless of differences or opinions I think both are worth a playthrough, but players can use these FMs to judge for themselves whether they prefer more cerebral elements or platforming in Thief.
"The Five Tigers 1: HBS Iron Butterfly" by Catman
Garrett sits out on this one, you control a thief named Nekosan (
) who is hired to steal a set of gems known as the Five Tigers. Each of the gems is in the possession of a different noble family, and by some coincidence four of the five families will be embarking on the maiden voyage of the City's first steam-powered ship; the Iron Butterfly. While this does not present an opportunity to steal the gems, it does present an opportunity to make copies of the keys of the vaults the gems are kept in, so that they can be stolen later.This is the first FM in an ambitious six-part series with an engrossing storyline. You'll become familiar with the inner workings of the four families (plus the staff of the docks and the ship) and of their plans and ambitions. (If you can pick up on some of the clues provided you can even influence their actions to score bonus objectives.) The biggest problem with all of this is that it's all in written form - EVERYONE has a Audiolog Journal just lying around and lays out their innermost thoughts and desires in them. Yes, that includes the couple that just had sex (both of them). Even the poor woman who 'falls overboard' and ends up in the sewers has a chance to write down her thoughts in a journal and leave it lying around in the sewers before falling unconscious! Fortunately it's all of decent quality, so people
Anyway, "Iron Butterfly" was a challenge to get running properly back in 2007, but NewDark makes short work of any performance problems. To put it bluntly, this FM is gigantic, larger than a recently-mentioned cathedral. A side-effect of the size is that everything is somewhat spartan - interiors lack much of the details we've all come to know and love. Thankfully it's all serviceable and gets the job done, but there are some really long and empty passageways here to run through.
"The Five Tigers 2: The Eye of the Tiger" by Catman
With the key copies in hand, Nekosan now begins the task of stealing the five gems. First stop: The Walker estate, a large mansion with all the extras: An in-door theatre, a sizable Hammerite Chapel, a three-story library, an art gallery, a dungeon, a game room, a mad Mechanist's laboratory, a large balcony for stargazing and a couple of miles of secret passages. And an underground vault, of course. The tales and tribulations of the Walker-family from the Iron Butterfly carry over into this one, and Nekosan will have to step in once again to sort out family matters.
Although smaller in scale than the Iron Butterfly, the Walker-estate is still a huge building with three vast floors. Finding the vault isn't that hard, but opening it requires finding eight switches and flipping them in the right order. That task alone requires considerable running around, but fortunately freedom of movement is one of the better aspects of the Five Tigers-missions. The readables are still the same - thinly-veiled exposition-bombs waiting to be detonated with the innermost thoughts of their owners. One bit which struck me as odd in the first FM (and pops up again in this one) is how 'commoner'-level folk seem to be able to spot original paintings among copies, when the highly-educated nobility cannot.
"The Five Tigers 3: The Claw of the Tiger" by Catman
With one gem secured it's time to grab the next one. Except... due to Nekosan's heart of gold the criminal activities of the Walker-family are now public knowledge and everyone's running around like headless chickens. This means martial law has been declared, making it trickier to obtain the remaining gems. Nekosan sneaks into the Southern District to try to nab the next gem, but is caught by the police and starts the mission in jail with no equipment. Fortunately there are friends in the strangest places and after a short detour to gear up, Nekosan is ready to strike again.
The layout of this one is sort of a mix between the other two: Part warehouses and part mansion/normal houses with the usual underground network of passages. Size is still a factor, but it still felt smaller than the previous two. Some interesting new tricks appear in the architecture, but at the end of the day it's still more of the same. By this point the incredible amount of readables lying around was starting to annoy me. I wasted several minutes looking for that one readable with the hint for a certain problem (I'm not supposed to have to take notes in a Thief FM!). Another nuisance are the series of puzzles leading to the MacGuffin itself; a series of riddles and busybody-work combined with random guesses and staring at symbols. The kicker is the final puzzle though, where three keys are needed to unlock the cage... except two of the three keys don't make any damn sense. Why is the key to an unrelated storage room and the Hammerite Acolyte's quarters needed here, in the 'family vault' of an esteemed noble family?!?
Sadly "The Five Tigers 4: The Heart of the Tiger" was last seen "in production" in 2012, and no further updates have been provided since.
The truly tragic bit here is that the high-point of this series of FMs is the story, but seeing as the story remains unfinished I find it hard to recommend it. They are easy to play as they involve large open spaces, 90% human enemies and plenty of gear to play with (I had over a dozen Gas Arrows by the end of the third one). I recommend "Iron Butterfly" as it's fun to muck about in the ship, and if you want more of the same then you may as well play the others, but sadly they don't have a gigantic ship as a centerpiece attraction. A final note is that these FMs didn't make me feel like I was playing Thief, but more of a voyeur/stalker-simulator of some kind. Not sure what to make of that.
Part 1 Rating: 7.0/10.
Part 2 Rating: 6.5/10.
Part 3 Rating: 6.0/10.
"A Better Tomorrow" by DrKubiac
This was the winner of the 2012 Halloween Competition, and rightfully so. Everything is monochrome, which is both its greatest strength and greatest weakness, as it means stuff you can interact with isn't so noticable. Saying anything else is spoiling things, just get in there.
Rating: 8.5/10. Bring fresh underwear.
"Death's Turbid Veil" by nicked
Garrett is asked by an associate of his to find his missing daughter, who disappeared at a Lord's manor a few days ago. To sweeten the deal the associate pretty much cases the joint for Garrett, pointing out where some fancies can be found. But it's the combniation of 'the old family secret', locked crypt and ominous-looking silver mine that hint at a greater story here.
This is one of the bigger FMs out there, both in file size and in straining the Dark Engine. Consequently this is one of the few FMs that doesn't play at full speed for me, at least while outside on the grounds. Aesthetically-speaking this one looks amazing, it makes me think of a seaside resort down by the Mediterranean. It also uses 'dark-as-crap'-darkness to great effect down in the mines and certain rooms of the manor. And even though it has neat puzzles, nice twists and turns and a combat-heavy endgame (my damage dealt during this FM: 496136!) there's just something about it that doesn't click with me... it feels off. The entire FM using high-res assets is a personal point of critique, I don't like those assets as they detract heavily from the Thief-experience. The audio deserves a mention, even though it's kinda hit-and-miss. Some parts sound amazing (particularly the boarded-up room and the mines) but other parts sound like crap. But the worst part is that most of the time I knew what to do, but not how to go about it. Once I had free reign of the manor it was an accidental discovery which showed me I could reach the attic, instead of any in-game clue giving me a push. What followed afterwards was a series of events where I mostly just stumbled along - at no point during that did I feel like I had any idea what was going on, or whether I was missing something important. The next thing I know the manor is crawling with unkillable zombies (I thought the unkillable-family reunion was next year!) and I'm watching people die whom I knocked out cold and stuffed into corners an hour or two ago. I was forced to consult a walkthrough to figure out what I had missed, and sadly I feel many others will have to do the same.
Looking back at it, I get what nicked was trying to do here, the sequence of descending into the mines, then trying to escape back to the surface with your life, then having to go back there to finish the job - it gave me a huge Alien-vibe, which is not quite something I'd expect from a Thief FM. Do I think that belongs in Thief? Oh Yes... but at the same time I feel that nicked only hit close to the mark here, instead of nailing it. The short build speed of the FM (only two months) may probably be a factor in that as well.
Rating: 7.5/10. Nicked is a brillant FM author, but to me this is testament even he can stumble. Have the walkthrough standing by.
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nicked
Educated
Yeah that's fair - the attic parts are marked on the map, but that's about the only obvious hint they're there. Whole mission is a bit uneven - it started as a straight-up copy of the assassin's creed 2 mansion just as a technical exercise, then grew organically as I tried to bolt on new areas with semi-linear progression. In hindsight there's not much natural flow to it at all. I still like it more than some of my earlier missions, but it's definitely not the easiest to navigate.
For better or worse, Death's Turbid Veil was the first mission I made where I actually considered the level design as a *design*, rather than just building a space and chucking stuff in.
For better or worse, Death's Turbid Veil was the first mission I made where I actually considered the level design as a *design*, rather than just building a space and chucking stuff in.
Mechs Delight
Educated
I'd give "A Better Tomorrow" a 9 out of 10. Definitely a effective and creepy mission, and I wasn't bothered too much by the frobbing.
On the other hand, though I haven't played them lately, I remember "Five Tigers" being a convoluted mess that was very hard to follow.
On the other hand, though I haven't played them lately, I remember "Five Tigers" being a convoluted mess that was very hard to follow.
Mechs Delight
Educated
Sorry, I meant AN effective.
nicked
Educated
Recently played a small handful of old contest missions, after Brethren linked them in the thread for the current contest.
Into the Maelstrom - Garrett take a trip on a ship, but finds himself shipwrecked in a cave with undead pirates. Very atmospheric, a good amount of exploration and secrets for such a small area, neat premise. Not too easy, not too hard. Great fun, highly recommended.
Old Comrades, Old Debts - Garrett winds up captured in a jail cell, has to bust out, find out where he is, and escape. Lovely atmosphere and some nice special effects. Quite a lot of back story for such a small area, and the ending is very creative! What lets it down is the punishing difficulty - no blackjack and forced ghosting that relies far more on quick loading than skill because of the tiny area and unpredictable patrol routes, plus a key that is very hard to spot. But it's short enough that it doesn't get too tiresome, so still worth a look.
Ashes & Dust - a "mansion with a dark secret" mission crammed into contest size limitations. This mission looks gorgeous, with judicious use of custom resources, and you barely notice the small area because of the clever layout - great use of 3D space in this one. There's a surprising amount of plot development for such a small mission, and while the twists are pretty obvious, it's well-told and nicely polished. Something else that stuck out to me was the quality of the clues - even though there's a couple of tiny switches to find, I never got stuck because the readables gave clear, well-written hints while still being reasonably immersive. This one's just great.
Into the Maelstrom - Garrett take a trip on a ship, but finds himself shipwrecked in a cave with undead pirates. Very atmospheric, a good amount of exploration and secrets for such a small area, neat premise. Not too easy, not too hard. Great fun, highly recommended.
Old Comrades, Old Debts - Garrett winds up captured in a jail cell, has to bust out, find out where he is, and escape. Lovely atmosphere and some nice special effects. Quite a lot of back story for such a small area, and the ending is very creative! What lets it down is the punishing difficulty - no blackjack and forced ghosting that relies far more on quick loading than skill because of the tiny area and unpredictable patrol routes, plus a key that is very hard to spot. But it's short enough that it doesn't get too tiresome, so still worth a look.
Ashes & Dust - a "mansion with a dark secret" mission crammed into contest size limitations. This mission looks gorgeous, with judicious use of custom resources, and you barely notice the small area because of the clever layout - great use of 3D space in this one. There's a surprising amount of plot development for such a small mission, and while the twists are pretty obvious, it's well-told and nicely polished. Something else that stuck out to me was the quality of the clues - even though there's a couple of tiny switches to find, I never got stuck because the readables gave clear, well-written hints while still being reasonably immersive. This one's just great.
Played a bit of the old classic Lorgan's Web.
A rather annoying experience. First I couldn't get down again through the trapdoor in the roof, and then the ambient music started playing and didn't stop.
But I've already played it before, and most probably completed it. I seem to recall there was some serious sewer schenanigans in it.
A rather annoying experience. First I couldn't get down again through the trapdoor in the roof, and then the ambient music started playing and didn't stop.
But I've already played it before, and most probably completed it. I seem to recall there was some serious sewer schenanigans in it.
nicked
Educated
Played another couple of contest missions.
The Focus is an older contest mission where Garrett is tasked to recover the Eye from a mysterious tower where three Keepers have already disappeared. It starts out well, with some nicely designed areas to sneak through, but quickly gets bogged down in keyhunting and searching for tiny secret switches. You'll need to be exceptionally sharp-eyed, and a fully paid-up member of Mensa to get all of the secrets and bonuses. There are also reams and reams of readables, with clues interspersed randomly amongst background text, compounded by the fact that English is not the author's first language, and it doesn't look like anyone proof-read the text. There's a lot to like here - the level design is lovely and the story unfolds in an engaging way, it just gets somewhat buried beneath a big lists of FM "Don'ts".
The Tower is the winner of the Thief Anniversary Contest, by Lady Rowena. In contrast to the Focus, this one doesn't get off to a good start. You are immediately presented with about a dozen locked, unpickable doors, in an environment of cramped level design with awkward angles that mean you can't help but accidentally make clattering noise trying to mantle up places. However, stick with it for a few minutes, and the Tower swiftly redeems itself as you proceed through a tightly-packed tour-de-force of vertical level design, secret passages, and Lady Rowena's trademark quality writing. It's a bit keyhunty, but never to the point of frustration, and the plot that unfolds is marvelous and diabolical.
The Focus is an older contest mission where Garrett is tasked to recover the Eye from a mysterious tower where three Keepers have already disappeared. It starts out well, with some nicely designed areas to sneak through, but quickly gets bogged down in keyhunting and searching for tiny secret switches. You'll need to be exceptionally sharp-eyed, and a fully paid-up member of Mensa to get all of the secrets and bonuses. There are also reams and reams of readables, with clues interspersed randomly amongst background text, compounded by the fact that English is not the author's first language, and it doesn't look like anyone proof-read the text. There's a lot to like here - the level design is lovely and the story unfolds in an engaging way, it just gets somewhat buried beneath a big lists of FM "Don'ts".
The Tower is the winner of the Thief Anniversary Contest, by Lady Rowena. In contrast to the Focus, this one doesn't get off to a good start. You are immediately presented with about a dozen locked, unpickable doors, in an environment of cramped level design with awkward angles that mean you can't help but accidentally make clattering noise trying to mantle up places. However, stick with it for a few minutes, and the Tower swiftly redeems itself as you proceed through a tightly-packed tour-de-force of vertical level design, secret passages, and Lady Rowena's trademark quality writing. It's a bit keyhunty, but never to the point of frustration, and the plot that unfolds is marvelous and diabolical.
- Joined
- May 13, 2009
- Messages
- 27,231
"When Still" by Eternauta
Garrett takes on his greatest enemy to date - Christians! There's a new faith in town, and it ain't having any truck with no backwater builder-babblers or hedonistic herbal hippies. So it comes as quite a surprise when the Hammerites come a-knockin' to ask Garrett to help them find out why two Hammerite emissaries sent to parley with an aspiring Christian nobleman haven't reported back. And considering this is a four-mission campaign, it's looking to be a long night for Garrett...
Garrett takes on his greatest enemy to date - Christians! There's a new faith in town, and it ain't having any truck with no backwater builder-babblers or hedonistic herbal hippies. So it comes as quite a surprise when the Hammerites come a-knockin' to ask Garrett to help them find out why two Hammerite emissaries sent to parley with an aspiring Christian nobleman haven't reported back. And considering this is a four-mission campaign, it's looking to be a long night for Garrett...
I'll be honest here, I have no memory of playing this before now. The reason may not be because it's unfamiliar to me, but because this FM has familiar elements that I have seen used extensively elsewhere. Let me give you an example: The first mission is the Christian nobleman's manor (Lord Lelder) and it's a sprawling mess of rooms and hallways, and then a 'sealed section' of the manor that's no longer used. If anyone has played "The Last Lighthouse Keeper" then they know exactly what I'm on about here, as the two are almost interchangable, they're that similar. (Probably due to them being made by the same author.) It's weird to explain the layout of this place and the map barely helps. Instead of forming a plan I just started going randomly from room to room, knocking out anyone I came across that was a viable target. There were a few places in the house where I could not see any decent 'approach vector' to knock out a group of guards, but fortunately almost every lightsource in this FM can be interacted with, so most often it's just a case of dimming the lights before going in for 'the kill'. These places were the only real challenge on offer, save for finding my way around the place.
But what really bothered me were some of the basic screw-ups I came across. Like being unable to mantle up a short bookshelf to crawl into a ventilation shaft above (I was forced to use a rope arrow as there are no frobbable crates, because *reasons*). Or that one guard in the dungeon who could sense me two rooms away, even though I was dead silent and in perfect darkness. Or how this FM uses Objectives like Quest Markers of sort. I enter a room and I get a new objective like "You've entered this room, find a certain something in this room." Considering the size of the manor I'd count myself lucky if I could find the room again later on! Or how every item carried by others (keys in particular) are SO TINY they might as well be invisible. But eventually things start to make sense, I learn to read the map properly and I piece together the plot and manage to finish the first mission and exit through the (scary) sealed section of the manor.
---
That leads to the second mission called "The Way", which picks up right after the end of the first one, and yet Garrett has ditched almost all of his gear (because *reasons*) before having to go through both a sewer and an abandoned water processing plant to reach an Hammerite abbey so he can warn them of Lelder's cruel plans. Except 'abandoned' isn't quite the appropriate term here. Lelder has dispatched his guards to occupy the place to prevent the Hammerites from moving against him. The guards don't seem too bothered about that, except they've made it crystal clear that they're terrified of Section C of the plant as it's haunted, and won't patrol there. Three guesses which section I have to go through to reach the abbey (more on that later). While this FM is much more straightforward it's also much more restrictive. There is only the one linear path, and a LOT of backtracking to find the key for that locked door you can't pick open. And on the topic of lockpicks I reach the conclusion that Modder's Madness is in full play here: For every cool and brilliant thing the author does, he also seems to do an equally brilliantly stupid thing. Case in point: The third lockpick is introduced here. There is no *reason* why it's introduced, no explanation given... it's pointless, but it renders the old lockpicks obsolete and is mandatory to get through a couple of doors later on.
Speaking of doors, here's another screw-up: The sewer section at the start is straightforward, mostly bogged down by me having no clue where to go next. The sewers are comprised of wide tunnels with two doors on each side seperating each tunnel section. These identical-looking doors are unfrobbable because You're Not Supposed To Go There, as dictated by the Dos and Dont's of Game Design. Fair enough game, you've made your point, my exit lies elsewhere. The only one of the doors I'm clearly supposed to go through is marked so in about three different ways (being wide open, being visibly different from the others AND having a blinking light nearby to draw the player's attention to it)... and yet it leads to a dead end. What's in there is one of the Objectives, plus various gear strewn about the floor as if there's a boss battle about to begin. So, where to go? Turns out one of those unfrobbable doors IS frobbable, but it's not marked in any way to be so unless you get close enough to it.
How a modder can do the right thing and then do the exact opposite wrong thing, one after the other, is going to be one of Life's Little Mysteries.
Anyway, remember those spots I mentioned where I had trouble getting past a bunch of guards, and only needed to dim some lights to get close to them? Well, while there are 'troublespots' like that here (I counted four) they are harder to resolve due to the linear level design. Worse than that, one of the spots cannot be resolved without either getting spotted, or resorting to extraordinary measures (thank you, Invisibility potion). The worst offender is the final troublespot, the one right at the end of the mission. You have four guards, a well-lit yard with a small moat, and a locked gate barring the exit. On the other end of the yard are some relevant-looking doors. Everything's set up with the clear intention that Real Stealth is required along a pre-defined path that puts you in some danger, with the goal of reaching the doors on the other side and find a way to open that gate. But the gate is wired to an alarm system, so you can't open the gate without setting that off, unless you take a few extra (pointless) steps. But as the exit is right on the other side of that gate, you can just open the gate, set off the alarm and run like hell to finish the mission with four angry guards in tow! Not exactly thief-like behavior, is it? Oh, and if you fall into the moat, you can't climb back out as the steps are non-climbable.
But it's not all bad. Section C is the Meat and Potatoes here, and at least that delivers. The clear inspiration here is Shalebridge Cradle, and it manages to give it a run for its money. It's rather obvious that it's all scripted events, but the timing and sound work done on some of them in phenomenal. Also, you'll be shouting obscenities at that door (you'll know it when you see it). And yet the author manages to screw it up, though just at the end. I mentioned that the guards refused to patrol Section C? Well, the good news about that is that they didn't bother me... until they inexplicably do so when it's time to head back out of Section C. Because *reasons*.
---
But then it was time for the third mission, "The Ritual", where Garrett has ditched almost all of his equipment AGAIN (because *reasons*) and yet there's a chest with a rope arrow right outside the starting point, even though the mission's starting gear includes one! Anyway, the abbey is very similar to the first mission, involving lots of rooms (in a coherent style this time), interactive light sources and lots of guards/Hammerites to knock out. At least the crypt offers a nice change of pace from the standard aesthetics, but it also includes Haunts on patrol, but funnily enough the mission fails you on the "Kill no one"-objective if you smite one of them... because *reasons*. Eventually it's time to suss out the objectives: Find three relics hidden about and put them in their proper element (though saying that one relic should be placed "before the Hammer", in a Hammerite abbey FULL OF TAFFING HAMMERS is borderline trolling) to complete a ritual which "frees the Hammerites from their curse." Yeahhh... what it really does is FILL THE PLACE WITH HAUNTS, who have the collective sense of standing still under every available light source, blocking all major doorways... and that's when the mission tells you to go to a certain location in the abbey. Fortunately that place is the mission exit, so pray that you've completed all the other objectives first... like I hadn't.
(Just why the taff do I need to read up on the story of a long-dead Hammerite to complete an objective? Because *reasons*.)
---
And finally I got to the end, "The Mystery", where Garrett dumps his things ONCE AGAIN (because *reasons*) and the story takes over in favor of... almost everything else. Up to this point I had been trying (unsuccessfully) to enjoy playing "When Still", but kept being interrupted by the constant banging of this convoluted story of an evil nobleman, his hopeless wife and... her brother the Hammerite priest? I'm certain the author screwed up the names of his established menagerie of characters several times, as plot inconsistencies started piling up... but here they jumped the shark as dead people literally enter the conversation. Up until now there had been several 'cutaways' where I was forcefully teleported to another location due to story *reasons*. Doing so once or twice is OK, but doing a whole section entirely out of these cutaways did nothing but irritate me. But then at the end I'm presented with a choice... except both choices are Wrong. There's no better way to ruin such a long build-up to a story than to have it anti-climactic and without resolution. Is Lelder stopped? Not by Garrett, no. Does that planned assassination against him succeed? Not answered.
But "The Mystery" is not a complete clusterfuck, even though allowing me to "dispose of the guards as I see fit" and having the loot objective optional suggests otherwise. The level design of "The Mystery" is half-good: First there are some attempts at a Pagan village which are kinda meh, but then there's a cave system about half-way through that is really really good. It gives the perfect feel of exploring underground environments and finding all kinds of cool things... but mostly spiders. I enjoyed that part, and it made me hopeful that the ending would be half-decent. (It isn't.)
So yeah, I have probably put more words here into a single FM-review than I've posted on the Codex for the past month, and people are probably wondering why I did so when I didn't like it. The answer is simple: To me "When Still" is the blueprint for Thiaf. Both this FM and Thiaf took all the cool parts about the Thief games and chucked them out the window, then took all the bad parts and made them the central pillar of gameplay. When I said "this FM has familiar elements that I have seen used extensively elsewhere," I was mostly meaning Thiaf. I haven't felt like this while playing anything Thief-related since I "reviewed" Thiaf almost four years ago (see signature).
Rating:
Lord Lelder's Mansion: 6.5/10
The Way: 6.0/10
The Ritual: 5.0/10
The Mystery: 4.0/10
Overall: 4.5/10. Despite the good points being strong, they are few and still drowned out by the mountain of bad points. Only DromEd'ers can take away anything useful from this one. Because *reasons*!
But what really bothered me were some of the basic screw-ups I came across. Like being unable to mantle up a short bookshelf to crawl into a ventilation shaft above (I was forced to use a rope arrow as there are no frobbable crates, because *reasons*). Or that one guard in the dungeon who could sense me two rooms away, even though I was dead silent and in perfect darkness. Or how this FM uses Objectives like Quest Markers of sort. I enter a room and I get a new objective like "You've entered this room, find a certain something in this room." Considering the size of the manor I'd count myself lucky if I could find the room again later on! Or how every item carried by others (keys in particular) are SO TINY they might as well be invisible. But eventually things start to make sense, I learn to read the map properly and I piece together the plot and manage to finish the first mission and exit through the (scary) sealed section of the manor.
---
That leads to the second mission called "The Way", which picks up right after the end of the first one, and yet Garrett has ditched almost all of his gear (because *reasons*) before having to go through both a sewer and an abandoned water processing plant to reach an Hammerite abbey so he can warn them of Lelder's cruel plans. Except 'abandoned' isn't quite the appropriate term here. Lelder has dispatched his guards to occupy the place to prevent the Hammerites from moving against him. The guards don't seem too bothered about that, except they've made it crystal clear that they're terrified of Section C of the plant as it's haunted, and won't patrol there. Three guesses which section I have to go through to reach the abbey (more on that later). While this FM is much more straightforward it's also much more restrictive. There is only the one linear path, and a LOT of backtracking to find the key for that locked door you can't pick open. And on the topic of lockpicks I reach the conclusion that Modder's Madness is in full play here: For every cool and brilliant thing the author does, he also seems to do an equally brilliantly stupid thing. Case in point: The third lockpick is introduced here. There is no *reason* why it's introduced, no explanation given... it's pointless, but it renders the old lockpicks obsolete and is mandatory to get through a couple of doors later on.
Speaking of doors, here's another screw-up: The sewer section at the start is straightforward, mostly bogged down by me having no clue where to go next. The sewers are comprised of wide tunnels with two doors on each side seperating each tunnel section. These identical-looking doors are unfrobbable because You're Not Supposed To Go There, as dictated by the Dos and Dont's of Game Design. Fair enough game, you've made your point, my exit lies elsewhere. The only one of the doors I'm clearly supposed to go through is marked so in about three different ways (being wide open, being visibly different from the others AND having a blinking light nearby to draw the player's attention to it)... and yet it leads to a dead end. What's in there is one of the Objectives, plus various gear strewn about the floor as if there's a boss battle about to begin. So, where to go? Turns out one of those unfrobbable doors IS frobbable, but it's not marked in any way to be so unless you get close enough to it.
Anyway, remember those spots I mentioned where I had trouble getting past a bunch of guards, and only needed to dim some lights to get close to them? Well, while there are 'troublespots' like that here (I counted four) they are harder to resolve due to the linear level design. Worse than that, one of the spots cannot be resolved without either getting spotted, or resorting to extraordinary measures (thank you, Invisibility potion). The worst offender is the final troublespot, the one right at the end of the mission. You have four guards, a well-lit yard with a small moat, and a locked gate barring the exit. On the other end of the yard are some relevant-looking doors. Everything's set up with the clear intention that Real Stealth is required along a pre-defined path that puts you in some danger, with the goal of reaching the doors on the other side and find a way to open that gate. But the gate is wired to an alarm system, so you can't open the gate without setting that off, unless you take a few extra (pointless) steps. But as the exit is right on the other side of that gate, you can just open the gate, set off the alarm and run like hell to finish the mission with four angry guards in tow! Not exactly thief-like behavior, is it? Oh, and if you fall into the moat, you can't climb back out as the steps are non-climbable.
But it's not all bad. Section C is the Meat and Potatoes here, and at least that delivers. The clear inspiration here is Shalebridge Cradle, and it manages to give it a run for its money. It's rather obvious that it's all scripted events, but the timing and sound work done on some of them in phenomenal. Also, you'll be shouting obscenities at that door (you'll know it when you see it). And yet the author manages to screw it up, though just at the end. I mentioned that the guards refused to patrol Section C? Well, the good news about that is that they didn't bother me... until they inexplicably do so when it's time to head back out of Section C. Because *reasons*.
---
But then it was time for the third mission, "The Ritual", where Garrett has ditched almost all of his equipment AGAIN (because *reasons*) and yet there's a chest with a rope arrow right outside the starting point, even though the mission's starting gear includes one! Anyway, the abbey is very similar to the first mission, involving lots of rooms (in a coherent style this time), interactive light sources and lots of guards/Hammerites to knock out. At least the crypt offers a nice change of pace from the standard aesthetics, but it also includes Haunts on patrol, but funnily enough the mission fails you on the "Kill no one"-objective if you smite one of them... because *reasons*. Eventually it's time to suss out the objectives: Find three relics hidden about and put them in their proper element (though saying that one relic should be placed "before the Hammer", in a Hammerite abbey FULL OF TAFFING HAMMERS is borderline trolling) to complete a ritual which "frees the Hammerites from their curse." Yeahhh... what it really does is FILL THE PLACE WITH HAUNTS, who have the collective sense of standing still under every available light source, blocking all major doorways... and that's when the mission tells you to go to a certain location in the abbey. Fortunately that place is the mission exit, so pray that you've completed all the other objectives first... like I hadn't.
(Just why the taff do I need to read up on the story of a long-dead Hammerite to complete an objective? Because *reasons*.)---
And finally I got to the end, "The Mystery", where Garrett dumps his things ONCE AGAIN (because *reasons*) and the story takes over in favor of... almost everything else. Up to this point I had been trying (unsuccessfully) to enjoy playing "When Still", but kept being interrupted by the constant banging of this convoluted story of an evil nobleman, his hopeless wife and... her brother the Hammerite priest? I'm certain the author screwed up the names of his established menagerie of characters several times, as plot inconsistencies started piling up... but here they jumped the shark as dead people literally enter the conversation. Up until now there had been several 'cutaways' where I was forcefully teleported to another location due to story *reasons*. Doing so once or twice is OK, but doing a whole section entirely out of these cutaways did nothing but irritate me. But then at the end I'm presented with a choice... except both choices are Wrong. There's no better way to ruin such a long build-up to a story than to have it anti-climactic and without resolution. Is Lelder stopped? Not by Garrett, no. Does that planned assassination against him succeed? Not answered.
But "The Mystery" is not a complete clusterfuck, even though allowing me to "dispose of the guards as I see fit" and having the loot objective optional suggests otherwise. The level design of "The Mystery" is half-good: First there are some attempts at a Pagan village which are kinda meh, but then there's a cave system about half-way through that is really really good. It gives the perfect feel of exploring underground environments and finding all kinds of cool things... but mostly spiders. I enjoyed that part, and it made me hopeful that the ending would be half-decent. (It isn't.)
So yeah, I have probably put more words here into a single FM-review than I've posted on the Codex for the past month, and people are probably wondering why I did so when I didn't like it. The answer is simple: To me "When Still" is the blueprint for Thiaf. Both this FM and Thiaf took all the cool parts about the Thief games and chucked them out the window, then took all the bad parts and made them the central pillar of gameplay. When I said "this FM has familiar elements that I have seen used extensively elsewhere," I was mostly meaning Thiaf. I haven't felt like this while playing anything Thief-related since I "reviewed" Thiaf almost four years ago (see signature).
Rating:
Lord Lelder's Mansion: 6.5/10
The Way: 6.0/10
The Ritual: 5.0/10
The Mystery: 4.0/10
Overall: 4.5/10. Despite the good points being strong, they are few and still drowned out by the mountain of bad points. Only DromEd'ers can take away anything useful from this one. Because *reasons*!
Played through a classic oldie called Hush Hush, Sweet Harlot. Pretty good for such an old FM, it's got a reasonably big city where some buildings are enterable (but most are not) and it's not too bad on the key/switch hunt (except for one place where you have to go all the way around to open a certain gate). It ends abruptly when all goals are met (no "go to the exit"), but I had to scrounge for loot at the highest difficulty which was annoying. Overall a pretty decent mission.
Just now I played through a mission from 2010 called The Beginning of Era Karath-Din. It's set before the fall of the Lost City and you have to investigate the complicity of a high-ranked noble in the murder of the emperor. You do that by infiltrating his manor and grabbing some hidden documents. There's also a sizeable city section, but regrettably it's mostly empty. I like the new AI skins and the architecture, it captures the Lost City look pretty well. Too bad the gameplay sucks ass. You'll be doing a lot of city exploring but the majority of buildings aren't even enterable. It's super easy to climb up the roofs and go out of bounds, even without new mantle. Some stairs are constructed badly, they're too steep so it's barely possible to run up them. Roombrushes are also messy, so you get audio leaking through the walls.
But the worst part is the keyhunting. None of the keys are labeled. They're all just called "key" or have no name at all. And you'll be collecting a dozen of them through the course of the mission, all of which you need to progress. There's locked doors that require a key... behind which you find another key required to progress elsewhere. It's a shame because the mission has some genuinely cool looking bits to it, but the keyhunt drains all the enjoyment from it.
Just now I played through a mission from 2010 called The Beginning of Era Karath-Din. It's set before the fall of the Lost City and you have to investigate the complicity of a high-ranked noble in the murder of the emperor. You do that by infiltrating his manor and grabbing some hidden documents. There's also a sizeable city section, but regrettably it's mostly empty. I like the new AI skins and the architecture, it captures the Lost City look pretty well. Too bad the gameplay sucks ass. You'll be doing a lot of city exploring but the majority of buildings aren't even enterable. It's super easy to climb up the roofs and go out of bounds, even without new mantle. Some stairs are constructed badly, they're too steep so it's barely possible to run up them. Roombrushes are also messy, so you get audio leaking through the walls.
But the worst part is the keyhunting. None of the keys are labeled. They're all just called "key" or have no name at all. And you'll be collecting a dozen of them through the course of the mission, all of which you need to progress. There's locked doors that require a key... behind which you find another key required to progress elsewhere. It's a shame because the mission has some genuinely cool looking bits to it, but the keyhunt drains all the enjoyment from it.
nicked
Educated
Played a couple more interesting contest missions.
The Night Shift is a small and very nice-looking museum mission. There's some good sneaking to be had, and some neat puzzle elements to getting round security on some of the exhibits. It also has great plot development as the mission progresses, although some of the scripting seemed a bit dodgy to me, maybe due to the mission's age. Still well worth a look.
Dirty Money was made in 72 hours, but you wouldn't know it. I'm not sure Drk can have slept at all during the contest's limited time frame. In many ways, the mission successfully hits all the right notes of a good skacky mission. It's got that good, grimy, mysterious medieval underworld aesthetic down to a T. The mission involves going into a bad part of town to raid a thieves hideout, and the transition in visual style and ambience between the "safe" street and the dodgy area is subtle and masterly hits the right notes. Readables are very high quality in this one - lots of "show don't tell" going on. Great mission, especially considering the limited time limit on its construction.
The Night Shift is a small and very nice-looking museum mission. There's some good sneaking to be had, and some neat puzzle elements to getting round security on some of the exhibits. It also has great plot development as the mission progresses, although some of the scripting seemed a bit dodgy to me, maybe due to the mission's age. Still well worth a look.
Dirty Money was made in 72 hours, but you wouldn't know it. I'm not sure Drk can have slept at all during the contest's limited time frame. In many ways, the mission successfully hits all the right notes of a good skacky mission. It's got that good, grimy, mysterious medieval underworld aesthetic down to a T. The mission involves going into a bad part of town to raid a thieves hideout, and the transition in visual style and ambience between the "safe" street and the dodgy area is subtle and masterly hits the right notes. Readables are very high quality in this one - lots of "show don't tell" going on. Great mission, especially considering the limited time limit on its construction.
DrKubiac
Educated
- Joined
- Aug 29, 2015
- Messages
- 66
Unlike the 48 hours contest, where you had 48 hours in a row to work on the mission (and where I did spend a sleepless night to finish Double or Quits), the 72 hours restrictions were the total dromed time spent on the mission.
IIRC I worked a couple hours a day on the mission, for a month or two. I made sure to optimise like an autist the time I spent on it though, I didn't waste a single minute. Between dromed sessions, I had all day to think about the mission and plan my next move on dromed, so it was an interesting exercise but nothing exhausting.
Curratum
Guest
Is Dirty Money hosted anywhere except Southquarter? SQ's link is dead. 
Edit: Nevermind, found a link on Darkfate.
Edit: Nevermind, found a link on Darkfate.
Curratum
Guest
Ok, can anyone explain what's going on here?
In Dirty Money, I riled up a bunch of AIs, at first I was getting shot at by an invisible archer, then I heard two more voices chasing me, but the guards were invisible and would not attack.
I was bumping into their invisible bodies and could hear them shouting right next to me, but they did not attack me and were completely invisible. What the hell is going on? :D
Edit: Again, disregard, I'm a muppet. I saw Vanishing Point was in the same 72H contest and assumed all 72H missions were for Thief 2 and was running Dirty Money in T2, causing invisible actors to happen.
In Dirty Money, I riled up a bunch of AIs, at first I was getting shot at by an invisible archer, then I heard two more voices chasing me, but the guards were invisible and would not attack.
I was bumping into their invisible bodies and could hear them shouting right next to me, but they did not attack me and were completely invisible. What the hell is going on? :D
Edit: Again, disregard, I'm a muppet. I saw Vanishing Point was in the same 72H contest and assumed all 72H missions were for Thief 2 and was running Dirty Money in T2, causing invisible actors to happen.
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