More from my archives of reviews, I cover three FMs from author 'Balboa', which are unconventional to say the least, but deserve a mention for good reason.
"Tales from the Cleft: Vandal"
A nobleman keeps a priceless book collection at his summer house, so Garrett is taking a walk in the countryside to raid a library while the nobleman is away on a cruise. But the newly installed security-system, the nobleman's failing health and a line of dead people are among the things Garrett will have to suss out first.
"Vandal" sets a good scene for taffing, but its first step off the beaten path is how it tries to progress the story through the FM's Objectives. This seems harmless at first, but the frequent (and silent) removal and adding of Objectives not only creates a mess, but at least one Objective only appears if you fail the mission (feeling a draft) and another can soft-lock the player and prevent progress (killing the frogbeast before getting the Objective related to it). Other FMs have done the same, but not at the depth that "Vandal" is at. In my opinion I'd say this is a step too far in narration.
In addition there are design decisions which don't add up. Doors that were previously inaccessible becoming accessible is one thing, but making previously accessible doors inaccessible because of the plot? The former is to be expected in some manner, while the latter only annoys and wastes the player's time.
The player is forced to ghost the mission until the security system is disabled, but after that it's perfectly fine to knock out everybody?
On Expert-difficulty the player must get 98% of the total loot... but there are areas of the FM that can only be accessed once - so if you missed out on even just one piece of loot in those areas, you're screwed.
Rating: 5/10. Its highly experimental gameplay sadly detracts from the enjoyment.
"Tales from the Cleft: Ladytaker"
In this sequel Garrett is tying up loose ends to the story in "Vandal", as well as pulling off a major heist against the Hammerites. But with an active serial killer on the loose the authorities are on high alert. Can Garrett save the day (again)? Can he save his own skin? Can Garrett find the 16 Hammer symbols dotted throughout the place and unlock the Big Secret?
Once again experiments in storytelling and scripted sequences are at the forefront, and the amount of herding that takes place here makes me feel I'm in sheep country. The primary problem with that is that Balboa is forcing modern-era game design elements into a game engine that was 10 years old at the time. In truth it should have been the other way around, he should have adapted those design elements so that they fit comfortably in the Dark Engine. But he didn't, so what we get is a FM that's appropriately cinematic in some places (Ladywalke-scene, approaching the apothecary and ensuing chase), badly scripted in some places (returning to the inn at the end of it all) or just laughably forced (pretty much every other 'scene' not mentioned so far).
What helps "Ladytaker" along is that the urban setting offers more 'freestyle'-gaming than "Vandal" did - but that only helps highlight how constrained everything is. Go off-script from the story just once, and watch how everything comes crashing down as the only reward is a soft-lock state. Remarkably there is a secret scene in this FM that is so completely off-script and at odds with everything else I'm left scratching my head: A door that was previously inaccessible mysteriously opens later on and reveals... a portal to a completely different location. Why it's there is never explained, what relevance it has to the story seems nonexistent.
Rating: 6/10. This is one FM where it's better to just roll along with the instructions, rather than try to do things your way.
"When Angels Refuse to Die" by Balboa
This was one of three entries into the 2009 'Vertical Contest' and placed second.
As this is a Balboa FM, you know what to expect... but IMO this takes things too far.
The FM starts with a 3-minute unskippable cutscene at the start, where everything stated in the readme-file is repeated. This is then followed by a tiny segment of gameplay involving moving forward into a room, and then ANOTHER unskippable cutscene (90 seconds long) before finally some actual gameplay is presented, as Garrett has been turned into a Mechanist Servant and must do repetitive tasks as part of his conditioning. Frob the wrong item and you lose health, but you're supposed to regain health if you frob the right item, but this only happens once after you've frobbed a wrong item, and then only once.
This is followed by a short series of rooms, until you reach a control center of sorts so bizarrely designed that objects in it only become frobbable when needed, i.e. you need to figure out the correct sequence in which to frob items in the room to progress. This is then followed by a ride in the World's Second-Slowest Elevator before the building must be ascended from the outside. This means shifting from window to window, room by room, before having to make an elevator come down by shooting the button above. If successful you reach a hallway which ends in the World's Slowest Elevator which must ALSO be activated by shooting the button, but this time the button is the one right beside it, well within frobbing range but still unfrobbable.
Once at the top you must dash and dodge an aggroed Mech Beast (because *reasons*) to power up a generator and then climb a ziggurat to flip a lever to start the self-destruct sequence... which requires a ride BACK down on the World's Slowest Elevator. There's a little more after that, but I'm not gonna spoil it.
The narrative- and progression-experiments in this one are extremely heavy-handed, to the point that I must declare that this is one of the worst designed FMs I've come across, and that's saying something. This is not the work of someone who's bad at DromEd bashing out some atrocity, this is all designed with non-malevolent intent and purpose.
Rating: 2/10. The casual taffer can safely skip this one.
So overall, we have an author here who is a good and humorous writer, who clearly knows what he's doing, but has trouble getting it to work within Thief. While this may lead to some wanting to throw shit at Balboa as a result, I disagree. These are valid experiments which demonstrate what works within the Dark Engine... and what doesn't. What of his ideas mesh with what is expected Thief-gameplay, and what of them don't. The end result are FMs that can be passed on by 'normal' players (though curious taffers can play "Tales from the Cleft" with a Caveat Ludious-warning) but they're a treasure-trove for game- and level-designers. In fact, I'm fairly certain that's precisely what happened after their release; a few notable FM authors played them, studied them, then decided to never try anything like this and took their FMs in a different direction.
And as a small comparison/contrast to Balboa's FMs, here are reviews for two other FMs which took a different path:
"Memento Mori 1: Nostalgia" by Random_Taffer
You play Darren, a poor boy trying to help his parents make ends meet in a tiny port village. One day a chance event puts Darren in a precarious position and off on an adventure to retrieve a prized book.
This FM turns Thief into a pure adventure game, and the focus shifts entirely to the story. The gameplay-elements of Thief are only used in one section, and ironically enough that's the part of the FM where the flow slows down to a crawl. This FM is otherwise so superficial that the plot and story can be summed up 100% in text format... and none of it is really that important for the sequel.
Rating: Meh/10.
"Memento Mori 2: Vagabond" by Random_Taffer
Darren now finds himself in a larger port town, but with no money or shelter... so he sets out to find some. But a chance encounter leads Darren onto a new path, ripe with opportunities.
This FM is a huge improvement on its predecessor, where it still has Adventure Game-elements present, but also utilizes Thief gameplay to good extent. This is best exemplified by one objective being an original one (at least I don't recall seeing it before) - hauling a body through the city without being spotted. Overall "Vagabond" still feels restrictive in some places due to many events needing to be done in strict order, but it's still enjoyable.
Rating: 7/10.
The one where he has you reading the pages upon pages of it untill he tells you what it is at the very end, like a good troll? And you'd go thru it all because you are conditioned into it, as such a long readable might contain info relevant for completing the mission.
