Tannar on 16/8/2013 at 08:07
I still don't understand why we are voting for two.
nickie on 16/8/2013 at 08:22
So sorry to keep interrupting your question, Tannar!
Caradavin, you can now recast your vote. You will need to vote for your original 1st choice again as well as your 2nd choice.
Caradavin on 16/8/2013 at 08:30
Done and done. Thanks!
AntiMatter_16 on 16/8/2013 at 08:38
Quote Posted by Tannar
I still don't understand why we are voting for two.
Because I SAID SO. =P
There's only one criteria for voting, how well you liked it. That doesn't mean who had better graphics, or story, or gameplay, just how well you liked it. And maybe you liked two, but for different reasons. Having two votes means gives you a little more space to show your love.
FireMage on 16/8/2013 at 15:22
Wow, we got three fighter in the poll!
A close result incoming! :thumb:
Maybe some equality?! :D
trudnicki on 16/8/2013 at 18:31
yes a tie is a good result, and another 48h challenge to determine the winner will be fair don't You all think the same way as i do ?? :cheeky:
Thor on 16/8/2013 at 22:55
Nobody has reviewed these missions much and I guess neither will I (edit: well, ended up reviewing a little), but due to the peculiar voting system I want to say something about all of the missions anyway. Sorry if my English has a hiccup every now and then.
I played The Cash Box first (I played all FMs by the order of the size (at least started them) :p). I expected the least out of it in a way (but knew that probably wouldn't be so). And at first it seemed to. Couldn't read the readable (lacked the tnh script on my part), couldn't go anywhere (the bottom of the tube wasn't climbable), but eventually I figured it out. Later it only kept on getting better, with the beast roaming around a bit but not being in the building after all, the timed door bashing fright and narrow escape with the aid of new mantling (man I love it) and the invisible AIs afterwards. It was all very nice and well done. Decent atmosphere, story and fun. I wonder who made this. Yandros? Caradavin? Somebody else?
Next I tried Run!. This mission has the most main impact on just plain fun. I honestly enjoyed all the running around getting lost, cracking through whatever secrets I could (with the aid of ttlg even) and just running around. Great fun. One of my favorites too. Who did this? Brethren?
Next I played FortyEight, which seems to have lacked time to completion. Still, the first floor was enjoyable to go through, and the architecture has the beautiful simplicity of OMs (simple, but not plain block'y enough to be too noticeable) and fine texturing, that it was overall pleasing to the eyes.
Next up was The Music of Sibel. This, as DrK noted, is proooobably skacky's work! :D Extreemly vertical architecture, ominous feeling city and all that. I was mostly surprised at the amount (and quality) of exterior buildings that were made. Really cool. Not my favorite aesthetic personally, but still really good work.
Secret of the Keepers is one of my favorites here and I actually gave one of my votes for this one, if only because it had none (when I voted at least). The architecture may not be as fancy, but I still appreciate the effort. But what spoke to me particularly in this one was the atmospheric 2nd half of the FM with the old quarter'y feel. I don't know what it is about that particular aesthetic, but I really love it, it's one of my favorite Thief aesthetics/tilesets. And more to the point, I like how it was done here too.
Next I started up Half-Assed Wedding. Unfortunately I couldn't actually get to the finale of it due to a bug or something (I automatically overlooked the bugs in these FMs cause there's only so much you can accomplish in 48 hours and the bugs weren't ones I would even care about, but here I missed a whole portion of the mission). Despite that, this is possibly the strongest contestant, as it was relatively long (but not boring), had an amazing amount of lore/story content and it was all around just fun to play. Oh, and it also managed to be creative in every way! So... great work Brethren? Or DrK?! ...Yandros? GAH! So hard guess cause Yandros dropped in the contest at the last moment. Otherwise everything probably would've been obvious :(.
Side note here: I noticed a lot of these FMs were closely tied to the OMs (particularly The Dark Project for some reason) and I think they all had some minor mistakes, but did this one have any mistakes in it? Might some of the lore conflict with the original lore? I don't remember the original story lore that well, I'm just curious.
Then came Double or Quits and within moments I knew this guy is serious. Oh god, the ambience and graphics done on such a high level. Could this really be done in 48h? Amazing. I could keep on expressing my awe, but I've got a bed to catch. The only (and I mean the ONLY) downside of this one is that, after playing the other FMs, I found this one to be not as creative with the story. It felt casual in a sense. I don't know what could be done about that though, so I still love this one to death. I my other vote to this. I can't quite put my finger whether this one is DrK's or Yandros' mission because of the jaw-dropping visuals. They both do such great work with those. And it's not just the textures or amazing light beams, it's also the rich object placement and how neatly polished it all is. Nono, it has to be Yandros, cause he dropped in seemingly out of the blue. God I DON'T KNOW OKAY.
Edit: Well everybody in the thread including DrK seems to think DrK made it so I guess that must be it! Lol. I'm not even going to guess which one Yandros made. I thought I knew him a little by now, but nope!
Finally, before actually finishing the last two, I did Canvassing the Neighbourhood cause it weighed the most megabytes. And soon I realised why. So many custom paintings, haha. Nice. I'm not a fan of huge, overly scaled up FMs, but it was fun to play for what it is. The paintings were a bit too high for me to notice, so I think I'll go through the packed FM and manually look at all those pictures, hehe.
Tannar on 16/8/2013 at 23:48
Nice, succinct reviews, Thor. I agree with all of it, except that maybe my first choice would be Half-assed Wedding. I think the author did an amazing job with the new faction and it's one I hope to see much more of in the future. It was very well conceived and brilliantly executed, especially in so short a time. Imagine if the rainbow world and the different color spectrum rooms could have been developed over weeks instead of hours. But that just makes it more impressive to me. I thought the writing, dialogue, textures and gameplay were all very well done.
I enjoyed all of the others too, even the ones that weren't quite finished or had some bugs. That was expected in this contest and I don't fault the author for it. And all of them had something original and fun to offer. I enjoyed playing each and every one of them.
Sir Prancealot on 17/8/2013 at 00:26
How long until voting closes? I've only just noticed the FMs are ready, and I'm busy most of this weekend! I really want to play all the contest FMs before voting closes this time! :D
FireMage on 17/8/2013 at 00:42
Don't worry dude, about 10 days remains for voting. And because some missions are short or simple, you will have enough time for playing peacefuly the missions and voting after :cool:
