bjack on 25/4/2016 at 20:07

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I find many recently released FMs to be "non-standard" in play. Just when you think something is a typical smash and grab city or mansion FM, something takes you into another warped universe. It seems the new authors do not want to just do another episode of the same old same old. I like that idea, but not some of the executions. I've given up on more recent FMs than I've played all the way through. I get tired of jumping across timed lava pits. Quick save, try - die - reload - try - die - reload - make it - quick save - repeat for an hour... Too tedious. I'm much more into have to make things and figure out puzzles. That is just me though. I am still glad for the new FMs and enjoy most everything up until I get to an impasse and give up. Sometimes I'll go back a few weeks later and finish up.

Oh, BTW - Lord Allen's Factory has some alternate play. This is one that years ago it made me give up at about 75% finished. I tried it again about a year ago and made it all the way through. The Aliens were a funny touch.

baeuchlein on 26/4/2016 at 11:21

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Yandros also created The Mask of Agamemnon, which looks and feels a lot like a Tomb Raider level.

In The Thieves' Quarter, the player has to destroy statues in order to proceed. Quite uncommon at least at the time this mission came out.

Rose Cottage features an UV lamp needed to find something. Heartcliff Islands has something similar, where you have to do something before some hints become visible, I think.

There are a few more missions which have very dark areas, sometimes with some light source the player has to use (e.g., in Death's Turbid Veil), sometimes rather not (Unknown Danger).

Haplo's missions as well as some others (e.g., Strange Meeting, as well as The Last Lighthouse Keeper and at least one other mission made by Eternauta) play like old adventure games. Lots of riddles/puzzles, but unfortunately, you can get stuck easily because of the linear nature of such missions. In former years, this was uncommon and more or less unique, but I think it's becoming more and more common these days.

Temple of the Tides has an uncommon puzzle where you have to push tiles around to create an image, and later on, the player encounters a room which is filling with water while the player tries to swim up.

Ricebug's missions have some unique elements every now and then as well. In Heretic, the player gains hold of a wizard staff, which shoots an endless stream of projectiles - until it suddenly fails in the second mission. Guess Garrett should have bought some batteries before.:p

Apart from some of Ricebug's and Yandros' missions, there are several others which try to turn Thief into some other kind of game. There's something Pac-man-like in Basic (from Contest 4), for example, or Latrunculi, a chess game in the Thief world.

Sometimes, the player can assemble things like in the Soulforge mission of Thief 2. In A Debt Repaid, something similar is done in order to create some potions.

A few missions feature "alternate realities" or something like that. For example, in Emilie Victor, you will enter a strange kind of parallel world. Play its sequel(s) in the Black Frog campaign, and you will enter a hellish parallel world again. The basic idea may not be unique, but the actual way of implementing such an idea varies a lot. Call it unique if you want to.;)

Resurgence: The Ancient Crown not only lets you play as someone else than Garrett, you also have a pistol with a few shots. (I'm still waiting for an automatic sub-machine gun, though.:cheeky:)

Oracle of the Prophets, one of the missions in frobber's A Keeper of the Prophecies, not only plays with Garrett on an alien world, but also with low gravity. Can be helpful as well as deadly sometimes. Another mission in this campaign has a functioning clock as well as a timeout, and there's one (maybe even the same?) where Garrett is poisoned and has to use healing potions in order to stay alive long enough to get the antidote.

Nameless Voice on 26/4/2016 at 22:26

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Probably any mission I made applies. I never did quite grasp the concept of "normal".

The Haunting has you play as a ghost, with the goal of scaring a pair of nobles out of their home while occasionally avoiding a priest who tries to exorcise you.
The Temple of the Tides is mostly puzzle-solving, platforming and exploration, inspired by The Lost City and games like Prince of Persia and Tomb Raider. It only has a handful of enemies and most can just be run past entirely.
The Affairs of Wizards is the most standard - the strangeness is mostly in how it's built rather than the gameplay, but it still has several unusual things in it.

bjack on 28/4/2016 at 17:11

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And of course T2X is very alternate. I’m replaying it now (the hi res version) and enjoying it. Just rode the choo choo... Not exactly really that different in many respects from T2, but it does have those neato elemental crystals.

Renault on 28/4/2016 at 22:02

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T2X is pretty standard Thief fare. Sure, it has a few unique tools, but I wouldn't say much of it would be considered "unique gameplay." Or maybe I'm just forgetting.

A lot of the contest missions had some interesting twists on standard gameply - A Guard Named Benny comes to mind (you play as Benny, duh), and The Summit, where you have to scale a mountain. There are many daytime missions, but Midday Escape sticks out as one of the best in that category. Mind Master is sort of a game within a game. Many of the entries in the Crap Contest involved some sort of wackiness as well.