The Dark One on 25/9/2018 at 22:06
Stab my back and I'll stab yours, I suppose.
Betrayal (by Fieldmedic) is a very vertical mission, starting with a desperate ascent out of a mountain prison before sending the player up a haunted tower. Sadly, the end result is a bit clunky. Our hero begins locked up in a Builder prison courtesy of a backstab. As he's resigned to being stuck there, however, a massive earthquake strikes, destroying part of the prison and apparently turning the Builders into haunts, as well as giving out hero a chance to escape.
This early part shows the general frustration I have with Fieldmedic's missions: The slow creeping through a foggy and recently wrecked and haunted mountain prison is exciting, and the creator does a good job of making the player feel helpless and vulnerable. But the mantaling and tight patrol routes result in the player having little room for error, creating a fair bit of irritation. Other little irritating bits like that pepper the level, making it hard to get immersed in the atmosphere at time. One example is a sin that Inn Business fell too: making ordinary items count as loot even though they aren't counted as loot in most missions. Other than that and some irritatingly placed wine bottles, the loot is clear, but backtracking is difficult and often tedious.
My main gripe is a poorly placed priest at the end, who stands on a staircase facing a room and never budges. You don't have a blackjack, but if you don't find one of two gas arrows (which are waaaay before this point), tough luck, hope you don't mind the knock to your stealth score. The mission has this vague lack of direction to it, with the path in theory being clear but the actual route being muddled. It's annoyed, because the mission does have some good bits, such as getting into a locked room near the top of the tower. Not hard, but I haven't seen this method in The Dark Mod.
All in all, a frustrating mission with some good ideas and atmosphere. If you can't deal with the player unfriendliness, Not Recommended.
Added - Nightwalker
The Dark One on 28/10/2018 at 02:45
I'm back. More Fieldmedic now!
Reap As You Sow is a very atypical mission with many good ideas, but few of which live up to their potential. This time, Not-Garratt isn't a thief, but a private detective hired to look into the disappearance of Carl Powell by the assumed dead Oscar Powell. The Powell farm allows tours of its hedge maze, allowing our hero a chance to slip into the estate and find the answers he seeks...
The most obvious difference from other missions is obvious from the title screen: It takes place in broad daylight. This results in the graphics looking a tad artificial, but I admit I liked it. The idea I think was to move towards more social stealth like you see in the Hitman games, as you now don't fail the mission for being caught per se, but via a “tension gauge” hitting the red, which it will do if you;re caught wandering around areas you shouldn't be in. The problem is that you spend the vast majority of the mission in places you shouldn't be in, and the fact that everything is so bright makes it so that NPCs can see you from across the dang map, so the whole thing is much more irritating than it should be.
Not to mention that the tension aspect is broken. I knocked a guard out, and of course the meter goes up for a little bit. Then it went to green and since I was somewhere I “should” be I just wandered around with an unconscious guard for a bit and no one cared. I had something similar happen when I noclipped into a barm that's apparently optional but still lets you in if you can pick the door. Turns out that I broke the tension again and could wander about unmolested.
It's annoying, because the mission has plenty of good ideas and moments of horror. The irrigation tunnels are sufficiently creepy, and the idea of traveling through a hedge maze hunting for loot is such a good idea that I'd almost play a mission with that concept alone. I also liked how the mystery wasn't flat-out explained in the end, it's not complex, but there's no summation spelling everything out for you. Even the protagonist's actions at the end, while scummy, are at least different, even I fell that there needed to be more build-up.
The issue is that all the good stuff is buried under unneeded irritation and lack of direction. This might be one of the few missions that's harder on easy and normal than it is on hard, because the latter at least dumps you close to where you need to be at the start, as opposed to the other two. All in all, if you can work around the kinks, it's certainly one of the more interesting missions. Otherwise, Not Recommended.
Added - Nightwalker
Mman on 11/12/2018 at 17:23
Reviewing the 20th Anniversary Contest missions as I go through them (Also I'll put the 1-30 scores here, although my final ones might change in the end depending on the quality of later entries).
An Enigmatic Treasure with a Recondite DiscoveryMy first impression of this was a bit deceptive; the starting city sections have a high level of detail but are also quite flat in structure and seemed to have little in the way of rewards for exploration (unless they're super-hidden anyway), that's on top of no map being provided, so I thought this was a relatively novice map with good detail covering up other things. It doesn't help that being knock-out happy + using my only gas grenade apparently messed up an event that lets you get into the first target building safely, so I had to employ some more exploitative tactics to deal with 3 guards in a small, bright corridor. After that, the level got going and my semi-negative first impression shifted a lot...
Inline Image:
https://i.imgur.com/oz4yQDR.jpgThe Keeper symbol seems a bit of a taunt on a building you never access, but I guess it adds to the mystery.The meat of this level isn't the streets, but an Opera House, Warehouse, and the Mage Guild that is your target (the latter having a great surprise entrance). The Opera House and Guild are very unforgiving stealth-wise, with lots of brightly lit rooms and tile floors everywhere; it's practically a platforming puzzle at times to exploit the periodic carpeting to sneak up on/evade enemies, and the Guild gives you some buffed-up guards and other alternative enemies and surprises to deal with on top of that. The Warehouse is a bit more traditional and shadow-filled, which makes the mid-game diversion to it somewhat of a breather from the rest (beyond a couple of helmeted guards anyway). All of these areas are relatively complex and make up for the simplistic structure of the streets quite easily.
Inline Image:
https://i.imgur.com/1DIPTXp.jpgOne of the more lavish sights in the level.The progression is quite puzzle based, with you finding items and notes from certain people to get clues of what your next action should be, and the Mage Guild itself is mostly comprised of puzzles outside of the guards. After the start I did work things out fine, but, in the Guild in particular (with one exception that serves as the central puzzle of the place), I mostly solved things by using items in the only receptacles around rather than having an idea of why I needed to. The base story is fine and communicated well with your progression through the level, but the messages you find are oddly utilitarian in almost always being a puzzle/progression hint; that's not necessarily bad and at least makes you pay attention to what is wrote in them, but I do feel a few more texts could have fleshed out the setting a little, especially as areas like the library seem to have no books. In general the level is oddly empty loot-wise, and, while it does have some rewards for exploration, several areas seem to have nothing of value in them.
Despite my misgivings near the start, and other issues I had with it, this is a very good level overall that throws in several surprises and a variety of situations (although if you play in the listed order it's a pretty rough starter map difficulty-wise), and it's likely to end up on the higher end of my final rankings.
Tentative Score: 23/30
Added - nickie
uncadonego on 12/12/2018 at 03:05
I don't want to start a row or anything, but I was just wondering if this thread should be divided into several threads. T1/Gold FM's, TDM FM's, T2 FM's, and T3 FM's. Just a thought.
Melan on 12/12/2018 at 07:14
There is a catalogue in the OP.
uncadonego on 12/12/2018 at 08:03
Yeah, I know...still....
fortuni on 12/12/2018 at 08:14
It's a lot of work, do you fancy doing it?
As well as dividing up the posts you would have to read every comment about the reviews and make a decision as to which comment belongs in which new thread, something that may not always be as clear cut as you initially think.
Also once done people would be guaranteed to post in the wrong thread and it would be up to Nickie to correct any mistakes, time that she just not have, so best leave as it.
nickie on 12/12/2018 at 09:22
Hmm. 118 pages. It's not something I'd like to tackle, unca, it would probably take months of full-on work. I doubt SneakyJack thought how huge this would grow when he started it. It wouldn't be impossible but I suspect Al_B would start screaming at me for mucking up the data base as tends to happen when adding to the Mission by Type thread.
I could see a benefit to separating T1/G/T2 missions though.
Mman on 16/12/2018 at 13:46
If someone did it then categories for each game would be nice. To help I'll list the platform from now on.
The Sound of a Burrick in a Room - Thief Gold
The majority of this level is large, open, very vertical city area in the vein of stuff like the majority of Melan and Skacky's work (and given the current use of pseudonyms I wouldn't be surprised if one of them was behind this one). It's very intricate and interlinked, with a lot of the buildings accessible in at least some form, and each area frequently flows into multiple other ones in organic ways. The level of detail is high and almost nothing feels neglected (one sewer trek is a little visually repetitive but in the overall design it's a tiny optional part of the map anyway), and aspects like the lighting and use of decorative objects is great too; that sticks out even more when this is only using standard Thief objects while similar levels have used multiple custom textures and objects.
Inline Image:
https://i.imgur.com/LHXh5l9.jpgThe design is open enough to lead to views across large parts of the cityAs an extension of the design the gameplay is quite open-ended and the setting can be tackled in almost any order; with aspects like the canals you can safely cross a lot of the map right away, and I'm sure there's some other ways around that I overlooked. There's plenty of shadow in the streets, and, while one or two interiors have some trickier lit and tiled areas there's a generous amount of equipment so it's pretty manageable, but there's still a decent amount of variety in situations along the way. The guards in the target house seemed to have some jacked up alertness but there's plenty of ways to approach things. After the toughness of An Enigmatic Treasure I guess most levels following it would seem tame in comparison though. As an open city map a big aspect of the map is the exploration, and even after most of the threats are cleared there's a range of areas both above and below the street level to discover (and probably some ones I missed). One objective did end up confusing me with it's wording but it's mostly my fault.
Inline Image:
https://i.imgur.com/sayujC4.jpgYou're not the only one on the prowl tonight...The story is threaded through the level a lot, with a range of sub-plots to uncover that frequently feed into each other or hint at certain areas or secrets, there's even a little custom voice acting that fits well when used. If you're used to this kind of city level there's nothing very surprising here, but it's extremely solid. For a general Thief experience of having an open city area to rob, I'll be very pleasantly surprised if more than one or two other contest levels even come close, and I can see this being a top 3 level for me in the end.
Tentative Score 26/30
Added - nickie
Mman on 19/12/2018 at 19:40
Catacombs of Knoss - Thief Gold
This contest entry is actually a double-level, with the first one being in a town courtyard area where you need to find a path into the Catacombs (and take what you can in the process), and the second in the Catacombs themselves where your goal is. The first level is relatively small in scale (at least compared to the first couple of entries), but it's very vertical and there's some interesting structural design like a Pagoda structure as the central sights. It feels a bit cramped and messy, but in a good way, where it's communicating the feeling the place was built on other things and turned into an amalgamation of different styles as different people moved into the area. The interiors are a little empty and repetitive at times, but the cramped parts do lead to some intense moments (especially in the Cathedral), with thin corridors where someone might come through a door at any moment. The use of ambience and nature of the occasional story/side-quest moment also gives it an oddly foreboding atmosphere that feels fitting for the set as a whole. It's relatively short compared to the earlier city entries, but it's only half the set (what you take carries into the next level, so it helps to have stocked up)...
Inline Image:
https://i.imgur.com/chCTuFV.jpgThe Pagoda structure makes a non-standard centrepiece.The second level is an exploration/horror map in the Bonehoard vein (including a segment or two that seems a clear homage to that level). It's bigger and more complex than the first map, such that the first map almost feels like an extended intro in comparison. After a comparatively short lead-in of traps and puzzles (which also introduces the interesting element of mobile lanterns) to find some tablets it opens up into a large cavern that reminds me a lot of the latter part of Chalice of Souls, with multiple themed "towers" and some off-shoot areas to explore for what you need to access the finale. There's a large range of tasks and some interesting edited enemies to spice things up and create a surprise or two. One or two items seemed to have simpler tasks attached than others, but given the size of the area there were probably some technical limitations in effect. The "boss" felt a little anti-climatic (despite the chance to spice it up by going for some extra loot), but it does the job of wrapping up the given backstory. I did have a puzzle break (an optional one at least) and require me to restart, but it was near the start so only took me about five minutes to get back there.
Inline Image:
https://i.imgur.com/WXlHGms.jpgOne of the tombs before the bigger catacomb areas...At it's best (namely the second half of level 2), this has some of my favourite moments of the levels so far, but it's also a little more inconsistent, with some less interesting designs along the way. It mostly has a great sense of atmosphere and provides a lot of different obstacles and puzzles as it goes along. Another good entry with no major issues.
Tentative Score: 25/30
Added - nickie