--Impressive scripting (AI dropping frobbable lanterns, sketched automap, flowers that regrow, owl keys etc.)
--despite narrow view distances, the exterior framerate was subpar but not awful. Inefficient use of nature objects and transparencies, especially since the blocky geo was still obvious.
--Great atmosphere, the world felt truly wet and cold, with beacons of warmth.
--The space felt more expansive than you would expect from the contest limits, but a lot of it was empty and functionally identical to a much more compact space. However, being a natural setting this isn't unreasonable.
--Sound design was great, with very smooth transitions.
--A lot of the gameplay comprised a hedge/cave maze. At least there was an excellent map.
--Progression was Metroid-style, with backtracking that felt rewarding through additional equipment.
--Added content by way of busywork, though that is a nicked staple.
--A few technical niggles like the rare leaky roombrush, but nothing severe.
--Some really creative choices. The skeleton monster and the thieves' den were a standout (despite a big old exposition dump explaining something that every player will clearly understood).
--Given the smaller scale, more of the cell/brush budget could have been committed to granular details.
--Way too many of the invisible flame eye creatures, especially given the dearth of health items.

This felt the most like a thief mission.
The enemies in the temple felt really scary and creative.
I loved alot of this.
Sadly i feel like it wasnt polished enough, suffers beneath its own scale.

Certainly a top tier mission!

I love Nicked FMs, but this was a little bit of a letdown. I'm not sure why, maybe not really interesting visuals (very primitive brushwork and texturework imo)? The atmosphere is there but idk this definetly is not even close for me to other recent Nicked FMs.

This was a fantastic mission, and barely felt space limited at all. There were several very clever elements and a variety of things to do. Loved the rogues in disguise!

Well done and I can't wait to see more from this author!

+ a very well executed woodland mission
+ in comparison to all other mission longest gameplay by time needed
+ great story, excellent gameplay

This is the most conflicted scoring I had and it could've scored a bit higher.
- Absolutely brilliant in places and while the mission isn't short I desperately wanted it to be longer.
- The cave area felt tagged on and unnecessary. I mean there is the hideout and that brilliant temple...
- The machine in the hideout was unnecessary, as was the flower picking, but some players may like it so it had no effect on the score.
- Finally, I wished I could've return to the cabin, put the logs into the fireplace and ended the mission with that. Instead it ended when I went through the door...

Overall this mission is very enjoyable and the story is very strong. The beginning was interesting too: Garrett has just escaped and thieves are looking for him in the forest. Also, the strong point was the gameplay - just enough challenge and lots of bonus objectives and one optional objective. I have no real viewpoint of missions that are 1 million units maximum (this mission was my first 1 million unit FM), but this mission felt quite big and there are lots of things to do. The atmosphere was very nice - the sound of rain, nicely created outdoors, interesting and scary enemies: especially those that were invisible except their eyes. I liked the cultists and their evil intentions. I'd like to see another mission one day, that has these cultists part of the story.

I can´t even believe it was a limited unit mission, it was so time-consuming and well done.

I realised this is IMHO, the winner, when I was in a cabin, looking at animal trophies and heard realistic sounds of rain hitting the wooden beams of the roof. Also I really appreciate:
* Attention to details in hideout construction
* Fake zombies and haunt laughs
* Crafting, which is not only optional, but necessary for completing bonus objectives
* Plenty of custom high quality graphics assets (I wish more authors would use it more frequently instead of choosing low pixel textures and objects, even if custom. It's 2021 lol)

Loved every minute of this mission so gave it maximum points. There is so much to see and do that of all the contest missions this one has the greatest replay factor.

My absolute favorite mission of this contest. I have to say, that I'm a huge fan of nicked's missions so i was really excited about the release. I was not disappointed. The mission was, as expected, shipped in great quality. The design of props and architecture was just excellent, and the mission just felt HUGE for just one million dromed feet. The tension was slowly rising, from me asking myself "what are all these flowers for?" to "damn, how much content is included in this mission?". There are various settings to find from just a chilling walk in the forest, to an underground downwinder base to some kind of crazy canibal cultists. And every new place was just believable and athmospheric. The mission had a little bit of backtracking for me, but that is always the case in a non-linear and open setting. As I praise this mission as I do the builder, I still have to criticise two points: at the end of the mission, when the blood projectiles were flying around, the mission crashed for me a couple of times. This is nothing dramatic, because of modern hardware you are back in game immediately and I'm sure this can be fixed with a patch in the future. The other problem was, that when everything else is finished, I found no solution to finish the bonus quest in Garretts place for the night. Maybe you could put the "mission complete" script just in the upper room, then everything would be great. Because of these two issues i have to remove one point from the otherwise excellent Design / Construction rating, but as already said, the rest of the mission was just perfect and completely my taste. If you had a Patreon account this great experience would be worth 5 bucks to me, thanks for the great time =)

Very well done despite mostly being on one level. Multiple area types and multiple enemy types.

Excellent atmosphere, great new monsters.

The way this mission starts kept it very unique to me and it felt very dense and so easy to get lost, it also felt like there was just so much attention put to everything with a subtle story which increased replayability for me, has just tons of secrets to be discovered so overall a very typical keep you busy mission with a story that kept it fun for hours.

Love the raining sounds, and the thieves hideout "phonograph" soundscape

Very nicely laid out mission. Not a single inch of space wasted. However, I had to give a bit lower score on design, because of two things. First, when you open the gate to the thieves' hideout if you shut the gate behind you it pushes the cut-off padlock and it alerts the nearby zombie-thief and the frogbeast. I had to restart the game because of this because I couldn't get past the zombie-thief after he became alerted. The other thing is that the last bonus objective is located in the same area as the exit point, namely the hut with the unlit fireplace. This made me unable to score the last bonus objective and I didn' want to start the game again, so I gave a pass on that one.

This mission is pure gold and I think it deserves to get 10+ (if only that were possible). Though I don't want to rate other missions worse to emphasize the gap. They are all either excellent or at least moderately good.
Maybe that would be a nice idea to introduce some badge we can give to the outstanding missions, "our choice" or "best experience" or something. Not too many, like one from every voter in each contest. And not obligatory that as there may be several great missions with 9-10 in all stats but none of them giving that feeling. Or otherwise, some might lack in some parts and as such in the rating yet still be super exciting. Overall rating addresses these problems although not the "10+" one I think.

Plenty to explore. My favourite of the bunch.

Excellent FM. My favourite entry (though there were 3 close runners up!). The rain, the variety of enemies, the gameplay, making shit - very impressed but I wouldn't expect anything less from nicked TBH.

Great characters, lots of exploration, gorgeous scenery, fun puzzles, clever secrets, and even a crafting station with unique items...all the qualities of a truly fantastic mission!

Great atmosphere and excellent mission given the limitations!

Apart from a frog, a lone spider which was good as a place marker, and a swarm of flies that didn’t bite I don't think there were any of the old foe, none of the old treacherous places. This game was fresh, generous and satisfying with a good map that developed as you progressed and at the start I was able to use the first two unconscious thieves and their lanterns as 4 place-markers to leave a trail back.

It felt creative, imaginative and organised and I love the real-time grandfather clock at the cabin which as far as I can tell is at 12:15 am at mission start. So often in FMs clocks have a fixed time with the two hands in unrealistic position even for a stopped clock. The majority of stuff was new to me, and at one stage I was more enthusiastic collecting flowers and mushrooms (for what purpose I had no idea) rather than loot but there were rewarding challenges if you chose to go for them. With hindsight I saw how even the most difficult tasks could be done with minimum fuss, showing how clever the design is and attention to detail is much in evidence (just look how meticulous the credit references are).

Subtle joke placements (like a knitting basket in the thieves' hideout and a pair of bunny slippers) were brilliant although I didn’t understand the significance of the piles of boots and hats(?) in the village which struck unfortunate associations in my mind. The sound of rain on different surfaces, like on a roof when you’re underneath it, were perfect. Ditto all sounds. I loved finding the bolt cutters and had bad feelings taking them from a gentleman whose workshop was so neat. My father taught me you should never take another workman’s tools without permission but I was very pleased to later repay him and his wife. It was a shame Garrett couldn’t have knitted a shawl for her when she most needed one. :D

It’s a very attractive mission with little to criticise.
By way of hopefully constructive feedback:
In Fingol’s Room I hit the wall covering with a sword and it gave off “dustâ€ in the way that sometimes a wooden door does. So I hit it 3 or 4 times and it opened revealing the secret room which was good but I still had to find the switch for the Number of Secrets discovered to increase.

Bizarrely on one occasion when I played again from the start there was a servant (Kevel type) standing whistling near where the two thieves were having their first conversation. When the thieves resumed searching I quickly ran down past him and he said hello who are you?

Once there was a misplaced sound of “footstep on an inside wooden floorâ€ when I was outside stepping on a tree trunk (I believe) and unfortunately the quick lighting of the fire in the hut was beyond the ability of my old laptop touchpad. I tried doing it faster, jettisoning all other inventory, taking a speed potion, even trying to destroy the front door to cut out the awkward direction of approach. Never mind that it would no longer be cosy inside without a door :D Ideally I needed “Mission Completeâ€ only when Garrett went upstairs.

Everything was quality, even the title. For me a good game is one I don’t want to leave. This is it. Thank you.

Brave take to make forest mission, due to fact how its hard to make one in Thief. Since it rely on player imagination. The results of forest is really good. While technically the mission is good, and it allows for player to experience different situation, although personally isn't my cup of tea, but I appreciate how it is advanced on technical side.

I think my dislike comes from mixing the complicated shaped objects, with thief vanilla ones. I must admit once I saw the cultist, which I can't help but think about Mystery of the Droods. Also fact the cultist has guards voicelines, it just puts me off and couldn't immerse within the game. While I like visually and as in general the idea of the thieves hideout and how they hide themselves, the cultist "chapel" ends up very meh for me. I did not bothered myself with doing the hidden objectives (like helping the lycanthropy cursed guy), or exploring the cultist place further than necessary.

Oh btw. the mushroom and flower picking? BEST FEATURE!!! Even if I gathered them for no purpose, I loved that!

It was a pleasure to play this mission.
Maybe the one which is the most vast of all the entries.
It design rocks and it gives something interesting, something more RPG-like.
Though it have a few flaws and some tasks which sounds like forced extended playtime.
But overall, it's definitely a good mission that worth being played!

After successful small robbing, Garrett was unexpectedly kidnapped by other thieves, but happily managed to escape and now he is in the middle of mysterious rainy forest filled with dangers and... with possibilities (especially, in version 1.2 which included all needed scripts). So begins his another journey.

It may be my subjective issue, but really for me the forest here feels more like a dungeon which is just above and not below ground. The sense of mystery, different settlements, forest walls that create corridors and big rooms with green "ceiling", several puzzles, some of which are clever (gathering flowers and mashrooms), and some are annoying (secret with rotating figures). Different inhabitants - thieves, cultists, and even more ominous creatures that better-not-be-disturbed... The overall sense of interconnected place and ecosystem with the some history - which develops till the end of mission.

This mission is essentially a sandbox with lots of interesting things to do: you can craft potions and weapons using the machine "with no necromancy involved" - all you need is to find this machine and components of possible creations (which is not easy); you can rob the local temple with lots of clever traps; or save the werewolf from his curse (crafting, again); you can try to find the thieves' hideout and ghost it... And most of those activities are not mandatory. Overall, the good sides of this adventure outweigh the less good sides: some aforementioned annoying puzzles, and too obscure places (including one with the machine I mentioned before).

A typical nicked mission, in all the right ways.

While some of the actual gameplay was kinda dumb (frying pan, insanely observant cultists), the atmosphere and everything else was good.

masterful rainy forest; basic thieves hideout hidden under Scooby-Doo graveyard; gross cultists & scary temple; innovative crafting mechanic

This mission seemed HUGE. I enjoyed the mix of places yet moving from one to the other seemed natural, not jarring, so that "Why, of course these places could be near each other." I enjoyed the continuing appearance of surprises.

Thief is not well suited for building forest missions, and most previous attempts have created what seem to be forest-textured corridors with the odd cylindrical tree stuck in to liven things up. This FM is one of those which come close – but if you look behind the façade, the paths still look like corridors. If you accept this (a fault of the engine, not the level designer), you get an atmospheric mission filled with mist, rain, and the mysteries of a forest environment. It also leans on high-resolution assets. These are often used in a clumsy way, but here, everything is tasteful and in place, and as cohesive as the technology allows.

Unlike other contest missions which sought to build upwards, this one is almost curiously flat (which enhances the artificial feeling – I believe it would have been better off as a non-contest release). As a tradeoff, it is sprawling, and features multiple fairly large sites to plunder, any of which could have made for its own mini-mission. The attention to detail, and the range of things you can do, is impressive, with good writing throughout. Some of the gameplay is not entirely fair; this would be a very hard mission to ghost (if it is at all possible), and the cramped, tunnel-like building style is responsible. However, it solves a challenge which most FMs fail at, and makes for a large, satisfying mission in the bargain.

Atmosphere and setting was great, the rainy forest and cultists were really immersive. That is until I ran into the unfrobbable lockpicks and had to restart, I can hardly blame the author given that a patched, fixed, version of the fm exists but the original contest post still only has 1.1, and it wasn't until after this bug that I checked the actual FM's forum dicussion. Oh well, overall a good mission, I really liked the amalgamator.

My favorite mission in the contest! I can't believe this was made within 1 million units. Seemed twice as big as any of the other entries. Fantastic story with the thieves and the cult, plus lots of little side stories. Loved the werewolf curing and the difficult hidden objective at the end. The woods were a bit tough to navigate at times, so that's where I docked a point. Thank you Nicked!!

Making a forest in old games is never an easy task, especially in the Dark Engine and its fairly limited CSG tools. Unfortunately it shows and while a mission like Impious Pilgrimage or the first mission in The Scarlet Cascabel are more or less believable, this one isn't. The forest here is made of narrow tunnels painted with trees and the illusion is shattered instantaneously. In addition, while the challenge of making an almost entirely horizontal mission is commendable WRT the units limit and the mission does feel a lot bigger than it is, the mission suffers tremendously from that with fairly mundane one dimensional layouts especially in the hideout.

Still, it is very well built and lit, with a great selection of textures and meshes. The atmosphere is very good and the selection of sounds very appropriate. The story is pretty good though I would have preferred if the author did not spell out that the thieves are disguising themselves as Haunts, the victrola is more than enough for the player to understand that. I wasn't a big fan of the crafting element in the mission because I was under the impression it was mandatory to finish the mission while it's not, and I just really don't like that stuff in Thief.

Use of space: 7
Design/Construction: 8
Atmosphere/Story: 7

My favorite for now. The rogues secret base (and their plot) are definitely highlights of this mission, but really, all places add something significant. Ruined towers, cultists village, werewolf's in the basement - there is so much to talk about and explore. I will definitely come back at some point, despite the horror and invisible enemies!

From the perspective of an old T2 player who's new to FMs: The forest and caves were hecking confusing; which serves their purpose, but becomes frustrating at the same time. The "blackjack" was easy to miss, as where hints about how to avoid dangers and solve puzzles (How do I avoid the invisible skeletons suddenly patroling the whole temple? What's Emberglow Crystal now?! Did I miss the werewolf with that granade or is there just no feedback of success? etc.) - The secrets were will hidden and fun to find. The guards were well placed and the environmental storytelling was intriguing.