T1 FM: A Dark Secret (Das Dunkle Geheimnis) by Mayar (english version 12.02.2010)

Independent Thief on 9/4/2010 at 13:39

Nice work-I liked the vibe of the basement!

mosterhouse on 28/12/2010 at 16:58

How do you get behind the cabinet, to access the secret room?

Mayar on 5/2/2014 at 07:28

Hi Folks :)

Here i have make a new Release of my last FM.

I had make Corretions of the Textures and some Objects changed :)

Also a little Architectur-Correstions :)

The Link or it you will found here ->

(http://www.file-upload.net/download-8593041/A-Dark-Secret.zip.html)

and enojoy it :)

LG

M

clearing on 5/2/2014 at 09:34

(http://darkfate.org/view/details/files/fan-missions/thief1/dark_secret/das-dunkle-geheimnis_1.1.zip) Mirror.
Thanks, Mayar!

<Username> on 22/3/2020 at 08:18

There seems to be patch "DarkSecret_fix.zip" containing a DML with some object fixes and updated English books that is not listed yet in this thread or in the thread with (https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148090) brief summaries of all missions. I found the patch on (https://darkfate.org/view/details/files/fan-missions/thief1/dark_secret) Thief: The Dark Fate. I am not sure: Should I apply this patch when I play the mission in the archive "das-dunkle-geheimnis_1.1.zip"?

Mayar forgot to update the readme in the archive "das-dunkle-geheimnis_1.1.zip". It still says "Date of Release: 17.01.2010, Version: 1.0". This should probably be "Date of Release: 05.02.2014", Version 1.1".

<Username> on 6/6/2020 at 18:19

Stats:
* Normal difficulty
* 57 minutes
* 3874 of 4136 loot

Hints needed:
* Didn't find the key for the safe. It is unfair to expect the player to blind frob the bed.
* Didn't find the secret passage to the room with the Crystal of Destiny. I found the secret switch behind the desk in Lord Baldewin's office, but somehow missed that the cabinet behind me had moved. Instead, I revisited the nearby rooms and even the floor below to find out if a secret passage had opened somewhere else. That one was fully on me.

Likes:
* A Dark Secret has a clear idea and a clear flow: Explore a small part of a City, break into a mansion via a waterway to the basement, and find a valuable artifact somewhere on the upper floor. Very Baffordesque.
* The backstory in the mission's info file references Order of the Vine, another fan mission.

Elements that could be improved:
* If players miss one of the two mandatory secrets, they are stuck. One of the secrets is simply unfair, the other one very hard to spot.
* The City is flat, the architecture of the buildings and rooms is rather basic.
* Exploring the basement of Lord Baldewin's is tedious: storage rooms and sleeping quarters, one after the other.
* The corridor from the front door of Lord Baldewin's to the upper floor feels like an afterthought and is build rather sloppily.
* The sewers in the City are visually and architecturally unappealing. Except for a piece of loot and a water arrow, they contain nothing of interest.
* The stacks of coins everywhere are odd: Would people really let lie money around everywhere outside of locked rooms?
* There are quite a few typos and punctuation errors in the texts.

Bugs:
* There are missing textures above two windows in the City. You can see outside the boundaries of the level.
* There are several barrels in Lord Baldewin's basement that you can walk through.
* You can also walk through the slot machine in the gaming room.
* The objective was to get 2,500 in gold, but it ticked of when I got 2,500 overall loot.

Rating:
* 3/10