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Briarwood Cathedral


buck28

Briarwood Cathedral  

42 members have voted

  1. 1. Gameplay: Enjoyment. Fun factor. Smooth Flow, ect. Versus bugs, Frustration, Boredom, framelag.

  2. 2. Appearance: Visual pleasure, lighting, visual style, deduct for bad texturing, etc.

  3. 3. Story and Text: Story, Text, Briefing. Graphic storytelling.



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This turned out quite a bit more ambitious than it seemed at first. :smile: To begin with I wasn't all that keen (except on the windows, which look gorgeous from inside): there's some stange collision outside the building (low stone you can't stand on and bushes you can), and it was annoying to investigate the well, only to realise the mapper must have intended it as an exit, not an alternative entry point. But once I started finding readables to give more context to what I was doing, and found how much there was to explore, I had a lot of fun.

 

One little detail I liked was the brother with the risque painting in his footlocker.

 

Was Letch a typo for Lich? I couldn't make sense of it otherwise.

 

 

When you open the mage's cabinet, are those skeletons meant to be the two dead brothers'? So the coffins in front of the altar upstairs are empty?

 

 

A couple of bugs: one of the stockade keys showed in the inventory as something like stockade key1, and for some reason I had to dance around the exit point quite a bit before the mission would end.

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Some things I'm repeatedly thinking about...

 

- louder scream when you're dying

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New mission! New mission!!!! :ph34r:

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Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

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@VanishedOne

 

 

 

No.Those two skeletons are just pieces and parts for his reanimation experiments. And Letch, Lich, ? I was going for like (wretched letch) Don't know how to spell it I guess.

There are 2 stockade keys, so DR will number them automatically.

 

 

 

Don't know about the dancing around at the end? I've played a thousand times and it ends fine for me? :ph34r:

Edited by buck28

Quando omni flunkus moritati" ("When all else fails, play dead")

Halloween Contest Winner 2014

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@VanishedOne

 

 

 

And Letch, Lich, ? I was going for like (wretched letch) Don't know how to spell it I guess.

There are 2 stockade keys, so DR will number them automatically.

 

 

 

 

 

It's a word, all right; I just didn't see any obvious lechery going on.

 

The point was, the stockade keys didn't stack in the inventory; the second one had a different name visible to the player.

 

 

 

A quick test suggests that it may be possible to bypass the exit zone by hugging the iron fence to the left after passing through the gate.

Edited by VanishedOne

Some things I'm repeatedly thinking about...

 

- louder scream when you're dying

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@VanishedOne

 

 

It seems my spelling of the word was a correct version after all. ;)

The keys and exit will be easy fixes. Thank you for your comments, and I hope you did enjoy it; after all.

 

 

 

Thanks :D

Edited by buck28

Quando omni flunkus moritati" ("When all else fails, play dead")

Halloween Contest Winner 2014

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Seems like I am the first to vote here...

 

Nevertheless, awesome FM, the improvement to your first one is huge, I really enjoyed it.

Only a voiced intro/character and more detailed outskirts could have given this one a better rating, great work.

Edited by Cookie
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@Cookie

 

Posted Today, 09:08 AM

Seems like I am the first to vote here...

 

Nevertheless, awesome FM, the improvement to your first one is huge, I really enjoyed it.

Only voiced intro/character and more detailed outskirts could have given this one a better rating, great work.

 

Yes, I'm surprised by the lack of comment.

I'm glad you enjoyed it. I was not able to get more involved, as it was a speed build contest.

Thanks for playing and your vote and comments. :D

Edited by buck28

Quando omni flunkus moritati" ("When all else fails, play dead")

Halloween Contest Winner 2014

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Wow, did you do all this since your first mission was released? That was fast and it's an incredible jump in skill! Loving the way the sound and visuals come together -- the dark and stormy night, and the industrial clatter in the forge and boiler. The exterior is a bit plain but you more than make up for it inside.

 

I'm not finished yet, but the scale is so much bigger than I was expecting. I thought I'd play it in the couple of hours I have before setting off on hols for a week but I've only got about 30 mins left and I just fell foul of something nasty that I think I suggested how to set up :angry: so I should have known better! The detail downstairs is excellent. The dungeons and forge area are second to none. It's challenging too. I'm being forced to use my water arrows and the odd blackjack and to open doors a crack to peek -- nice touch. There are a lot of nice little touches. All the keys hidden where they ought to be are constant little sources of satisfaction :) This is incredible quality job for a speed build. It's really well fleshed out with detail and all the readables etc. Nice work!

 

Now back in to use up my last 20 mins :ph34r:

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I'll try it out, thank you.

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"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...

- 2 July 1844 letter to James Russell Lowell from Edgar Allan Poe.

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@SteveL

Thank you very much.

Yes the outside is not as I'd like, but I haven't learned how to do a skybox, or cube map yet. There is a lot I have yet to learn. I can't even do a script yet. :unsure:

I did what I could in the time frame. I'm glad you enjoyed it. That makes me happy.

Hopefully my next venture will have a new and improved exterior.

Thanks again. :D

Quando omni flunkus moritati" ("When all else fails, play dead")

Halloween Contest Winner 2014

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Played through on the hardest setting - ghosted with no knockouts because it was too easy otherwise

Statistics at the end showed one kill - I shouldn't have killed that spider :D - and only missed about 300 loot

Only one thing annoyed me - the various guards/skeletons etc. were stationary too long which is a pain when you need to wait for them to move so that you can sneak past

Otherwise a nice little mission although I never did find the keys for the doors in the catacombs which weren't pickable

A question near the start

is there a switch to open the hidden hatch at the side of the church from outside as I couldn't find one

 

 

Just realised - a shouldn't have called it little as it was much larger than I expected.

One suggestion - change the trigger for finding the pirates treasure from finding the chest to getting all the loot out

Edited by Oldjim
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@Oldjim

 

 

 

Yes there is a button and it is fairly large. It will highlight even standing up. While facing the door it is to your far right at end of bricks where the buttress meets the wall.

Also, the doors in the cats can be opened with the key in Murius' chambers. A secret door to get in is activated by a small button with a glyph on it. (It's hard to see and find.)

I purposely make the wait times longer to build the mood so to speak. LOL sorry

 

 

 

Thanks for playing and your comments. :)

Edited by buck28

Quando omni flunkus moritati" ("When all else fails, play dead")

Halloween Contest Winner 2014

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4oL7CJJ.jpg

 

 

 

Wow! Great FM, Halloween contest or not! What a great entrant in the contest, a lot of fun and vERy creepy near the end. I was playing in the morning darkness >dawn and I still got occasional chills up my spine.

 

 

 

"I know where you are!" eeEK! no you don't (do you?!??!) He knows! SHIET! :D

 

 

 

Really well done from the detail inside the cathedral and the lower areas, the audio was really really good also. I ended up knocking out everyone I could and exploring everywhere I could though I didn't

 

 

 

Make it in to the prisoner lockup area. I tried to get that guard from behind the desk to investigate sounds I was making but he didn't have enough room to move around and got stuck on his stool and couldn't move unfortunately. That and the screen below are the only issues I experienced playing through. I think maybe the starting area could have used some type of wall cap or gargoyles or something on top of the church grounds walls, it would have been highlighted against the stormy backdrop maybe? Would have looked less simplistic architecturally. Or break it up with some type of arches or maybe some vines growing down from the tops of the walls ...I don't know. The bushes, flowers, stables, graves, etc. all looked really good so really that was the only thing for me that made the outer area feel a little basic, the tops of the walls.

 

I did find this issue and since I never found this from the top side (looked like a trap?) it was particularly strange and I'm not sure how it wasn't caught in beta testing.

 

KqO4dED.jpg

 

After getting down in the catacombs and finding the water and swimming down in to it, I found the chest. Then I found a few coins sprinkled about and started following them (which I thought would lead me to my death honestly) however it dead ended at this screenshot above. I couldn't get the two coins there above me and they were seemingly floating in the air so I figured it was accessible from above but I'd never found it.

 

Also, at one point I had three undeads after me and I was trying to get them to come in the little room with the false floor and spikes in the bottom and fall in so I could trap THEM, but they could not enter the room from either side which I figured you maybe did for gameplay reasons so the player couldn't dispatch them that way? Not sure but it would have been a cool player tool for them to outsmart the undeadies and use their trap against them. It could be because the narrow halls didn't allow the AI to navigate it properly. Not sure but thought I'd mention it.

 

Really good lighting and detail in all the interior spaces. Maybe some mouldings in the upper church rooms but for the most part it felt believeable and lived in. The switches in the boiler room and the foundry castings, to the chains hanging in front of the hammer symbol in the catacombs that were climbable, a lot of really nice touches where the players expectations are met and immersion isn't broken.

 

 

 

I thought everything else was very well-thought-out and pulled the player in to the experience and atmosphere including the story which you got to piece together bit by bit building tension.

 

And yeah, with the time constaints on the contest I wasn't expecting anything nearly a large as this FM is but all the areas tie in nicely and all of them are well realized and work in unison to make the FM feel complete.

 

Very well done and congrats on your second FM release! A really great Halloween mission entry and I'd be shocked if this didn't take the cake. :)

 

Oldjim

 

 

I found that button inside the closet and was like wow, there was an easier way in! Yes, if you face the wall the hatch is on from the outside, its on your right in the corner by the wall abutment.

 

 

Edited by Lux
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@Lux

 

Thank you very much. I'm glad you enjoyed it. Yes, since I don't know how to do a skybox, and don't know how to do scripts, my missions will not rank up there wih the team members. If I would've had more time. The outside was going to be worked on, I don't like the tall walls either.

 

 

If you crawl through the hole in the wall in the torture chamber, you follow a trail of coins all the way to the pirate chest. You went backwards. lol The picture is from under a hay pile, which is a trap from above. You can ciimb up and out that way if you use a rope arrow. :P If you go through the other door in the torture chamber you will find a hall leading to the stockade. If you wait for the stockade guard to leave his desk, there is another key on his desk for the stockade. (one on his belt as well) Or you can just shoot him in the face with a gas arrow and get it over with. LOL

 

 

 

Thanks again and thanks for your help with questions. :D

Edited by buck28

Quando omni flunkus moritati" ("When all else fails, play dead")

Halloween Contest Winner 2014

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Good mission. Love the style you went for. Nice lightning and especially sounds!

 

Things that could be improved: the well near the church seems impossible to get out of. At least I had problems with it, the detection of my attempt to jump out of it (off of that rope) doesn't seem to work and I bounce back down.

  • Like 1

"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...

- 2 July 1844 letter to James Russell Lowell from Edgar Allan Poe.

badge?user=andarson

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@Anderson

Things that could be improved: the well near the church seems impossible to get out of. At least I had problems with it, the detection of my attempt to jump out of it (off of that rope) doesn't seem to work and I bounce back down

 

 

It is not easy, you have to jump to the beam corner from the top of the rope, then you can mantle out. I made it hard on purpose, but it can be done. It was easier each succeeding time I did it. :P

 

Hope you liked it. Thanks for playing :excl:

Quando omni flunkus moritati" ("When all else fails, play dead")

Halloween Contest Winner 2014

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@pwl

Posted Today, 01:03 PM

Very good mission a lot to explorer and that is what a thief is supposed to do!!

 

Hope to play more of your missions soon!

 

Thank you. I need to learn some more things before I release another. But I will. ;)

Quando omni flunkus moritati" ("When all else fails, play dead")

Halloween Contest Winner 2014

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@Anderson

 

 

 

It is not easy, you have to jump to the beam corner from the top of the rope, then you can mantle out. I made it hard on purpose, but it can be done. It was easier each succeeding time I did it. :P

 

Hope you liked it. Thanks for playing :excl:

 

Yes! It's great. Somewhat reminiscent of "The Overlook Mansion" from Thief Deadly Shadows with that thunder going on. Nice job.

  • Like 1

"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...

- 2 July 1844 letter to James Russell Lowell from Edgar Allan Poe.

badge?user=andarson

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If you crawl through the hole in the wall in the torture chamber, you follow a trail of coins all the way to the pirate chest. You went backwards. lol The picture is from under a hay pile, which is a trap from above. You can ciimb up and out that way if you use a rope arrow. :P If you go through the other door in the torture chamber you will find a hall leading to the stockade. If you wait for the stockade guard to leave his desk, there is another key on his desk for the stockade. (one on his belt as well) Or you can just shoot him in the face with a gas arrow and get it over with. LOL

 

 

 

Actually I rEALly went backwards because I explored all around the outer area without going in the church first of all and went

 

 

Down in to the well but couldn't pick the lock to the gate at the bottom and didn't have any keys yet :P So I knew there was an 'underground' portion of the map to come which was cool. Yeah the guard outside the stockade, initially he was walking around as I could hear him walking and I did take the key off his desk and the bottle of wine. I also opened all the cell doors cause I could hear undead through that door so I figured if I let them loose and opened the stockade door then they'd come kill him but nothing ever came and he was stuckk behind the desk on the chair so I just went a different way in to the catacombs. :)

 

 

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Pretty cool mission, keeps going and going. Lots of locked doors I can't get into in the crypt area. I do have some screenshots for Moddb, just have to get some more tonight.

 

I'm glad people are starting to use those stained glass windows I spent all that time working on.

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I always assumed I'd taste like boot leather.

 

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