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Fan Mission: Down by the Riverside, by Dragofer (2016/09/25)


Dragofer

Fan Mission: Down by the Riverside, by Dragofer (2016/09/25)  

38 members have voted

  1. 1. Gameplay: Enjoyment. Fun duration. Smooth flow, ect. Versus Bugs. Frustration, Boredom, framelag

    • Poor
      1
    • Tolerable
      1
    • Good
      16
    • Excellent
      16
    • Near Perfect
      4
  2. 2. Appearance: Visual pleasure, lighting, visual style, deduct bad texturing etc.

    • Poor
      0
    • Tolerable
      0
    • Good
      2
    • Excellent
      19
    • Near Perfect
      17
  3. 3. Story & Text: Story. Text. Briefing. Graphic storytelling

    • Poor
      0
    • Tolerable
      0
    • Good
      9
    • Excellent
      12
    • Near Perfect
      17


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I think I'm stuck. How do I get inside the second house?

That's the exterior of the house you had been inside of. You're on the right track:

 

What you need to do here is to complete the first objective, for which you find a strong clue in the readable 'Johan's Plotting'.

Take a close look at the soil along the wall within the fenced herb garden. In the most recent version there's a small ray of moonlight on the exact location.

.

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Not sure if others have noted this. I never get the conversation outside the attic door. I've seen an LP of the level that had it. Not sure if its been removed or a bug.

I have an eclectic YouTube channel making videos on a variety of games. Come and have look here:

https://www.youtube.com/c/NeonsStyleHD

 

Dark Mod Missions: Briarwood Manor - available here or in game

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/18980-fan-mission-briarwood-manor-by-neonsstyle-first-mission-6082017-update-16/

 

 

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Is the newest version on the missions list?

 

No, I've just downloaded the mission ingame and saw that it's an old version.

 

 

Rereading gnartsch's post:

 

The 'internalName' has been changed to "river1_1", which is why this does not show up as an update, but as a new mission.

The internal downloader simply can't tell that this is related in any way to the already downloaded mission "river".

If only the version had been updated to 2, then it would have shown up as an update just fine.

 

After some investigation, it appears there's a multitude of ways to communicate to the ingame downloader that a mission has been updated:

- I've been able to trigger the downloader to offer me an update by lowering the number of Alberic's Curse from alberic3.pk4 to alberic2.pk4

 

- Confirming gnartsch's quote, the version number must be an integer. If I reduce penny2_1.pk4 to penny2.pk4, then the downloader returns a duplicate mission entry in the list. This was likely what happened when this mission was renamed to river1_1.pk4

 

- On the other hand, The Siege Shop is still called siegeshop.pk4 even though it's on version 4. It appears to use darkmod.txt and/or readme.txt to convey its version number, but nothing happened when I reduced these numbers. (Both inside the .pk4 as well as in the extracted .txt's). Modifying darkmod.txt does seem to be an offical way to signal an update.

 

 

I believe I've deduced enough now to reliably update the mission (see points 1 and 2), but am now unclear on the role of darkmod.txt and/or readme.txt (see point 3). Does someone have insight into the updating process? In any case, repackaging the mission will be an opportunity to look at the problem with the conversation. Until then, the Dropbox link has the most up to date version.

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I didn't get the door conversation in my LP at first either. The one guy walked up to the guy at the door and said his first line, then got no response and walked off again. I believe it was because the guy at the door was on first alert (or whatever TDM calls it), as he settled down shortly afterwards. I replayed that part in my next video, being careful not to cause any alerts, and the convo worked then. It also worked the first time I played off-camera with an earlier version.

Edited by FenPhoenix
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If we're doing patches still, I think there needs to be a change.

I'll be direct; the metal floor and the overly bright lights are too much, especially when the "shorter" route is through the brightly lit storage area.

Too crowded, too bright, too loud surfaces, needs some form of relief, even with maximum noisemakers and moss arrows I can't budget for the last encounter well enough. I'm not about to make suggestions, but I genuinely think if you want this to be something the player can stealth score 0, all loot and read all the notes, the bottom level needs work.

I like to record difficult stealth games, and right now you wonderful people are the only ones delivering on that front.

Click here for the crappy channel where that happens.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Definitely holds up, I'm curious how this ties into A Step Too Far, if at all.

 

Recommendation I have to make, it basically ends up being impossible to read the book in the navigator's room unless I fire off a noisemaker, and this is to say the least a dangerous proposition with very little in terms of predictability (mostly due to how claustrophobic the environment is and how close other NPC's are), so I'd recommend adding loot the room to give the player a reward other than a redundant readable (a telescope wouldn't be too surprising), make the AI walk over to the map and study it for a moment every once in a while, or something to ensure my strategy isn't "fire noisemaker, rush to the light to turn it off, read in a hurry, look in chest with nothing in it and wait while anywhere between 1-8 AI cool down and become permanently more cautious just so I can read a book he wrote."

Feel like I might be admitting to too much of a meta here, but still, as it stands there's a high risk room for no reward off the beaten path.

 

Other than that, I can safely say this is a near perfect level.

Edited by V-Man339
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I like to record difficult stealth games, and right now you wonderful people are the only ones delivering on that front.

Click here for the crappy channel where that happens.

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I got bored, so I got round to trying out the latest version. Thanks for now making it possible to explore the bilge deck without knocking out anyone. I'll see if I can make my playthroughs before 2.05 comes around.

 

PS. Great, played Invernesse on Expert and I find that the light at the entrance to the jail is on, meaning I have to knock out the jailer. Oh well...

Edited by Cambridge Spy

"Let me guess - little blue men with three heads stole your sweetroll?"

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Played version 3 and like how the early version i betatested evolved to the experience it is now. Story, gameplay, visuals, and all that new content made it an unexpectedly pleasing - and long - "replay". It is a good multimission, that does not feel too easy when going on a knockout spree on the 3rd difficulty.

 

I encountered only one bug:

In the church level the game froze when shouldering any body. I repeated that with different bodies multiple times and it froze each time. Other levels where not affected by this bug.

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  • 1 month later...

Wow, this has been impressive, not quite finished but am in the church level and had the same thing happen as Abusimplea had happen - mission froze upon trying to shoulder a body. Other than that everything has gone great so far. Will finish up later. Thanks for your hard work.

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  • 2 months later...

Dragofer: you are an Artist! :-)

 

I really enjoyed your work here, it's incredible.

 

The best campaign so far, top of the top, for me.

 

I only do not liked the end, but really you made a narrative WORLD, not only a simple FM.

 

My congratulation and really really thank you for this creative jam :-)

 

I hope you'll do more FM in the future.

Edited by Ladro
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  • 4 weeks later...

Just love that cover image Dragofer. It reminds me so much of the Famous Five books by Enid Blyton when I was a kid lol.

I have an eclectic YouTube channel making videos on a variety of games. Come and have look here:

https://www.youtube.com/c/NeonsStyleHD

 

Dark Mod Missions: Briarwood Manor - available here or in game

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/18980-fan-mission-briarwood-manor-by-neonsstyle-first-mission-6082017-update-16/

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

Thank you very much, I’m glad you found it to your liking.

Played version 3 and like how the early version i betatested evolved to the experience it is now.


I actually still have the original form of the mission that was intended for the 2015 Halloween contest, interesting you should mention that. Figured I’d make it available here, under the name:


Tales of the Riverside

 

HF8SQkhl.jpg

The concept of this mission is somewhat different from Down by the Riverside. They both have the same initial idea, but they take it in different directions (as suggested by this particular image). There are also other major differences, such as a different starting ship and a more low-key story.

 

Importantly, this had just one round of beta testing before I decided to radically change everything, so it may be a bumpy ride.

It did cross my mind to refine this mission – I was a less experienced mapper in 2015, and I felt that the speedbuild contest restricted its potential. Well, that was what I already did, with the result of Down by the Riverside. From here on I'll follow Melan's advice to focus on new works instead of reworking the old.

So I’m putting this out here as an unofficial release of the original contest mission, in its current form, without being intended for TDM's mission list. Maybe it’ll be an interesting case study to see how a mission develops over time?


Very short walkthrough

How do I unlock the silver lockbox in the study?

There’s a key in one of the books in the same room.



What do I do after the clock has tolled midnight?

Go outside and enter the basement that’s now accessible, search the small room thoroughly for scrolls.



How do I get rid of the apparition?

Take the lifeless skeletons of the husband from the small room in the basement and of the wife in the top floor study and lay them on the bed in the master bedroom.

 



Download
Google Drive
The download button is on the top right, save the file in the darkmod/fms folder.

Edited by Dragofer
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  • 2 months later...

Trying to carry the guard patrolling outside the house in the second phial dream seems to crash my game at times.

Edit: Progressed a bit further into the church. The guy who keeps walking around and sitting up and down in the first floor also crashed the game when I tried to carry him after blackjack.

Edited by Veeall
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  • 7 months later...

Just recently downloaded the Dark Mod, so I'm running 2.5

 

Trying to load the mission of the ship stuck in the ice crashes to the desktop right at the end of the load process with this error message:

"malloc failure for 134217736"

same message every time

 

Running Windows XP with Service Pack 3.

 

The earlier episodes of this mission ran and loaded just fine.

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Just recently downloaded the Dark Mod, so I'm running 2.5

 

Trying to load the mission of the ship stuck in the ice crashes to the desktop right at the end of the load process with this error message:

"malloc failure for 134217736"

same message every time

 

Running Windows XP with Service Pack 3.

 

The earlier episodes of this mission ran and loaded just fine.

 

It's using too much RAM.

 

Try disabling Post Process shading and using image downsizing:

 

http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Performance_Tweaks#Image_downsizing

 

Most folks find that downsizing bump (normal maps) produces the least amount of visual reduction.

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

http://www.indiedb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

 

(Yeah, shameless promotion... but traffic is traffic folks...)

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Just recently downloaded the Dark Mod, so I'm running 2.5

 

Trying to load the mission of the ship stuck in the ice crashes to the desktop right at the end of the load process with this error message:

"malloc failure for 134217736"

same message every time

 

Running Windows XP with Service Pack 3.

 

The earlier episodes of this mission ran and loaded just fine.

 

This sounds similar to a problem encountered in beta-testing another mission recently (Seeds of Lodestar). A possible workaround might be to start a new mission before loading the save (in this case, a save from inbetween missions). What has also worked was using the 64-bit client instead of the default one, found at the bottom of the darkmod folder.

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  • 1 month later...

[spoilerS] At the very very end of the mission when you finally get the coffin on the desk open and read the book and the house starts burning is there another way to beat the level other than circling around the skeleton and jumping over the banister or is that the intended ending? Just trying to figure out if maybe there is another more "correct" ending to the mission. Also, sorry but I'm new to the forum and haven't been told yet how to put messages behind a spoiler button.

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At the very very end of the mission when you finally get the coffin on the desk open and read the book and the house starts burning is there another way to beat the level other than circling around the skeleton and jumping over the banister or is that the intended ending? Just trying to figure out if maybe there is another more "correct" ending to the mission. Also, sorry but I'm new to the forum and haven't been told yet how to put messages behind a spoiler button.

 

 

That is indeed the correct ending. I did have a couple drafts for the ending, one of them being finding a way into the tunnel again and leading you elsewhere, but I ended up choosing the one with the banister. Alternative endings or scenarios are actually quite a neat feature, I'll be keeping that in mind.

 

Spoilers can be done by putting (spoiler) before and (/spoiler) after your text, but use square brackets.

Edited by Dragofer
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