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Hidden Hands: Vitalic Fever 20/07/2019


JackFarmer

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13 hours ago, JackFarmer said:

@Jehauri:

 

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What difficulty level are you playing? The trapdoor might be useful if you have to take out all three spiders. If you have already cleared the pest control objective, than you do not have to worry about the trapdoor anymore as it does not fulfil any other purpose (there are three other possibilities to take out spiders, two with collectable resources and one with another "switch".)

Otherwise I am afraid I have no solution for your problem. :(

 

 

Spoiler

I'm playing hardest difficulty, and I was trying to use it to take out the spiders, but when it opened under them they just hovered in midair, and after doing this several times I was able to gradually jitter them downward and into the pit, though there seemed to be a weird piece of metal hovering over the middle at the end of it. I probably should have saved right there, but I wanted to make sure I could still actually get into the pit in case there was something down there, and fell off the ladder and died.

If the only purpose of the pit is to kill the spiders, maybe I can find another way. I assume you're referring to the flame jet elsewhere in the basement, but I can't get the spiders to walk in that particular area, whether it's on or off- it's like there's an invisible crate there that they avoid. At this point I'm thinking of taking them all out with a gas arrow, then dragging them to the flame if possible (I don't remember if you can pick up spider bodies), or drowning them outside, or shooting them with an arrow (they take FOUR arrows each when awake, which I don't have, but maybe when they're knocked out it would be less?)

In any case, I mostly needed confirmation that I'm not missing anything vital in the pit, so thanks!

 

UPDATE: Okay, this is weird. I took them out with a gas arrow, and the objective immediately succeeded with no further action needed. I tried this before and it didn't work, I assumed because they were just unconscious and not dead.

 

 

So after that I was able to finish the mission, and I enjoyed it a lot! I had a few minor problems with it:

Spoiler

Aside from the difficulties with the trap door, I'm not sure why the objective named the spiders as "spidermen", that was just confusing. I was actually saving my arrows for a while because I thought that some actual spider-human hybrids were going to show up later. Also, there were a few weird inconsistencies- why can I put out most candles, but not the ones in the Builder area, or a few on shelves in corners of the bathrooms? Why can I not open that one chest in the room with the trap door in the ceiling? I also got stuck a couple times and had to reload, once on that same chest (just stepping towards it froze me in place and I couldn't move) and once in the dumpster where you toss Gilbert.

But for the most part it was great. I particularly liked

Spoiler

that you had a few non-traditional puzzles- starting without the spyglass or lantern and having to find them, then having to use them to get past specific areas later, finding Applefinger's gems using clues, that sort of thing. Having to use the spyglass to see a code through the window was great- such a simple setup, but I don't remember seeing that done before, and I felt really satisfied when the solution suddenly clicked in my head. Same with the moment I suddenly realized how I was going to make sure Gilbert was out of the way. The level made me think, but wasn't so frustrating that I had to look at any hints, so it was just right. I also loved the design of Applefinger's room, with the low bed and the leafy wallpaper to make it as "outdoorsy" as possible.

 

Edited by Jehauri
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Spoiler

Another tester and I voted to keep it as "spidermen" It was initially a translation error, but we felt it had pagan vibe, and if you played HHI, story-wise you may remember Halfrid's girlfriend(who is pagan) kept spiders as pets. Sorry if it confused you!

 

As my father used to say, "A grenade a day, keeps the enemy at bay!"

My one FM so far: Paying the Bills: 0 - Moving Day

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On 9/15/2019 at 9:50 AM, JackFarmer said:

Hello Tarhiel,

 

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"cannot breath" is actually the first gem. I checked the map and the name of the gem is correct. What other gem locations did you discover as well?

"Gilbert's" fund: Please have a closer look at the area below the large picture...

 

 

Spoiler

I have discovered the pond outside, the freezer and the broken robot.

Hm, I will have a look then. If you mean that the picture is frobabble and opens secret entrance to the chapel, that I know.

 

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On 9/17/2019 at 10:02 PM, Tarhiel said:
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I have discovered the pond outside, the freezer and the broken robot.

Hm, I will have a look then. If you mean that the picture is frobabble and opens secret entrance to the chapel, that I know.

 

The last gem is there, where you hear a decorative item playing sounds because of the wind...

 

 

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On 9/15/2019 at 9:03 PM, Jehauri said:

 

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- why can I put out most candles, but not the ones in the Builder area?

 

You can put them out;  just target a water arrow at the relevant location on the ceiling; the glass casings of the candles do not have covers on top...

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On a personal note:

After watching a gameplay video and reading the experiences from the beta testers and other players here I am quite surprised.

I had expected, that only the methods work that I had "arranged" for the player to solve certain problems.

However,

Seeing/reading that players used architecture differently to reach areas,  arranged objects to create ramps (I never found out how one player did that), transported candles into dark areas  with tricks (I did not even come up with the idea of doing this) and led spiders with arrow and other movements into the traps (thought the gas arrow would be used for something different) is really a great thing.

Last week I read in a German retro player magazine, that a few years back some players of the "Prey" demo were able to leave the demo level due to unexpected usage/combination of weapons. The developers were very proud and stated that is what they meant when talking about that the player "becomes the director of his own movie".

I can fully agree with this! :)

Jack

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On 9/22/2019 at 2:03 PM, MVT said:

I am still trying to steal Brother Gilbert's funds.  I have taken appropriate action as per your previous post.  

  Reveal hidden contents

Brother Gilbert is in the trash to be picked up by midnight

  However, the objective is not checked off.

Here's a possibility:

As I recall, there are two dumpsters. You have to put him in the one by the stables. Putting him in the other one won't work.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 8/10/2019 at 4:08 PM, Marbrien said:

I have the access code for the number lock that protects the metal door to the Hammerite area upstairs, and it works. But the same code appears to do nothing when used on the number lock that protects the glass doors near a security camera in the basement.  What am I doing wrong please?

OK, I have just found the readable which gives the correct (and different) code for those doors.

 

Can you tell me where those notes may be? I'm at the metal door & I really wanna get in. Been trying to find my way in for hours...

Anyone know exactly where the

Spoiler

spider grave

is?

(Not on my machine, In Europé, but it works excellent )

My hobby built desktop is: XFX Play Hard-nVidia nForce 790i Ultra SLI

Onboard is:

CPU: Intel Socket 775

VGA: nVidia GeForce EVGA GTX-260

RAM: DDRIII 16Gb

HDD: 2 Tb

OS: 64bit Win 8.1

All service packs and latest drivers installed.

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Hints

1. The code for the metal door on the top floor is visible through the inner window on the same floor. To read it, you must find at first the spyglass. If you examine the front of the building, you should be able to indentify a room in which you most likely should be able to find a spyglass.

2. In the garage there is a guard sleeping on a chair. You should examine this area...

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On 10/12/2019 at 5:38 PM, JackFarmer said:

Hints

 

  Hide contents

 

1. The code for the metal door on the top floor is visible through the inner window on the same floor. To read it, you must find at first the spyglass. If you examine the front of the building, you should be able to indentify a room in which you most likely should be able to find a spyglass.

2. In the garage there is a guard sleeping on a chair. You should examine this area...

 

 

Well that sucks! Got the spyglass and code, got the hatch open, but the key is not frobbable, so I can't open the door! Glitch?

(Not on my machine, In Europé, but it works excellent )

My hobby built desktop is: XFX Play Hard-nVidia nForce 790i Ultra SLI

Onboard is:

CPU: Intel Socket 775

VGA: nVidia GeForce EVGA GTX-260

RAM: DDRIII 16Gb

HDD: 2 Tb

OS: 64bit Win 8.1

All service packs and latest drivers installed.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 10/14/2019 at 9:31 AM, acolyte6 said:

Well that sucks! Got the spyglass and code, got the hatch open, but the key is not frobbable, so I can't open the door! Glitch?

I am afraid you are right as you are the only who has reported that until now.  Can you revert to an earlier save game and try again?

Edited by JackFarmer
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  • 4 weeks later...

Documentation for the Hidden Hands series and this mission added to the wiki.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Pretty good FM overall. I especially appreciated the more modern elements to it, you used a nice mixture of themes and styles here.

The only thing that was a personal annoyance is the presence of a mandatory objective involving killing the spiders: I have a script that removes them from all maps by default, due to having arachnophobia which makes missions with giant spiders very hard to play. I had to temporarily disable it to be able to complete the mission. Due to that I only shot them from a distance, then had to noclip through the basement area instead of doing the area normally. Still loved the FM... it's just a personal thing that made it harder to play.

Spoiler

The presence of security cameras was a very pleasant surprise! It brought me back to the DeusEx games: That's when I had to sneak around the room to dodge their field of vision as they were rotating. First time I could experience that in The Dark Mod and it brought a very nice feeling! I really wish they could be included in vanilla TDM so more mission creators could use them... sadly the majority will likely feel they're too modern for the steampunk atmosphere, even though I never felt they broke the theme for me.

 

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On 12/10/2019 at 4:14 PM, MirceaKitsune said:

Pretty good FM overall. I especially appreciated the more modern elements to it, you used a nice mixture of themes and styles here.

The only thing that was a personal annoyance is the presence of a mandatory objective involving killing the spiders: I have a script that removes them from all maps by default, due to having arachnophobia which makes missions with giant spiders very hard to play. I had to temporarily disable it to be able to complete the mission. Due to that I only shot them from a distance, then had to noclip through the basement area instead of doing the area normally. Still loved the FM... it's just a personal thing that made it harder to play.

  Reveal hidden contents

The presence of security cameras was a very pleasant surprise! It brought me back to the DeusEx games: That's when I had to sneak around the room to dodge their field of vision as they were rotating. First time I could experience that in The Dark Mod and it brought a very nice feeling! I really wish they could be included in vanilla TDM so more mission creators could use them... sadly the majority will likely feel they're too modern for the steampunk atmosphere, even though I never felt they broke the theme for me.

 

I am not sure if I understand correctly, the camera has been developed by grayman and Obsttorte (I think, not sure about the modeller though) and  it is included with 2.07.

Anyway, thank you for playing and glad that you liked it. HH: TLC will definitely not include spiders, that should give you a much easier ride then. :)

Edited by JackFarmer
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2 hours ago, JackFarmer said:

I am not sure if I understand correctly, the camera has been developed by grayman and Obsttorte (I think, not sure about the modeller though) and  it is included with 2.07.

Anyway, thank you for playing and glad that you liked it. HH: TLC will definitely not include spiders, that should give you a much easier ride then. :)

Sweet! I didn't know that, was sure it's a custom asset as I never saw it elsewhere. I love how TDM and those FM's are evolving, great work everyone ?

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  • 2 weeks later...

Love this mission, but I've found a bug.  Once I'm on the first floor, if I open certain doors I get an error message that says ' Multiple instances of Halfrid Quill"  or something like that.  Then game crashes to the Main Menu.

 

Too bad.  This is my favourite kind of mission.  Some sneaking, some challenges, some stealing, no killing. Not too much equipment.  

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10 hours ago, Hagatha said:

Love this mission, but I've found a bug.  Once I'm on the first floor, if I open certain doors I get an error message that says ' Multiple instances of Halfrid Quill"  or something like that.  Then game crashes to the Main Menu.

 

Too bad.  This is my favourite kind of mission.  Some sneaking, some challenges, some stealing, no killing. Not too much equipment.  

I am afraid you are the very first to report this problem.

The mission includes a custom script that allows the character Halfrid to "switch off" the appearance of the quill during his patrol. Have you been able to finish the mission?

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10 hours ago, JackFarmer said:

I am afraid you are the very first to report this problem.

The mission includes a custom script that allows the character Halfrid to "switch off" the appearance of the quill during his patrol. Have you been able to finish the mission?

Jack - I took a quick look at your map/script. It looks like somehow the GiveQuill script is getting called twice in a row (without RemoveQuill getting called between). I couldn't figure out how that can happen, but there must be some way that it does. Here's a workaround: modify your scripts to remove the quill in GiveQuill, just in case it already exists. Also, specify a global variable so that you don't have to name the entity. E.g.:

entity quill;

void GiveQuill()
{
    sys.println("Give Quill");
    // remove quill in case it already exists
    quill.remove();
    // create quill and attach it to Halfrid's right hand
    quill = sys.spawn("atdm:moveable_quill_prop");
    $Halfrid.attachToPos(quill,"hand_r","HalfridQuill");
}

void RemoveQuill()
{
    sys.println("Remove Quill");
    quill.remove();
}

That would avoid the problem that Hagatha is running into. I haven't done much testing on this technique, so it's just an idea.

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On 12/22/2019 at 8:48 PM, joebarnin said:

Jack - I took a quick look at your map/script. It looks like somehow the GiveQuill script is getting called twice in a row (without RemoveQuill getting called between). I couldn't figure out how that can happen, but there must be some way that it does. Here's a workaround: modify your scripts to remove the quill in GiveQuill, just in case it already exists. Also, specify a global variable so that you don't have to name the entity. E.g.:


entity quill;

void GiveQuill()
{
    sys.println("Give Quill");
    // remove quill in case it already exists
    quill.remove();
    // create quill and attach it to Halfrid's right hand
    quill = sys.spawn("atdm:moveable_quill_prop");
    $Halfrid.attachToPos(quill,"hand_r","HalfridQuill");
}

void RemoveQuill()
{
    sys.println("Remove Quill");
    quill.remove();
}

That would avoid the problem that Hagatha is running into. I haven't done much testing on this technique, so it's just an idea.

@joebarnin

Hello JB,

 

I will get back to you asap.

 

Thank you for your help.l

 

I  will get back to you on that issue via PM. Thank you for your help !

Jack

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Great mission!

I liked that the mission took place in rather compact area. Amount of running around wasn't that big and distances were small. The mission itself was long, it took me 2 h 45 minutes to finish. I had troubles in few occasions and and it took me quite a long time to figure out how to proceed. I also 99 % ghosted it which makes it always a bit slower.

Spoiler

After playing for a while got stuck. Hadn't found either of the numeric codes for locks, nor found the key that was carried by the guy reading the book in the candle light outside. I also somehow missed the entrance to cellar. Missed one of the windows totally until like fifth time going around the mansion and trying out all of them one by one...

All in all the puzzles were good and with bit more patience I could have solved them myself without having the need to use walkthoughs/tips.

Spoiler

I found the rope arrow from attic right in the end of mission (stumbled across in youtube walkthrough video) so wasn't able to use it for anything real. Might come handy if I play the mission again some day.

I had few glitches/jams. I tried to kill spiders by opening the hatch but they never dropped there, just floated in the air. Something wrong there.

I also got stuck few times. Not sure if it is a habit of reporting these incidents but I'll anyways do it here.

1) Garbage dumpster. I jumped inside and got stuck every time.

Spoiler

The one where you are supposed to take of of the bad guys

2) One of the rooms in 2 or 3 floor. I think it was some sort of quarter for soldiers. I jumped on the upper bed, opened window and tried to go outside. Got stuck between window/bed

3) The rock right to the dumpster mentioned earlier. I was just running over the rock and got stuck. Didn't try it again so not sure if it happens every time.

stuck3.png

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2 hours ago, cavador_8 said:

Where is the key that opens the door on the second floor that has a telescope on the balcony? Without a rope arrow, I believe that's the only way to reach the very top floor? I have no idea either what the code is to that locked door at the top of the stairs.

Hint:

 

Go to the highest floor (the floor with the camer). There is a window to the outside that might be usable to reach a certain area....

Edited by JackFarmer
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