Fan Mission: The Heart of Saint Mattis by joebarnin (2019/09/10)

[darksilence]

Another excellent mission. Thanks for creating it!

I found the puzzles rewarding, and the story very well-written and enjoyable, just like in all of your missions. The ambient music/atmosphere is perfect, and the interior of the cathedral truly breathtaking.

I hope you make more missions in the future!

[MirceaKitsune]

What a nice FM! Very happy to have gotten around to playing this. Easy in terms of enemies, hard in terms of figuring out what you need to do (I needed the instructions for half of things). I can't believe this is only your second FM... should make sure I checked out the first one in that case: I see lots of talented creators who get everything right from their earliest try!

In terms of bugs I can't find much to report. It's mainly a few doors clipping through world geometry, very minor and nothing serious enough to be worth noting. I only found one issue that's worth bringing up...

Spoiler

 

The priest will often get stuck in front of this door, repeatedly opening and closing it only to go back and forth through it. I only caught him become unstuck once, beyond that he's been standing in that spot for the entirety of the FM. Toward the end he moved to the door in the opposite direction, where he didn't even go through any more just sit in front of the open door shaking. Perhaps an outdated dmap... if not maybe the engine doesn't like a little collision in the door.

 

Otherwise I really...

Spoiler

Loved the unexpected creepiness when you steal the heart and everything goes red and everyone becomes a skeleton. Must have taken a lot of work to script every single light and AI like that, even making the process reversible! That's the sort of thing I love to be surprised by in a FM

At that stage I expected something else to happen. It would have been really cool if it did, though it seems not:

Spoiler

I thought Neimath was going to come back to life. That's because one of the readables said something about "after you cleanse the heart all souls will return to how they were at dawn". He looks like he was freshly killed however, possibly in the same day... I thus imagined the player revived him by stealing then cleansing the heart. That would have been EPIC when you think about it, plus another joyful thing the player could have been given the option of doing.

At some point I thought I was right, when I saw an acolyte walk in an area I haven't seen him before. But when I went back to the underground crypt I could still see his dead body between the skeletons, so it was probably someone else.

 

[joebarnin]

@MirceaKitsuneThanks for your comments - I'm glad you liked the mission.  Next time I load it I'll take a look and see if I can see what's wrong with the Priest. As for

Spoiler

Neimath, I think he's a goner. He's been dead a day or two; long enough to be noticed missing. Nice idea though - it would have been nice to be able to save him. Oh well...

 

[Gerberox]

Very good story, thanks. I liked the fact the mission wasn't a breeze, I really needed to investigate things and read everything thoroughly.

Some sounds are extremely loud compared to the rest. For example the starting dialog, the woman, Clayton's whistling.

The cemetery is too bright in general.

Spoiler

Opening the painting case with the books don't require such a detailed instructions. There are only 6 combinations. Mentioning the 3 books would be enough.

 

[datiswous]

I cannot get get further with the mission. I tried the hints, still didn't help me. I cannot see what the switch does.

This is how far I got:

[joebarnin]

Spoiler

Down in the living quarters of the cathedral, there's a small builder statue on a table in an alcove. This opens a secret door in a closet in the big dining room. Grab everything behind that secret door, and read the book. That should progress you.

 

[datiswous]

On 3/25/2023 at 4:38 PM, joebarnin said:

  Hide contents

Down in the living quarters of the cathedral, there's a small builder statue on a table in an alcove. This opens a secret door in a closet in the big dining room. Grab everything behind that secret door, and read the book. That should progress you.

 

Hi can you tell me:

Spoiler

Which of the 6 closets it is? I have activated the statue switch, but (afaik) it opens nothing in the 6 closets in the dining room. So I don't know what you mean..

 

[datiswous]

On 3/25/2023 at 4:38 PM, joebarnin said:

  Reveal hidden contents

Down in the living quarters of the cathedral, there's a small builder statue on a table in an alcove. This opens a secret door in a closet in the big dining room. Grab everything behind that secret door, and read the book. That should progress you.

 

Spoiler

I figured it out. The secret door is not in a closet, but in a separate room connected to the dining room.

Edited March 27, 2023 by datiswous

[joebarnin]

Perhaps this is simply a matter of how we define "closet". The six items in the dining room, I would call them "cabinets". To me, a closet is a small room for storage, either just shelves, or walk-in. The room in question is 9x9 feet, perhaps a bit large for a closet. I'll change the hint to say "small room", to be clear.

[datiswous]

Well I finished the mission.

@joebarnin Here's the subtitles. I only tested the intro at the beginning of guards talking (this contains both inline and an srt file), which worked. But the rest should also work, because it has the same formatting.

subtitles_heartstmattis.7z

Edited March 28, 2023 by datiswous

[datiswous]

Pretty good medium sized mission with interesting story. I found it too difficult though, so I got stuck. Good that you have a hints section. But maybe it's an idea to give more in-mission clues for lower difficulties (although I wasn't playing on easy)?

I found some "issues" that I post in screenshots later, but I found especially that the Ambient light in full darkness seemed too bright?

Btw.

Spoiler

Is it normal that the abient light is not in the middle of the map? Maybe that doesn't matter, but I found that a bit odd. If there's a good reason, then that's interesting.

Maybe also there's a lack of specular in some of the textures?

Also this still has ambiant light related code in the material, which is overriding what the engine currently does? Don't know if that would matter.

Btw. There's lots of redundant and double files in the pk4. especially in the textures, dds, maps and guis folders. So if you would make an update in the future, you could look into this aswell.

Edited March 27, 2023 by datiswous

[datiswous]

Here some screenshots with comments:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1oUM0I1pux-Zd-Ywj4p7egwDB7hiSBX-e?usp=sharing