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FM: Rake Off (19 06 2011)


Jesps

  

52 members have voted

  1. 1. Seasonal Theme

    • No Season
    • Barely Defined
      0
    • Season is Clear
    • Season is Captured Well
    • Near Perfect
  2. 2. Gameplay: Enjoyment. Fun duration. Smooth flow, ect. Versus Bugs. Frustration, Boredom, framelag?

  3. 3. Aesthetics: Visual pleasure, lighting, visual style. Audio, use mood. Storytelling and consistency?

    • One Star
      0
    • Two Stars
      0
    • Three Stars
    • Four Stars
    • Five Stars


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post-2221-13084926302_thumb.jpg

 

My map for the seasons contest. This small/medium sized map is the second in the Selis Woderose series. Flakebridge Monastery being the first.

 

Briefing:

Flakebridge brought me a fine haul. It didn't last long however. I have aqured a treasure map that supposedly leads to the treasure of 'Francis Rake'. Apparently the treasure is hidden somewhere in the Rake family's castle located on an island in Lake Coulter. The castle is now in the possession of Rake's grandson, Francis Rake III.

 

Download links:

https://rapidshare.c...28/rake_off.pk4

http://www.mediafire...i0/rake_off.pk4

http://www.bloodgate.com/fms/rake_off.pk4 (thanks to Tels)

http://www.mindplaces.com/darkmod/fmdetails.php?id=43 (thanks to Fidcal)

 

A big 'thank you' goes out to the people who made this possible: My beta testers for rigourus testing, the team for making the mod, and the forum community for helping and inspiring me.

 

Enjoy!

 

Screen shots:

 

 

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post-2221-130849263257_thumb.jpg

post-2221-130849263582_thumb.jpg

post-2221-130849263863_thumb.jpg

 

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Congrats for the release!

 

Excellent timing, it is raining outside and I was just wondering what to do next.

 

Enjoying an excellent FM sounds like a good plan. Thank you!

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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I think I'll wait for this to come out on the auto-downloader while I beta Spring's mission... looking forward to it though, enjoyed Flakebridge!

Intel Sandy Bridge i7 2600K @ 3.4ghz stock clocks
8gb Kingston 1600mhz CL8 XMP RAM stock frequency
Sapphire Radeon HD7870 2GB FLeX GHz Edition @ stock @ 1920x1080

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Completed it.

 

 

Here's my screenie:

8211437.png

 

My mission was literally rake off. I took the voluntary challenge of iron man, I didn't save at all. The heist went smoothly until I met the lord rake himself. I switched off the lights and proceeded to loot the table in front of him, but he saw me and in panic I sticked him dead with my sword. Facestab. A heist gone bad I suppose. I felt a bit guilty but I suppose he was finished anyways with money affairs going so poorly...

 

Review:

What a fun mission. It kept me enchanted all through the flow of the mission. The level geometry was simple, elegant and functional. Some locations were extraordinarily beautiful. Then there were a bit empty corridors, like the one going to the garden. They could've used something extra.

 

There were nothing I didn't like about this mission. The only thing I could complain a bit was that the guard patrols could have been more imaginative. A few conversations and the mission would have had entire new layer of immersion. But all in all, great work.

 

The flag puzzle was fun, but maybe a bit too easy. Suggestion: next time let the puzzle pieces be inventory objects, which must be used into the correct slots. The different slots would highlight so the player has an accurate feel for which slot he's gonna place the slab. But then the added difficulty: trying to put the slab in an incorrect position would reward the player with a burst of poison gas or a hail of arrows from an unseen mechanism. Now the puzzle was just crawling over the puzzle dragging the slab and suddenly it falls in the right position. Since there wasn't any big danger and the puzzle was simple, it didn't feel very rewarding to crack the puzzle.

 

Oh, and the readables maybe should be moveable. It was tedious to read them and not be able to grab them and go to a safe location to examine them.

 

Seasonal theme:

Season was captured well. I liked the way winter came in all the locations with broken windows and snow coming in. I liked your little puzzle in the bedroom too. Really clever!wub.gif

 

Gameplay:

Four stars. Very well done. I had a heap of fun. The difficulty could have been a bit more higher. I didn't use much equipment and the only time I got busted was because I was foolish.

 

Aesthetics:

Four stars. The mission looks good and works well. Some corridors could have had more spice, but on the other hand the beauty-locations counter-weight the empty corridors.

 

 

 

Yep, Jesps is gonna get many new enrollments to his fan club through this mission. Keep up the good work!

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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Congrats to the release! Mirrored here: http://www.bloodgate.com/fms/rake_off.pk4

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

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Man!

 

*the boat

*the cellars with the stairs

*the green-ish sky

*the chasm

 

 

This map reminds me the Unreal atmosphere/level design, and it's a good thing! Very good feeling! :D

Edited by lowenz

Task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen but to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everybody see. - E.S.

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@ Thiefette,

 

Hint - think, how do you melt something made of frozen h2o..?

 

 

I already tried a lit candle hmm will try again.

 

Thanks will let you know.

 

 

Tried again resulting in finding the sweet spot and my way in. Now just need to get back then will write more. Thanks Bikerdude.

Edited by Thiefette
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Good mission. Got 100% loot on my first try, which is a first for me.

 

 

 

The bleak aspect of the castle with empty corridors, decrepit walls, collapsing ceilings and broken tiles felt weird to me at first but quickly made sense after finding a few readables. I actually liked it, though a bit more detail wouldn't have hurt.

There may have been a lack of tension in a few places but overall the sneaking was enjoyable. I thought the mission was great for a blackjack-happy player, it felt like going back to my early days of TMA.

I agree with Sotha about the puzzle, it was a good idea but too easy to solve.

 

Finally, the season was of course absolutely clear, but I didn't really find it to be a theme. Maybe I missed a few readables, but I would have enjoyed some more backstory about how hard that winter was hitting the castle and its inhabitants, with maybe an additional related quest.

 

 

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Thanks!

 

Cool mission. I just completed it for the first time. My experience follows.

 

 

I liked the puzzle in the basement. It seems like a lot of Thief FMs had these very complex/hard to solve puzzles, but yours is just right... not too hard or complex.

I did think the mission was a bit dark, but that may be because I'm playing in an apartment with SIX windows and during the day time. I'll have to check it out again during the night time; I was planning to wait, but couldn't resist! :)

 

Also, cool usage of outside passages between areas of the castle.

 

 

Two things are for sure, this has been a great contest and Garrett would hate my apartment!

--- War does not decide who is right, war decides who is left.

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Most enjoyable way to spend part of the day Jesps! I definately got that it was

 

 

winter. Great job on the castle with the snow falling through broken windows and roofs. Loved the outside space. Enjoyed the egg hunt - got all of them. I played on hard, found all the loot(because I must:laugh: ) and got a stealth score of 0 (I have lots of patience) Your map felt huge with lots of places to look for stuff - I like that. As noted earlier I had some difficulty finding the sweet spot to open the secret room (that was clever) but thanks to Bikerdude I knew I was on the right track and just kept at it until I got it.

 

 

 

Keep up the great work. Look forward to more from you and good luck in the contest.

Edited by Thiefette
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This mission is fantastic! The challenge level is perfect, and the level design is so consistent.

 

I loved how just following my instinct on which path was better at the time, I ended up finding the treasure right next to the front door, and a switch to turn off the lights that made this door 'unappealing'. Perfect!

 

 

Five stars to gameplay.

 

By the way, the fog under the bridge doesn't look that good. Fogs can help bring the environment to life, but they are tricky! they only show up when there's light, in the case of a pitch black night we wouldn't see squat down that bridge. I've found this picture with google, that shows up what I mean: (spoilered so it doesn't occupy space on the screen)

 

 

fogNIGHT.JPG

 

 

The fog is everywhere, but we only see it near lights. What would make it look really gorgeous in your map is if you didn't use a black sky (full moon, dusk etc) then it would have the same color and value of the ambient light, to look something like this:

 

 

_20.jpg

 

 

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Sorry, I thought for the most part that the gameplay was a little dull. Not enough challenge in avoiding sentries, or puzzles. I managed to find all the loot in this mission without breaking my back, but missed 2 eggs, and didn't have the heart to rescan the area. Stealth score 2 on expert.

 

The season was indeed well defined, but I didn't feel the biting cold through my monitor/speakers. no howling winds, large snowdrifts(mostly flat terrain), or enough icicles. (the furniture fire and readable towards the start was very good though).

 

Visuals were solid(liked the lighting and the bridge) but not overly aesthetically pleasing overall. Story was a little dry (but cannibals are cool, the 10 commandments were great), but nothing really outstanding overall here either. By the end of the mission I had forgot why I was here other than to grab something valuable and leave. (I did appreciate the continuity of Francis Rake from the library in Flakebridge. Little things like that are very cool).

 

Seasonal Theme: 3

Gameplay: 2

Aesthetics: 3

 

Flakebridge is still in my Top 3 favorite FM's released though!! <3

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I liked the small details showing the decrepitude of the old place (like the snow falling through the missing skylight - very atmospheric!), and the bitterness of the lord's defiance, although something did not click for me either. The easter eggs, unless I missed something, were a distraction and very "gamey".

 

Still. A good mission with strong visuals and no bugs that I can think of.

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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Oh right, I knew I had something else to say.. the snow particles disappear if I look down below certain angle. I don't remember if this bug is present in other missions. Considering no one mentioned this, it's probably something on my system, though.

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Oh right, I knew I had something else to say.. the snow particles disappear if I look down below certain angle. I don't remember if this bug is present in other missions. Considering no one mentioned this, it's probably something on my system, though.

 

Oh yeah, I'd better put this here.

 

If Jesps wants to fix this, here's the recipe.

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/12091-rain-particle-problem/

 

I got that problem in my Transaction mission for the rain and info in posting #24 cleared my issues.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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