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Fan Mission: In remembrance of him (by RPGista)


RPGista

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I loved the ramshackle look of this mission, and I've now seen textures I never thought to use in places where I didnt think I could use them :-)

 

 

In Fairness to the other contestants, RPgista has only been fixing bugs in the time since the deadline, the look and feel of the mission was mostly how you see it from then till now.

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Thanks boys (and girls, sorry Thiefette!), it was a lot of work, but I think I'm satisfied with it.

 

A note:

 

Some of the testers were confortable with the map, others however were getting frustrated by some of the obstacles, and they are experienced players; some amount of experimenting and reloading is to be expected, do not despair if you feel you are stuck, post here and I'll give instructions as to how to proceed.

 

This is not exactly a typical mission - forget about gosthing, or never being seen; there are no penalties for being spotted, besides having to face the consequences if your not quick enough to fool your enemies. The stealth score in this mission is meaningless. Just be observant of the environment, and you should find a way, eventually. All obstacles are beatable and all situations manageable, I've made sure of that after countless tries.

Edited by RPGista
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Well done!

 

 

 

 

Your mission is my new favourite in the contest!

 

Gameplay: Excellent - Climbings, AI placements are very good. Climbing is a little bit challenging even for an experienced player, but it's fine. Apart from that, places are so realistic and lively. Rooms, decorations, streets are almost real place! I would vote for almost perfect if it was clear to who is friend who is foe. Because I have confused couple of times. Most funny part was I KO'ed two guys in the barn so carefully spending minutes since I thought they are enemy, lol.

 

Appearance: Almost Perfect - If I should review the geometry with one word: Gorgeous! You could use better textures in chapel but I guess it's matter of taste. Btw. I had hard times in zombie area. How I'm supposed to find the entrance in pitch black? Is this the bug you warn about? I luckily find my way in there.

 

Story: Excellent - Your sketches are so good. Actually I was expecting that when I saw your sketches in wip thread. Nice choice for background music too. What I didn't like is long readings. I'm sorry but I didn't read any single word of it! :)

 

And I found the secret room, but couldn't figure out its purpose or find any item... :ph34r:

 

 

 

Thanks for the effort RPGista. It was delicious. :D

Edited by SiyahParsomen
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Just played through it again and picked up some details I hadn't got before:

e.g. the swordsman is a 'goodie' and can be ghosted; plus, the priest and the skull - I saw him kneeling down at the grave, but didn't realise what he was doing until just now. Kind of raises uncomfortable questions about how much he knows about 'Kevin'...

some amount of experimenting and reloading is to be expected, do not despair if you feel you are stuck

Ooh yes. This FM has some brilliant jumping & mantling challenges, and one of them I still haven't worked out a fail-safe route through (blessedly there's an alternative route anyway :smile: ), but I did (eventually) work them all out on my own. Very satisfying it was too. (Just worked something else out too:

how to get back from the churchyard to the courtyard

which is probably totally redundant but nice to achieve anyway :P.)

 

Re the coin box:

do I have to do something with it? I've tried leaving it at various places in the merchant's house, or with the swordsman, even tried the weaving factory but I only get the red flash :(, so I'm assuming there's somewhere where it'll get the green flash. I've read the merchant's letter telling his wife to give it to Jon (?) with the sealed letter but can't make any connection with anything else in the map. If there's a readable I need to look at more closely, point me in the right direction

 

Also - in the very first part of the map:

Am I meant to be able to get up here?

post-9265-0-24884100-1335127506_thumb.jpg

And, is there a way to this window?

post-9265-0-92628800-1335127560_thumb.jpg

Or am I just being a spidernoob? :P

Even though (with the beta-testing) I've played it loads of times, I still stop and admire the moonlight effect; I love the way its beauty contrasts with what is, at times, a pretty grim and sad story. And I love the romantic feel of the set-up - gives it a really different atmosphere to the standard 'need to get the rent paid' motive.

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@ SiyahParsomen

 

 

Thanks a lot, really glad you had all those good impressions of the mission, even though appearently you didnt read any of the story? :) Its your choice, like I said, wether to read and interact with the story or not, your mission is to get the ring, but it would make it easier for you to understand whats going on inside the inner alley. The "bad guys" are actually the gang who is operating inside the barn. If you hit the thug that comes your way when you are going down the alley the first time, you'll see he has a letter on his belt, explaining the gang's plan, and why they have the box in their possession. The peasants are afraid of them but minding their own business. All others will basicly protect their houses.

 

The church is working fine then, its supposed to be like that, you have to be creative to find your way!

 

The drawings were an experiment, been years since I drew for this kind of thing. Good that you liked them, and that you somehow understood the message without reading.

I was wondering what room did you think was a secret, because there really arent any. ;) Some are tougher to find, and some pretty tough to enter, but nothing is really secret. There are a couple of "secret" objectives though, it depends on what you do during the mission to acomplish them (one is kind of a consequence for an action, the other is completely optional (has to do with the box)).

 

Thanks for the review!

 

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I gave you 5/4/4 rating

 

This was a very very nice fm!! it was quite linear - most of the time with just one existing way, but it was nice, because it was something else than the other fms.

One part of the fm was really great - near the end - in appearance and sound!! And all this for your first mission... wow!

This mission felt like a small first mission of a high quality campaign. Don't ever stop making missions, you are really good! - Can't wait to see more.

 

by the way - the briefing was brilliant! sound/story/paintings - I was really longing for playing

Edited by Berny
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@ Simplenoob

 

 

Yes, the priest and Kevin are connected. There are only hints (like his behaviour when you get to the church), you are supposed to infer whats happening there, and that will also help you to discover how to find the ring.

 

Glad you guys are enjoying the mantling, took some testing to get it right, and some thinking to make it challenging, and not too obvious. I never tried to get back to the courtyard before, I guess we can all trust you to find every gap in the maps geometries! ;)

 

I'll try not to give the coin box away: there is actually a way to physically drop the box in the environment after you collect it in your inventory - its the default "r" key for me. This will make it appear on your hands, from where it can be manipulated and dropped with the frob key. "Using" the box wont work here. Think about it, the merchant is leaving that same night, he is not gonna go back to the factory. There might be an obvious place for him to find the box later in the evening, when he decides to pack and leave...

 

If you read their letters, you will know that Jon was their trusted employee (hes mentioned a couple of times), and also the thugs mention him (spoiler from the previous post: If you hit the thug that comes your way when you are going down the alley the first time, you'll see he has a letter on his belt, explaining the gang's plan, and why they have the box in their possession.) Additional hint: the right spot does have something to do with a related readable.

 

EDIT: Just saw the pics, how did you get there?! I thought I had nocliped all that area? And no, of course your not meant to be there hehe. Theres nothing there.

 

 

 

Thanks for the nice words (and all the work!) ;)

Edited by RPGista
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Just played it and I must say: one of the most beautiful missions ever. Visually, I think this is one of the very few 'near perfect' I ever gave! :wub:

 

In my opinion, the only problems are in the gameplay aspect: I love platforming missions and platforming puzzles just like everyone else, but if some testers tell you it's not clear enough what to do, I'd suggest trusting them. Specifically, I think the lethal weak point is

 

 

the back of the destroyed house, where there are several windows and no way to know which one is openable or how to get there. I manage to do without cheating, but only after scouting ahead which window was frobbable, with noclip. A simple visual communication there would do the trick, like opening a small breach on that window to let some light out.

 

 

The readables were beyond boring. I like that you made an effort setting the atmosphere and telling the story, and you did a great job at that! it definitely feels alive and real. But when it serves no purpose for the gameplay at all keep it to a minimum or, better yet, make them useful for the map! (tips on how to find stuff etc)

 

It wasn't intuitive for me which AI were on to me and which weren't (on the streets). Maybe I missed some explanation?

 

Overall, very original and beautiful! I look forward to play your future missions! :)

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Simplenoob - haha good one, wasnt expecting that.

 

Diego - some people did have trouble in that place, though for me, it still looks fairly obvious where to go, as there only one reasonable window you can reach somehow (might be author's bias). Again, people need to trust in their ability of jumping and holding on to architectural elements.

 

There are 2 different ways of reaching the chapel where your goal lies, not just the one you chose. If anyone is having trouble with one of them, I also suggest reloading a previous save and trying to find another way.

 

As for readables, apart from being a bit sorry we didnt have time to pass them through a good revision, I think they tell the story of the map and its different situations in fair detail. Like I told Siyah, who also didnt read them, if you are only after your objective, all you need to do is avoid any contacts and keep finding your way foward. A lot of people like to read (like me) and a lot dont, I think I left space and material for both kinds of players. There's no secret information in any readable, nothing you need to know. They are there just to add to the atmosphere and they will (hopefully) explain what is happening in each section of the map. There is one book in there which is optional even in my own sense, its not part of the story and wasnt written by me, but I think it will be obvious which one it is (the well written, long one). Its there also for atmosphere and for its amazing (for me) content and its age.

Edited by RPGista
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Yeah, visually wonderful. A real gem which makes The Dark Mod shine. It's stunning and quite possibly the most beautiful mission to date.

I didn't mind the jumping and trial and error, although I'm glad reloads are so fast on my system.

 

I really disliked the story and text, from the briefing I knew what I was getting into. I know you put a lot of effort in it, I feel bad for giving it the worst mark but it just got in the way of my enjoyment and I can't get past that. Too much playing on the heartstrings, too many minute details, too many ellipses. I'll use the standard "I'm backing away because I don't want to argue any more than that" argument: to each their own.

I hope you don't get frustrated by my opinion, it doesn't make me think any less of your skills and I think your future missions are really going to become vital contributions to the mod.

 

EDIT: But then again, maybe I'm just in a bad mood tonight. I'll try replaying it tomorrow by role playing the character instead of rambling at every readable -- which I had to read instead of just ignoring them. Yeah I'm like that :/

Edited by Briareos H
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WOW... loss for words...

 

The lighting is superb.

 

Gotta get to work though...

 

Here's a Dropbox link:

 

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17706561/remembrance.pk4

 

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17706561/remembrance.pk4

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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