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Fan Mission: The Rats Triumphant by Melan (2015/10/31)


Melan

  

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Yes, I found the key when I was up there and decided to pick up the body and toss it down to annoy the zombies.

 

I had to read through spoilers to figure out how to use the key; that was certainly a different mechanic than what we're used to.

 

But I've wandered through as much as I can find, and still haven't satisfied any objectives. I guess it's time to go back to the spoilers.

 

 

 

 

 

The room with the trap mirror that causes HP damage has a stairwell down to a cellar with a AI head on a ragdoll skeleton on concrete with an upside down builder hammer. There's a bunch of boxes down the hallway that need to be moved and you will find the padlock. Don't stand on the lid while it's opening or you can get caught between the lid and the wall (it lifts the player) and then you have to noclip to get out. Down the ladder is where you'll find the last will and testament.

 

 

 

I completed this on expert difficulty. Loved it. Melan is probably the zenith of TDM authors. The mysterious style of not completing the story through words, but allowing the visuals to tell the player what has happened.

 

 

 

My take is that the ones who buried the body ended up turning into the zombies (Choera Morbus) and it was because Jacques was a sorcerer. This mission can in a way serve as a foundational story in Bridgeport for the reason there are zombies. It started in Whitechapel Row. The birthplace of the disease that if they body is not buried in 10 days with a Builder's Blessing it will raise from the dead. At least, this is the most grounded work that can be attributed to TDM lore thus far. Thank you Melan. :-)

 

Good usage of St. Lucia in the church, bringing more TDM canon into other areas of the world, making it more enriched.

 

Also, the window to the church being smashed, signaling the player to locate their entrance from the pieces on the ground...great use of environment and very clear use of environmental places that I knew where I was and each location had a distinct feel. Exploration was necessary, but time spent with the map allowed the player to learn it and very easily decipher what was going on. It just takes time wandering and looking around. This is a slow play style, as I spent 1 hour and 30 minutes on this small mission.

 

There is a lot of architecture here, very pretty. I am looking a lot at the way the brushes are constructed room to room and how you create environment, I applaud you illusory techniques to making the 3d cube grid come to life in its own world. Interesting that you created this idea from a building in real life. Since using DR I have started to look at buildings, construction, angles and colors in a very different view.

 

Do you have your own set of textures that are not part of TDM stock that you use to build missions?

 

I agree with others that the zombies are not hard at all to navigate by, there is sufficient darkness, even through at first it seems a bit dreadful and overbearing. This only provides that much more satisfaction once you complete the mission.

 

I got caught in between some of the roofs, broke the mission a couple times landing on portal division lines in my climbing, and there are a couple z fights going on.

 

 

 

All in all, this is a splendid mission for a speed build, and I hope that you will build more speed builds Melan, as they are very productive for the community to gather and rally behind when they come at such a high quality.

Edited by Deadlove
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  • 1 month later...

Sotha: Thanks for the honest feedback! The design decisions you criticise are intentional, although they are of course legitimate to question.

 

...

 

The story is intentionally vague. If I had more time to think about the readables, it would be much more vague, impressionistic and surreal. It is not supposed to make 100% logical sense. I have done my job well if the readables and the environment let the player wonder about things and draw their own conclusions (it is interesting to read how people have already interpreted things), but be left with doubts. If anything, things are perhaps too concrete.

 

That's my reasoning anyway. TL;DR and non-spoilery: this FM is an experiment in designing a horror experience that creates unease, a sense of confinement, and uncertainty in the player.

 

Interesting, I had no idea it was vague on purpose, because I didn´t feel it as vague, rather typical "put pieces of puzzle together and make a whole picture, clues are out there" as a good Thief player should ;)

 

 

Back to the readables: this is what I understood from them: You are a nephew (?) of your wealthy uncle, whom you disagreed about something and left 6 years ago. Your uncle was also a pagan sorcerer, which you didn´t knew (both as a player and as a person you play). Those six years ago, after you left, two influential persons from town somehow learned that your uncle was a pagan: it was pawnbroker and clothier, both men of a stature.

Your uncle was officially walled within his own house. There were three people, who buried your uncle: clothier, pawnbroker and a priest. First two were also after your uncle´s wealth, which they didn´t told about to the priest, which was their undoing.

 

And because of their greediness also that part of town undoing.

As a repercussion your uncle sent a plague of cholera (which, interestingly, turns people into zombies - which I explained to myself as of a supernatural origin and can´t be cured by normal means), which normally priests would be able to overturn, but since it´s of supernatural origin and they don´t know it, because of a human greed, they are unable to cure it,and have to retreat.

 

Of course, the two main culprits are turned to zombies out of revenge (we can find them walking in their homes).

 

What wasn´t clear to me, and as I read I wasn´t alone, was the missions objectives: I didn´t knew I have to "use" the key instead of frob it, so I thought I don´t have the proper key yet.

So I kept looking for another one and wondering, where I should use this black one. I also cluelessly wandered around, not understanding what did I miss, until I came back to forum to find the answer.

 

That plate with 2 faces which burned you if you touched it - does it have any story significance?

Somehow, I have thought those two faces are skins from the faces of the two men who robbed your uncle.

 

Also I thought there is some kind of puzzle with that head of your uncle, which seemed intact compared to the rest of the body, so I kept touching it, only to be burned.

I didn´t knew what am I doing wrong or what should I do next.

 

When I read the last testament, I got it: uncle kinda let´s you know he didn´t let those two steal his wealth, because it was meant for you; also I understood uncle´s real and much more important inheritance is the sorcery itself, whereas the wealth just enables you to use it by removing material obstacles (societal obstructions of harder to get anywhere for a poor guy vs. affluent benefactor, being able to buy necessary things - kinda like batman, but evil one (sorcery)).

 

I also got a feeling this is a beginning, not an end to a story, so... I would be curious as it plays out :)

 

 

 

 

So far, my favourite mission out of the last few missions.

Also, level design in this one is sweet :)

 

Last three (newest) missions to go.

Edited by Tarhiel
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Thanks for your comment, Tarhiel! That is a well thought out interpretation. :) Not entirely identical with mine, but you are on a good track.

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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  • 5 months later...

Lovely, frightful level oozing with atmosphere.

If I missed any notes that weren't the standard note-on-a-door listing that the occupant is infected, let me know.

 

Don't take the ending the wrong way, I absolutely love your work.

 

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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Oh... that crown! :ph34r: That's the price of building something in such a small amount of time. You try to think up the story and implement features as the clock is ticking, race furiously to correct a host of problems, scrap a part of the mission you had in mind, test, retest, revise, retest again, hit the release button, sigh in relief, then slip on a banana peel and break your neck. ;)

 

Some smooth taffing there!

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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Well blugger me, I didnt even see that loot near the start, well spotted!

 

And smooth taffing indeed, with brings back memories. That bloody attic @8:15, man I spent ages trying to get that bloody thing to seal. In the end I had to completly rebuild that whole roof section.

To be fair this is not a blind run, this is around the third or fourth run through the level.

I don't do blind, I do rehearsed perfectionist runs.

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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  • 5 months later...

This was super fun. The geometry of the place was very fun to explore. Good use of interesting verticality, with fun jumps to take. And I'm a sucker for good use of physics too!

At one point I heard


a woman's voice saying "is there anyone there?" which startled me. For the next few minutes I looking for the woman. Maybe she was stuck somewhere! At the end I think it was a bug :laugh: Either that or I missed some important part of the mission. It was in the house with the shiny key, by the way. So I'm guessing that zombie patrolling became human for a brief moment

 

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Thanks! And nope, not a bug. :)

 

It is a piece of ambience, but there is not much you can do about it.

 

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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  • 2 years later...

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