The Dark One

Too Late (by Nielsen74) is yet another short mission. Don’t worry, I’ll get to some longer ones after this one. The plot is simple: Not-Garrett is after another jeweled scepter (Bafford never learns), but finds that another group of thieves have made off with it already. Since Not-Garrett already bothered himself to get out at night, he decides that he might as well steal if from this new group. Similar to the last mission, the setting is more industrial, taking place at a dockside warehouse. It’s an oddly liner level, with a straight shot from beginning to end, barring a little extra back area that I don’t fully understand the purpose of. What makes up for that if difficulty: Loot is cannily hidden, guards are abundant, and higher difficulties limit your knockouts. It’s mostly fair however, with multiple chances to scramble on the higher ground and work your way around the guards. I do wish that it was a little more clear how far the light from the obligatory torch guard can reach, since more than once I had to scramble across the boxes to dodge it. But that’s not really the fault of the mission creator. All in all, a fun little mission with some nice challenge behind it. Recommended.

Special Delivery (by Silencium18) is a short little thing. No really, one of the shortest missions for The Dark Mod. The plot is as normal: Not-Garratt has gotten wind of a valuable diamond and sets out to rob and (if you’re me) give many guards concussions. Where this mission sets itself apart is in the choice of location. Instead of the normal fancy mansion, we have an industrial warehouse, bringing the problem of electric lights and metal floors. However, once you get through the first room, the rest is mostly smooth sailing. Getting the key you need is slightly harder than you might think, but other than that, this is a pretty smooth mission. I don’t have much else to say, really. Recommended, even if I feel that experienced players will blaze through it.

Solar Escape (by Tr00pertj), by its title alone, makes me think of those Japanese room escape games I used to play pretty often, even though I was terrible at them. The plot is simple: Not-Garrett discovers a body in the swamp, as well as information on it that leads him to the home of one Sebastian Creep, who has arranged for the death of said man nad gotten his hands on a valuable scepter, and maybe more. Hence, breaking into his house, stealthing it, and leaving the note calling for the murder behind for blackmail purposes (even though it doesn’t help, because he can just get rid of the note. But anyway.) This mission is small, but oddly difficult. There’s a good bit of loot, but a lot of it is crammed in odd locations, so you’ll have to take things slowly and be willing to look everywhere. Not helping matter are the guards: One is inside and near-impossible to get around if you want to ghost the mission, and one outside who can see you from there, and you really can’t get a good look at him, forcing you to try and remember where he is and not be there. The main gripe I have is with finding your way onto the upper balcony, the entrance to which isn’t clear or hinted at. There’s another element of this that I don’t understand: Why does the woman ignore this strange man wandering the house? She’ll panic if you leave bodies lying around, but why is she fine with this robbery in the first place? It’s never explained, really. Also, why does Creep feel that he can take over the world with a scepter that A. only lets you travel between worlds, and B. can’t even get you back to your own? The diary implies that he doesn’t understand B. but A isn’t much better. Finally, why does Not-Garrett feel the need to leave by the church tunnels? Can’t he just leave the same way he came in? I also want to take a moment to soapbox about an issue near and dear to my heart: Proofread your mission dang it. This has come up before, but I’ve only remembered to mention it now. No one is asking for Shakespeare level mastery, but at least make it flow. The grammar in this mission, for example, feels stilted and flawed, and needed someone to at least give it a once over. But that’s mainly a personal gripe (now watch as some smart guy nitpicks my own grammar. I suppose I deserve it. ) All in all, it’s a decent mission, similar to the last one I reviewed. Recommended, but don’t make it your first.

I did this. It crashed as soon as I tried to start a mission. Might have been coincidence though, maybe I'm really just not waiting long enough on these loading screens.

I'm still not totally sure how to do these things. :/ Still, noted, I'll have to play around later.

Mind explaining how one would do this?

So, I've been having an issue: I keep freezing on the loading screen for missions. There's no real pattern to it, it just happens on random missions, including ones that I've played before without issue. I don't think it's me not giving the mission time to load, I usually wait about seven to ten minutes of the loading bar not moving at all before I do anything, and again, it's happening on missions I've played before without issue. Anyone else had this?

Geez, been too long. Sons of Barltona 1 (by Carnage) has a one in the title, but since there hasn’t been a two, I’ll just treat it as its own thing. This time, Not-Garratt is named, though I can’t recall it. Anyway, his mentor has vanished while investigating a merchant, and he’s angling for some answers. Hence, breaking in. The break-in is oddly difficult. The house itself is lightly guarded, and once you get to the second floor you more or less have free-reign of the place. Getting in, however, requires you to dance around a whole circle of torch guards, with little room for error. You can find a trick or two to get around, but expect more than a few issues on a first playthrough. This isn’t helped by the fact that one of the optional objectives is to not be noticed, which is a bit of a wonky trigger at the best of times. Sometimes a well-fired water arrow gets the guard to draw his sword, but the failure doesn’t trigger until a bit later. Loot-wise, it’s hard. The available loot comes close to the goal, and you’ll have to look carefully for it. Those of you who won’t rest until you get every single bit of change will be frustrated, because part of the loot is in the pockets of guards. Who are in the light. Who are angled so that you have to be crawling on them to grab it. Thankfully, they’re not needed. Unless you want all the loot, in which case, good luck to ya. As stated above, the mission starts difficult before dropping down again. Once you get into the house it’s much easier, with the only real sticking point being finding an office key on one of the guards, and even then you don’t even need to go in there, I recall. Getting out is the same as getting in, though I feel I should warn that the passage you use to get in can’t be opened from the inside. If you don’t realize that, then you’ll be forced to run out one of the doors and make a break for it. Personal experience, yes. Also, fair note, apparently the game locks if you go on the roof. This isn't something you can do accidently, but it's worth noting. All in all, a decent mission that needed a better difficulty curve. Recommended, but don’t make it your first mission.

It’s the season of Valentine, so let’s do Christmas. The Parcel (by Xonze is a short and sweet little mission. Not-Garrett has had his parcel stolen, and goes to break into a place and steal it. That’s it. That’s the plot. Though the reveal of what the parcel is and who Not-Garrett is stealing for does raise some amusing mental images. Graphics-wise, it’s no better or worse than average. The snow is nice, and I think it’s one of only two missions I’ve seen that incorporates it. The layout of the house is plausible, and I like the way it looks from the outside, with some nice lights in the windows, though I don’t think that they match up with the outside that well. Difficulty-wise, higher than you’d expect. While it’s not hard to evade and/or knock out the guards (this is one of the few missions where my stealth score is 0), the loot is well hidden, and careful searching and unconventional frobbing is a must. There’s also a needed key shoved on someone in a different position than normal, which can jam you right at the end of the mission. But other than that, it’s a pretty smooth ride. All in all, a short little Christmas mission. Short, but Recommended.

Curious: Has anyone else had the loading screen for Lucia freeze on them? I'm not sure if it was just me, if it was loading but very slowly, etc.

For what it's worth I could frob the journal fine. Probably the ring too, if I had seen it. However, I have a far more serious bug to report: I start the new St. Lucia, and it freezes on the loading screen (or it was just taking forever to load and I jumped the gun, but I gave it time and it never budged). This might just have been my computer though.

Maybe something happened to bikerdude? His profile is suddenly blank. But I could be wrong.

Oh good, this wasn't just on my end. I just thought it was moved somewhere else, to be honest.

Turns out I just needed to do the former, thanks!

So the good news, the updater didn't give me problems this time. Bad news, when I start The Dark Mod, my screen zooms in and the game is just in a window. It works fine from what I can tell, but I'd like to know how to get it out of that windowed mode. Anyone else had this happen?

Hope this is the right forum. <.< I've been musing on making missions at some point, but I'm not sure how easy it would be. I've never really messed around with a level editor before, and I don't want to run up some ludicrous learning curve that makes no sense if you have no programming experience. So like the title says, how difficult is DarkRadiant to learn? Should I just not bother?

Lords and Legacy(by Kvorning) is a mixture of city mission and mansion mission. This time, Not-Garrett has been hired by a coalition of townspeople and nobles who want to get rid of a nobel who’s oppressing them all. Sadly, his brother likes him, so there’s no arrowing him in his sleep. The plan is to steal a family heirloom and plant it in the brother’s safe with a fake note indicating that the brother was planning to have his brother killed and make it look like a robbery. The mission is quite large, and is split into The Slums, The Commons, and the manor itself. The second could almost be a (small) mission unto itself. Graphics-wise, it’s quite nice looking, with more of blue tint to everything, much different from what I’ve seen in missions up t this point. Everything looks well, with the only real error being a door that leads out into blank space, but to be fair you have to go out of your way a bit to find it. However, the proportions felt off. It’s very hard for me to describe, but I felt like the inside of the apartments in The Commons in particular didn’t match the outside. I was somehow ending up on the other side of the map when I shouldn’t have been there, it felt like I was bumbling through the TARDIS at points. This might just have been me, but I noticed the same thing on a replay. Same thing with The Slums, check the perceptions of the lady’s apartment and where the side door takes you. On the positive side, I did like the layout of the estate itself: Three semi-connected towers. A little linear, perhaps, but different from the norm. Difficulty-wise, it;s up there. I don’t think that the loot goal is that hard to hit, but be prepared to dig through the level (and people’s pockets) for it. Thankfully, you can break into people’s homes to find what you need. I always like this part of city missions, and want plenty of it. I just wish it was a little more clear which places you could get into. The higher levels have (thankfully) optional objectives which require you to avoid getting seen and refrain from knocking people out. The former is definitely possible and I’m assuming the latter as well. The layouts are set up to make stealthing possible. There is one portion that I feel to be a tad unfair, as it suddenly puts you up against a character with no warning, and with little chance of escape. Either you know it’s coming, are very fast, or break the AI. The guards also have annoyingly good hearing, especially at the estate. As in, “Can hear you clomping around outside one floor up” or “Can hear a board creak one floor up and one room over.” It’s almost random how it works, and can be annoying. The creaking boards idea is interesting though. Speaking of layouts, I want to go from there to another completely unrelated topic: atmosphere. One of the best parts of city missions is the little ideas and tidbits scattered around, and this mission has them. From a low-key love story, to a creepy haunted apartment, to a serial killer lurking in The Commons, it’s all done pretty well. All in all, solid mission, with only a few slip-ups here and there. Recommended. P.S. Also I borked up my last review, got the author wrong. Will be changing.

Disclaimer: This was done on the lowest difficulty, because I like knockouts. House of Theo (by Theothesnopp) is a slightly atypical mission, maining due the aesthetics. This time, Not-Garrett has been hired by no authority less than the Emperor himself to infiltrate the titual house of Theo to find information on possible weapons, gold, a moll, etc. The mission is mainly different in it’s presentation, which is the best part of it. The mission starts with you staring out at a nice looking skybox with a sorrowful piano tune playing, and then you turn around and see a whole castle looking down on you. It’s honestly very well done, and sets the scene of this large, desolated area quite well. The castle itself, however, is a tad too big, which a little too much open space. This may have been needed though for the higher difficulties, which restain knock-outs. While I didn’t beat it on that difficulty, it seems like it's very fair, based on my observations. I also hope you like that piano, because it never stops playing, and gets repetitive after awhile, not to mention loud, which makes listening for guards that much harder. One review I read said that there’s a little too much backtracking in this mission, but I don’t think I agree. For the most part, it’s simple to get from one area of the castle to another, and most of the backtracking is short. The only parts of the mission that will almost definitely give you trouble are the atic and a first floor hallway. The former has a guard who’s a pain to knock out, and the latter is a door you need to go into in pitch darkness. And a guard who’s sole job is to stand there and let you bump into him because you can’t see where you’re going. All in all, good mission, though it’s quirks can annoy. Recommended.

Nah, I just don't have a life. But really, I do plan to review every mission, it just depends on when I feel like playing/writing. I have many more missions that I've played to review, I just like to have a bit of room to do them. I'll try and get a few more up soon.

Rightful Property (by jysk) is another city mission. The plot is simple: Not-Garratt has stolen an orb from a Builder church, and is moving to hand it off to a fence when a raid forces him to flee...without his money. Since Not-Garratt is not a man to go without money, he decides to track down his fence, get back the orb, and maybe hit a bank while he’s at it. This mission is, in contrast to the previous two I’ve reviewed, quite long. The city, while linear, has quite a few places you can slip into, which I enjoy. Due to the linearity, you can’t really get lost. I did wish that it was clearer about which houses you could go into, but that’s a minor issue. Difficulty-wise, it’s...up there. The loot goal is high, and you’ll have to dig around a bit to find everything. Guards are abundant, and the bank contains the bane of all thieves everywhere, especially those who wear tap shoes: marble floors. But the placement is mostly fair (I feel like there are a few too many outside of the inn, but that was on my first playthrough, the second was much smoother), and this mission actually provides a reason for so many guards on the streets, which you have to find out to complete an objective. Interestingly, you can complete it in two different ways, which I appreciate, since one way is very easy to miss. Since the graphics are standard (so, good), I figured I’d talk briefly about the horror aspect of this mission, which, while minor, is good. The build-up and foreshadowing is done well, giving the player a sense of foreboding, waiting for the threat to emerge. It’s minor, but I knew what was coming and was still caught off-guard by it. Very well done. All in all, a very solid city mission with a dab of horror. Recommended.

Ahhh. Makes sense then! I'll have to remember that when I post this to TTLG then.

Closemouthed Shadows (by LordSavage) is a different sort of mission, being more of an assassination mission. Not-Garrett is recruited by a friend to kill said friend’s neighbor because he has stolen from said friend. It’s a short and sweet set-up, and I admit I enjoy a good assassin mission every now and then, if just because the bow is fun. Like I said, this is short. Very short. About five or so rooms total. That’s not to say you can’t have a good mission with that size, see Thieves Den, but this feels too short. It was the author’s first, so I can’t blame him, I suppose, but I still would have liked more to do. Difficulty-wise, pretty simple, with finding a key into the apartment you need to get into being the only part that might cause trouble. I admit, I do have to wonder at why the friend is perfectly fine with letting his friend rob his own apartment as well, but maybe we can assume a creative interpretation of the request. Some of the loot is hidden, but you shouldn’t have any trouble hitting the goal. In the end, I’m having a harder time recing this that I thought. While it’s true that a short mission can still have plenty going for it, it feels too short. While the last mission I reviewed was as well, it felt like there was more content. It was a first mission, but there just doesn’t feel like there was enough here, though with some expansion it would be much better. I can neither recommend or not recommend, too good to dismiss, too short to rec.

This is slightly out of order, as I’m trying to review these in rough playing order, but eh, it’s short. Poets and Peasants (by Digi) has Not-Garrett angling for some good old-fashioned payback. A chance encounter in a bar leads him to the home of Flowers, a thief who ripped Not-Garrett off sometime ago. Now that he has money, it’s time to strip it from him. Graphics-wise, it’s nothing special. Not in a bad way, just that there’s nothing overly standout about it. I do think it’s one of those missions where you need to keep an eye on your light gem to see how illuminated you actually are, because it’s easy to feel like you’re so lit up that multiple Vegas casinos want to hang you when you’re perfectly fine. That being said, I did like the mild variety in locations for such a small mission. Difficulty-wise, harder than you think. Getting the loot total requires you to duck around one of those guards who can’t be knocked out, and while it’s easy when you get the timing down, it wasn’t what I was expecting in the mission. Getting into the school is also harder than it looks, though part of this is due to needing to make a jump that doesn’t seem possible, if you want that sweet sweet darkness, anyway.. All in all, it’s a fun little mission, nothing amazing, but still solid. Recommended.

I think that Deceptive Shadows (by Shadowhide) is the first Dark Mission I’ve played that I didn’t like on it’s own merits. I’ve had issues with other missions, such as Brierwood Cathedral and The King of Diamonds, but those were technical issues that didn’t really hurt the mission’s quality. This was the first where I just didn’t like the thing. The plot is slightly more involved than normal. Not-Garrett takes aim at a Builder’s purse and bungles the job, getting knocked out for his troubles. After coming too in a cell and escaping (and pain in and of itself), he finds out that the entire building is under Pagan segue and is on magic lockdown, making escape a tad bit more involved. On the bright side, the focus on the Pagans is slightly refreshing, as most Dark Mod missions go for either the Builders or the City Watch, and seeing the more mystical elements in a mission is good. It also allows for some good visuals when you reach the overtaken basement, with plants and fog obscuring things. There are a few good bits, such as a jumping across a void, and the finale, while flawed, is definitely thrilling. The problem is that it’s so dang tedious. Someone in the comments of the YouTube walkthrough I watched because I have no shame said it felt like an adventure game, and I agree. A Sierra-era adventure game. Or one of those dang Japanese room escape games that I love yet am terrible at. The things you need to escape are scattered all around the place, and you’d better be ready to look into every nook and cranny to find them. There’s a lever lying in the corner, rope arrows crammed behind a bookcase, getting the (thankfully optional) loot goal requires careful searching and in one case going out of your way back into a room you have no reason to return to. The tedious part comes in that if you miss any of this you’re stuck wandering up and down the place trying to find whatever it was that you missed. I replayed this mission a week or two ago to see if the issue the first time was just me being a moron. Turns out that yes, it is that tedious, even if you know what you’re doing. You also don’t get a good reason why half of this stuff is anywhere. Why is the key to a hidden door in a lock box and the key to that is somewhere else? Why is a key hanging in plant room under an altar? And then we have story questions: How can a person’s body decay in a few days, at most? How did no one notice a boarded up door? Why break the lever on one gate but not the other? Why is there a demon gargoyle in this place? Why does taking a random amulet cause the place to start shooting lightning at you? (This bit, while fun, is also annoying, because you have no idea what to do when it starts.) Normally I wouldn’t nitpick this much, but the creator seemed to be going for more of a story bent, so I’m talking about that. And the top floor is too dark. Can’t see the dang guards half the time. All in all, it’s an interesting mission, but the sheer tedium is simply too much. Not Recommended, sadly.

Laaaaate comment, but I thought I might as well.