Shadow

OK I went back and played the bookcase room again and got past it after loading a previous save from before I had ever entered the room. Here's what I think threw me off.

Twas a good mission although I never did figure out the right sequence to flip the books. Even after reading the readables and posts in here I was still lost on how to solve that puzzle. Nicely done mission.

I'll give it a beta whirl too. Long missions good.

I'll beta it if you still want some testers. Thanks.

I'll help beta test, especially for a legend like grayman

This is a great "authentically Thief" mission in an old world town style setting and looks-lived-in atmosphere. I enjoyed playing thru it over and over and help fleshing it out to the final product. Excellent job for a "rookie" mapper!

I would say morality should and can not be absolute unless you feel that a moral code is fluid and open for any interpretation as easily as biblical stories and phrases. For example, is it good or bad morality to lie? To kill? If so then you can't ever lie about anything, even if it's to save another's life. And you could never join an army or become a cop, as you would be required to kill. Obviously no one can be that strict with themselves that they can't kill an attacker that immediately threatens a loved one. So there goes absolute morality, so why even have it if it's so pliable and shapeable. And so thus morality isn't subject to struggle since you can make it up as you go along to suit your own circumstances and lifestyle. So maybe instead of worrying about what is moral or not, just focus on what is important to you and what makes YOU happy and not worry about whether it fits into a personal moral code or someone else's interpretation of moral code. With regard to other people, you seem to be saying you need to change to appease them, or be who they want you to be. I disagree. The only way in life to have truth is to be who YOU are and others will accept or not accept you. That's not your problem to solve, that's on them. If others haven't figured out how to accept you for who you are, it's their puzzle, their issue, their loss, right?

Definitely old school Doom/Duke Nukem style, yet very artistically noir, some buildings might look kinda Grim Fandango. There is no save function in game as you are reset back to the beginning if you die. Frustrating to have to replay the same hallways over and over. Thief/TDM it is not and should not be in the same breath except only for sharing the stealth genre.

How about TP6, The Lich Queen's Demise? Think that's gotta be the one.

Also Lords and Legacy, same opening. broken cart, city streets to the right, fire lamps. Maybe?

I just tried Tears of St Lucia and it starts out with your description, aka light posts, broken carts, road veering off the to the right. It has a church rather than a mansion. Maybe?

In T2 some of the Dracula /Bathory by Sensut related missions sound like this, although you would have probably remembered that they had a vampire theme throughout them and they are multi-stage missions.

I can name so many games for a "total recall" refresh, but I think one that really blew my mind open with the ability to create atmosphere and exploration and a compelling storyline is the Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver games, especially the second one that delved into Raziel's past. The first one was a tremendously beautiful gothic world of magic and beasts I hadn't seen before in a game. The second one was bigger and more of the same with an added backstory. I can't ever unsee how cool these were to play at the time. Perhaps a second game as I'm now thinking about it, is the first Batman Arkham Asylum game, which for me really captured the essence of the dark and brooding sides of the complex mind of who Batman is. And the gameplay was exciting, the way he could plan for taking out a room of baddies, and hide, and sneak around, and get clues to discovering the eventual larger protagonist behind the scenes. This game was the first of many more that kept the Batman gaming experience, but the first was so memorable in setting up the style.

This would work if there were not a pit of spikes or a rolling boulder or a giant spider waiting in a dead end, as many games would have. So a specific Thief trick I use is, generally there are guards about, so I bop them out and place the bodies where I know I don't need to go, as an indicator to a hallway that I have already explored, so as not to backtrack needlessly. This shrinks the maze, which isn't what you're talking about, but still a strategy to get through it.

What made 2010 pop so much? Was there a contest that year? If so, what about a new contest to spur more missions?

Inside is a good 2D platform game, a moving stealth storyline, puzzles, and some weirdness thrown in to keep it interesting.

Controversial option, but I'm thinking Bikerdude would be great for participation. Tho he is not in this forum (he is on Discord) he seems to have more high end quality mods than anyone and is still active, aka The Painters Wife.

I'm game too. Lets rock!

Thief’s Shalebridge Cradle mission taught me to fear asylum/orphanage combo platters This still scares the pants off me A new Polygon article that brings back some old memories, and yes it's true, that was one scary ass mission! I remember it very well. I am considering playing this again now while we have slow new mod releases lately. https://www.polygon.com/2020/10/11/21509328/thief-deadly-shadows-halloween-scary-level-shalebridge-cradle

I do what esme does but much much more. I put up a perimeter VM which DNS blocks ads (and popups in IOS games) for all my connected devices on my network. That's a bit more work, but to do it on one PC, just download and follow the instructions on: https://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm Been using this for many years and it works perfectly, thought too perfectly sometimes as it can block things you want but its easy to edit to allow.

I figured assumingly they were the Tree worshippers. That's why pagan missions have lots of tree houses and vines. Where do you think the vines arrows come from?

I just started this game after seeing it talked about here. I find the fighting a bit unwieldy and movement is a little stocky, not character fluid as other games like GTA or AC. But it has a nice ambiance about it. Let's hope it holds my interest.

Me too please thanks

Interesting. It's well rated at 8.6/10. I think I'm going to check this out. Did you wind up playing it and liking it?

What I think might have happened is your computer needed a reboot for the background security updates it does. A few things you can do. You can postpone the updates for a week. You can set the time when the computer is allowed to update (just set it out of the range of your usage hours). You can actually completely turn off any ability to update (metered connection), but that's not advised long-term, at least by me. As far as the keyboard goes, sounds like a driver superseded another driver during an update and perhaps it didn't complete installation or was faulty. Either the installed Lenovo apps did this or Windows update did this. Since you deleted the driver and it worked after, I'm thinking the Lenovo drivers took over and after deleting them the default MS drivers got installed from the repository folder. In Device Manager you can see which driver is being used by which manufacturer. Usually I tend to trust the MS drivers unless there is some functionality needed beyond its basic function (think all-in-one scanners/printers). As last resort you can just plug in a USB keyboard if it happens again. BTW, check event viewer in / control panel / administrative tools / to see what happened at the time of the shutdown. It could give a clue as to a conflicting issue.