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Vertical Contest Mission: Somewhere Above the City by Grayman (Aug 20, 2010)


grayman

Somewhere Above the City by Grayman (2010/8/20) Summer FM Vertical Contest Entry  

70 members have voted

  1. 1. 1. Gameplay: Enjoyment. Fun duration. Smooth flow, ect. Versus Bugs. Frustration, Boredom, framelag

  2. 2. 2. Appearance: Vertical use, Visual pleasure, lighting, visual style, deduct bad texturing etc.

  3. 3. 3. Story & Text: Story. Text. Briefing. Graphic storytelling



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Woo-hoo! Done!

 

A new version is now available, v1.1. Thanks to all who commented on the first version.

 

 

 

 

Thanks to my beta testers:

 

Bikerdude

HappyCheeze

Xarg

 

 

The Story:

 

The Builders have "lost" a lightning-attracting artifact. And they want you to find it. In a thunderstorm, no less. But there's more to this theft than meets the eye.

Enjoy!

 

post-3633-128231434827_thumb.jpg

Edited by Springheel
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"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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Gorgeous, gorgeous mission. I am having some sort of problem, though. I have

the holy symbol in my possession, but haven't seen traces of the renegade cleric, nor a way to progress from the top of the tower. There is also a box linked to the metal tower I don't know what to do with.

 

Hint, please?Did I miss some crucial area on the way up?

Edited by Melan

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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Very cool. The map is very polished and everything flowed quite well. Textures were great and scripts were 5/5 awesome. I loved that you didn't expand the textures too much so they look high quality rather than blurred.

I especially love the ending and the choices you can make :) The cinematic you made were top notch and the puzzle was great it took me about 10 mins to figure out how to destroy the machine, having to go back and actually read his book lol. I actually loaded and went back and killed the guy to see the alternate ending. I love that you added an ending because having it just say "MISSION SUCCESS" is boring imo. My only 4 constructive comments would be: Add more AI is possible, the elevator buttons were a little confusing maybe only have ones you can use frob, get a new skybox with a big city or something below, have harder loot and more intricate loot positions like in drawers and such. Architecture on the roof and clock tower were especially memorable and the ambient was fitting and well done. The story was fun too, I like the originality of having it all in the one book which you can reference in the game later on. I loved it great job :) !!

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Gorgeous, gorgeous mission. I am having some sort of problem, though. I have

the holy symbol in my possession, but haven't seen traces of the renegade cleric, nor a way to progress from the top of the tower. There is also a box linked to the metal tower I don't know what to do with.

 

Hint, please?Did I miss some crucial area on the way up?

 

Destroy machine first then proceed to 2nd last floor. If you have the holy symbol you should be at the top of the map???

 

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Thank you. I overcomplicated the issue by

thinking destroying the machine objective would have to be done by manipulating its controls instead of using the flask. Actually, I used the flask first, but for some reason, it did not detonate - probably didn't aim close enough with my fire arrow.

Edited by Melan

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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Gorgeous, gorgeous mission. I am having some sort of problem, though. I have

the holy symbol in my possession, but haven't seen traces of the renegade cleric, nor a way to progress from the top of the tower. There is also a box linked to the metal tower I don't know what to do with.

 

Hint, please?Did I miss some crucial area on the way up?

 

Yeah, when in the lift

there was a floor that was open but the lift went straight past

- thats the lab..

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The Low-Enders, sounds like a vicious gang of thieves based in some slum area. :D

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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Finished it - with help! It left me with some questions:

I didn't understand that I was supposed to destroy the apparatus on the rooftop. And when I did, I didn't think of that white stuff. Because I tried it on several other occasions - without any effect. So I thougt there would be a very strong hint, when and how and on what to use it. But there wasn't. So I was just firing Firearrows at it (and every 'machine' in the mission), but of course nothing happened.

Why was I not able to cut the electric wire, so I could've avoided the electricity trap (but it was a nice nasty good idea to put it in the mission).

And then there were transparent clockfaces! :wub:

 

In fact I was thinking that the guy who blew himself up in the mines (effectful surprise that was btw) was the wrongdoer himself - so who was that?

 

But talking of the mines: That was pure gold. It was just beautiful to walk in there. I really stopped some times to just enjoy the view. But wait: why was there a temple? I was hoping so much that I would find a secret door to explore that temple.

 

And it was a pleasure to listen to the drunk guard! More of them would'nt have been a mistake. :D

 

 

 

 

Edit: corrected a typo.

Edited by fraten
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Only been playing 20 minutes or so but have to break off to say this friggin' awesome! This is the one to beat. Looks fantastic. Looks real. Great lighting. Gameplay. Story.Totally absorbed. I'll make another coffee then I'm going straight back in. :wub:

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Well, so far it looks like I didn't blow the thing up at the last minute.

 

Today will be the first day since early February that I will not open DR and work on a map.

 

Nope, not today.

 

Taking today off.

 

Yup, need a rest.

 

 

 

 

Wait a minute. I hear something calling me ...

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mmm... Same problem as some others have reported. I figured I'd have to somehow

use the stuff to blow up the engine but I don't have any. I tried a fire arrow directly on the engine. Also tried on the flasks on the floor below but with no success. Now I have a horrible feeling. There was a flask in the chest way down in the mine where the book was. I thought it was unfrobable at a glance but I was more interested in reading the book. When I'd done there was a new objective. So off I went and forgot about that flask. Please don't tell me I was supposed to bring that along?

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First of all, great mission !

 

Maybe a TDM bug, but in my quicksavegame the HUD font disappeared.

The console says: RegisterFont: Couldn't find font: fonts/english/andrew/fontImage_12.dat

 

When I ditch the quicksave and start playing the FM from the beginning it is there again !

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OK, I couldn't wait so I flew down and got the flask and flew back up to where I'd reached. Finished it off. No spoiler intended. It's important everyone take the flask.

 

Summary:

 

 

Briefing: Excellent, polished, professional

Story: Best ever of any Dark Mod FM I think so far. Probably. ;) The book was a bit lengthy. It could be reduced in length and still give the same info.

Visuals: Near perfect in the mines. Best ever mines. Lighting superb. 'Organic' in its curves. Wonderful. Top tower also excellent. Floors in between were OK but by comparison, lacking in interest and several empty flat lit rooms. Given the time this is understandable. Ideally it would be nice if something could be done with these floors to perfect the FM. Maybe a dozen AI on each floor and add interest to those rooms and light them better. I know its abandoned but it needs some way to make those sections interesting.

Verticality. Excellent in many places, mainly in the mines. A lot of the later verticality was elevators. Might benefit from villain deliberately smashing those so you have to climb through debris.

Interest: Lots. Even in the middle weak areas I didn't actually know that until I'd done them so constantly absorbed wondering what was around the corner. I had a couple of girly squeal moments when unexpected things happened.

Gameplay: Excellent, near perfect in the best sections. Only the one thing I mentioned in my spoiler above should somehow be forced on the player, maybe a new objective 'take the flask blah blah' since it is so important. But considering the size and and many things in it, it all went very smoothly apart from that. I guess it is fairly linear.

Debriefing/End 'video': Staggeringly good. Best ever (well I don't think we've had an end one yet but best anyway.) And TWO versions of it depending on the player! I can't believe you went to that trouble!

 

 

Certainly the best contest entry for me among many good ones and one of my favourite Dark Mod FMs of all so far. :wub: Good work Grayman!

 

Oh yeah - I also had that lost Hud font bug. This is new to me. I suspect it might be the default font bug but I think that was fixed. But that might have just prevented the default doom font showing? Better to have the doom font that nothing if so.

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A comment regarding the white flasks ...

 

 

 

You can take or leave the flask in the chest. I placed 4 similar flasks on the table under the roof, and their little sign says "Fire", in case the player didn't take the one in the chest. I'm surprised they didn't work for you, because they all worked in my testing. I just checked the script and if one works then all should work.

 

 

Edited by grayman
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Oh yeah - I also had that lost Hud font bug. This is new to me. I suspect it might be the default font bug but I think that was fixed. But that might have just prevented the default doom font showing? Better to have the doom font that nothing if so.

 

Is this why I don't see any text next to icons when loading a saved game?

 

Or is there some other aspect of the game that's missing a font that my newbieness doesn't recognize.

 

 

 

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