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Fan Mission: House in Blackbog Hollow by stumpy (2011/10/28)


stumpy

  

41 members have voted

  1. 1. Halloween element, Storytelling and consistency

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

  3. 3. Aesthetics: Visual pleasure, lighting, visual style. Audio use, mood.



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The 3rd Icon in the upper left is "Special BBCode" if you click that you will get a drop-down where you can select spoiler.

 

Alternately, you can manually type [spoil*] <stuff you want spoilered> [/spoil*] without the " * " (asterisk)...

Edited by nbohr1more

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Thanks nbohr1more.

 

stumpy- as I mentioned I enjoyed this mission even though there was

 

spiders in it. I really appreciated your well placed shadows because the spiders take so many arrows to kill I had to sneak around them.(except two). I liked the hunt for the pumpkins although when I first entered the house I was some what confused by what the pumpkin was doing and what I was suppose to do with it. Maybe your note about collecting them could have been on that first table. Your creepyness factor was high with your textures and lighting. Your "path" to the end was easy to follow and I liked the puzzle. It was really cool how you hid the king. I almost had a heart attack when that spider came through the wall when I was right there. :unsure: One other thing I was confused by was what was the guy suppose to be doing while the pumpkins were attacking him? I also liked your surprise ending with the house. Wasn't expecting that.

 

 

Again thanks for a great mission.

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I didn't fix the loot problem I just couldn't find all the loot, it seams. So I was unsure wheather there was a problem with some loot.

 

It was tricky to find because of the

 

"teleporting" at the end. I did the ending a few times because I'd forget something on the other side :rolleyes: . Finally I made a note for myself so I'd remember. :laugh:

 

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The guy at the end in the forest temple who gets attacked by the pumpkins, is the dark lord (mage) who originally created the pumpkin curse on the house, with him dead the curse unravels, and the house doesn't get built cos the guy who built it 'gets cold feet' 'ghost walks over his grave' (feels bad) and doesn't build it in the end.

 

 

 

As for the tinker, tailor, soldier, spy, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief, the words were used to pick the odd one out in a game we used the play as kids at school, the thief being the odd one out.

Nothing to do with spy film remake at cinema.

 

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Nice mission, great Halloween atmosphere.

 

Technically, IMHO, it's one of the best (cute) scripted cutscene in game (a little bit too long, but REALLY great stuff to see) until here for all TDM mission released so far.

 

I liked a lot the idea of a teleport with the ritual, and the mansion has a great architecture. Maybe some AI can be inserted better in the house to make it more challanging. The end it's not so clear.

 

My congratulation to you, Stumpy, for your mission! :D

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Just played through this mission, and had a lot of fun!

 

My gameplay experience on Difficult (don't read if you haven't finished yet):

 

At the beginning it felt quite simplistic, but the mood quickly changed as soon as I entered the house.

 

I was quite puzzled by that first cutscene (technically very well done!) ... just didn't really know how to interprete it... mad evil lasereyes pumpkins?? After I realized I could pick it up I thought I could maybe use it as a weapon later.

 

Geometry felt weird at first, everything was so big. However I really liked that feeling after a while. Made things feel a bit surreal, but not too much. Just like in a bad dream.

 

Had a look through a few doors, and decided to start exploring in the basement. That's when I really started to love the gameplay in this mission. Spider. Spider?? I could have sworn I saw one in there just a moment ago. Where has it gone to? Hmmm.. still can hear sounds. Weird. No way out of this room other than back up... Argh, sounds getting loud, find some dark spot to hide! And there it comes right through the wall. Not something you want in your everyday-FM, but here it worked perfectly! You made me feel clever about detecting that passage! :rolleyes: Ghosting these buggers and finding the Pumpkin King was a lot of fun. (And him zapping one of them felt outright satisfactory).

 

Exploring the rest of the house, I specifically liked the fireplace to not only provide a way between adjacent rooms, but also upwards. Almost blackjacked the thief there - I did notice the pumpkin, but didn't think much of it at that time. Don't know if that would have broken things, but almost in the last second I stepped back and crawled towards the pumpkin. Sure enough it did what I expected. That felt quite rewarding again!

 

Next stop: painting room, found the secret switch there by chance and went down. Quickly realized this might be important later, but was a dead end for now. So, back to explore the upper floors.

 

That nursing room felt SOO immersive! I really loved getting nearer and nearer to the source of the crying and trying to find out where it came from. Another highlight in this mission.

 

Found some new objectives in the next room, so down to the only area I'd skipped so far - the garden. It was quite easy to ghost those spiders there... it felt so easy, I actually got a bit careless and stumbled accross one of the graves. Aaaargh! Damn, don't do that to me ever again!

In retrospect I consider that another highlight... make the player feel just a bit TOO comfortable and let him drop his guards.

 

Time for the finale... I admit I didn't fully understand the background about the "master" and the pumpkin curse, but the readable & picture puzzle were clear enough about what to do next. Very nice cutscenes again (although a bit lengthy).

 

Back up... weird. Where am I now? Took me a couple of minutes to realize it was the same place as before, but without the house. Great idea - only then I grasped that I actually had changed the past in some way.

 

I really loved this mission! It was great fun gameplay-wise, and very immersive. Something quite different from the "blackjack everyone and then explore the whole place"-style I for some reason always fall back to if possible. And I never got to a point where I had no clue about what to do next.

 

Very very well done! Thanks!

 

 

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A very satisfying mission , thank you for your good work stumpy !

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well done, Stumpy!

 

This mission has some fun surprises and scary moments.

A very fun mission to play. Feels like playing Thief. I think because of the large interior with lots of room to explore and sneak through.

 

The only thing I really wanted but could not find is a candle to see better in some very dark areas.

My monitor is set to low brightness to better simulate the dark environment required for sneaking around unseen.

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Had some time to finish it recently. I think it was kinda old school approach on the halloween theme. It was fun. :)

 

 

It has best usage of pumpkins in the contest imo. Collecting them and later participating on their ritual etc. were full of halloween spirit. Another interesting point is by teleporting to different dimension? on the same place, you saved big time by using same geometry I believe. That's nice idea to speed-up on mapping. I wrote it down to my mapping book. :)

 

 

My Rating:

 

 

Halloween -> 5 : Ol' skool. :)

Gameplay -> 3,5 -> 4 : Fps drops dramatically in some areas because of lighting and massive amount of AI. Invisible walls were a little bit extreme.

Aesthetics -> 3 : It's obvious it's not eye candy, but not eyesore either. ;)

 

 

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I had a blast with this one. It felt like a good old fashion Halloween mission, the story flowed, it was good, it had all the elements. I knew I had to go back to the basement again, got stuck on that last pumpkin, that was clever and good. Damn zombies out back, made me jump. Even the music and sounds in just the right places made me jump a bit, that was appreciated. Nicely done, thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you!

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Would someone be kind enough to humor a simpleton and tell me where the Rich man pumpkin is? I'm sure I've been in every room multiple times now. It's either hidden very well or I'm missing something very obvious. thanks.

"I believe that what doesn't kill you simply makes you... stranger"

 

The Joker

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Would someone be kind enough to humor a simpleton and tell me where the Rich man pumpkin is? I'm sure I've been in every room multiple times now. It's either hidden very well or I'm missing something very obvious. thanks.

 

 

 

 

You are lookin for the King Pumpkin. Go to downstairs and enter to the room. Then, wait for the spider which will lead you the way.

 

 

 

 

 

If you have killed that spider already, then you should know that some walls are nonsolid in the room.

 

 

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Pumpkins with laser eyes that kill people who idly sit by the table, accepting their doom without any actions?

 

I'd better simply leave this unrated, as I've no clue. No clue at all. Doesn't work for me.

 

 

 

Dudes.. We need a conventional mission contest and soon.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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Pumpkins with laser eyes that kill people who idly sit by the table, accepting their doom without any actions?

 

I'd better simply leave this unrated, as I've no clue. No clue at all. Doesn't work for me.

 

 

 

Dudes.. We need a conventional mission contest and soon.

 

I hate to be a killjoy but this is also my opinion. =-<

 

That's why I've only rated Creeps so far and not any other.

"No proposition Euclid wrote,

No formulae the text-books know,

Will turn the bullet from your coat,

Or ward the tulwar's downward blow

Strike hard who cares—shoot straight who can—

The odds are on the cheaper man."

 

From 'Arithmetic on the Frontier' by Rudyard Kipling

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Pumpkins with laser eyes that kill people who idly sit by the table, accepting their doom without any actions?

 

I'd better simply leave this unrated, as I've no clue. No clue at all. Doesn't work for me.

 

 

 

Dudes.. We need a conventional mission contest and soon.

 

One thing I've noticed about the Horror genre is that certain authors evoke suspense and dread while others offer a "window into madness". This nightmare world that they evoke is meant to make you feel like a fish out of water. This is the style of David Lynch and (to a much much lesser degree) Rob Zombie. In this mission and Illusionist's Tower we are transported to this strange and dreadful "stumpy world". I'm not sure if the fear it evokes is more directly related to the mission itself... It's more of a dread that I get from the presence of stumpy's mind.

 

It's a fear of the mission author... (and very much in the horror film tradition I mentioned above).

 

I'm sure stumpy is a fine chap. I'd personally stick to a public place for a first meeting that's all :laugh:

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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I don't know if I can agree with you guys, Halloween lends itself to the unconventional and weird. There have already been a conventional contest (seasons) that turned out well, this one was really off the rocker and I found I had to just bear with it.

When I first started the mission I wanted to exit out after the first pumpkin scripted event but stuck with it and enjoyed it.

 

But please vote anyways, if you didn't like it that doesn't mean you can't rate them on their contest merits such as Halloween, gameplay and architecture/design.

I always assumed I'd taste like boot leather.

 

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Does everything have to be so thought out and methodical? Down to the last detail? It is what it is, for that matter put some trans like whirlygig dream like thingamajig in front of the guys face, he's in a trans, he be hipmotized.... :P

 

Good points on both sides, take it for what it is.

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Welly well. I'll honour AH's kind request and vote. I'll put up a brief review too.

 

 

 

Halloween element: 3 stars. This felt like a caricature halloween with all laser-shooting pumpkins and things. The map did not feel scary or intimidating.

 

Gameplay: 2 stars. Running around in a dark building. Nobody to avoid, but a few spiders to kill. Collect pumpkins. After collecting a few I just grew tired and stopped. I can't say I had fun.

 

Probably what I was looking for was an interesting stealth operation in a property belonging to someone else. Examining the map to choose which way to break in. Tight spots. Last minute successful lockpicking before that guard comes around the corner. Escaping pursuing guards climbing my quickly fired rope arrow. Add some horror for halloween theme.

 

What I got was a pumpkin hunt detached from reality.

 

Aesthetics: 2 stars. Quite bare surroundings. Almost empty rooms. Some of the spider silk rooms looked interesting, but mostly the location was very, very bare.

 

 

 

 

Does everything have to be so thought out and methodical? Down to the last detail?

 

Well, sort of yes. I usually need to feel immersed in order to enjoy a mission. If everything is detached and starts to feel unreal, my immersion is broken.

 

To be immersed, the location and events must feel 'real' enough. Especially AI should feel like real people. Otherwise I could just hack them all down since they are just AI's standing between me and loot. If immersion is gone, I can question why I am gathering loot in the first place. Why should I gather model objects in a non-real virtual environment? Immersion will make it all worthwhile. It will also make soft methods dealing with obstacles more appealing and thus the game more interesting.

 

This is also why keeping the player immersed, but still dropping subtle unnerving events, is so effective way in building suspension in general horror themes. If the situation suddenly blows out into a caricaturic sillyness, one will not be frightened, but would rather feel a bit.. well... silly.

 

Like making good food, you cannot just mush random ingredients in a random pot to succeed. With a FM you need to methodically prepare each high quality ingredient correctly and place it into the pot at the correct time. And then let it cook just the correct amount of time. Well thought of, down to the last detail.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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