Fan Mission: Solar Escape 1

[thebigh]

This another mission from the early days of Dark Mod that I've been meaning to play for a while. The goal is basically the same as Thief's Den 1- break into Sebastian Creep's place, steal a valuable item from him, and leave some incriminating evidence in his chest- which suggests it started life as working through one of the DarkRadiant tutorials.

From there it gets pretty weird. The architecture seems haphazardly put together, which gives the level a unique feel, and I always think it's nice when mappers develop a signature style all their own. The map itself is fairly small, just a few buildings and an adjoining cave-sewer, and there's few guards, but it's so tightly put together it was a constant challenge to avoid getting caught. Making it more difficult is that sound seems to propagate everywhere in the level, making it very hard to avoid tipping off all the guards just by moving around.

Loot is generally placed well, with some pieces very fiendishly hidden. There's secrets too- also fiendishly concealed, and one of those is necessary to finish the level. Figuring out how to open it took me quite a bit of time.

I finished with a stealth score of 4 and $1,749 in loot, easily meeting the goal of $1,500.

This is a mission that becomes more than the sum of its (very jumbled) parts and is good, challenging fun for 45 minutes or so. Definitely worth checking out!