Fan Mission: The Gatehouse by Bikerdude & Goldchocobo (updated 02/11/2014)

[chakkman]

Cool. I wasn't asking because i want to use it in a mission, just asking where all the nice music comes from.

[Thiefette]

Congrats Bikerdude & Goldchocobo, on the release of this mission. Don't know how, but almost missed it and so glad I didn't. I really liked this mission because I like

puzzles of all kinds. The mirror was was a little tricky but figured out which button went to which mirror and eventually got it. The others were nice to do also, (why are there spike balls on the ceiling? Hmmm?) The readables gave just enough clues. The only one I had some difficulty with was the statues - didn't know the value and couldn't find a readable so just ended up guessing.

All in all enjoyed this one even the

lava hop at the end. This took a few tries as I kept missing where I was suppose to go next as well as my poor jumping skills didn't help

Thanks again.

[Bikerdude]

@Thiefette, your welcome.

[STiFU]

This would've been a winner in the unusual gameplay contest. Congrats to anyone involved. I had a blast, thanks!

[Bikerdude]

Your welcome mister. :-)

[Tr00pertj]

Greetings people,

 

I'm going to start on my map again soon bit by bit as I've been so busy the last 6 months and I've got a new system yeah:)

 

I have to chime in on this mission as it's very creepy. The atmosphare is incredibly good and had me on the edge of my seat for almost the whole playthrough. I lucked out on the

mirror puzzle and got it in about 9 moves

. There is some z fighting at the bottom of a door entrance but nothing major and has probably been brought up in a previous post.

I must congratulate you guy's for the puzzles and atmosphere but must also so agree with others that it is too short.

 

the end forest area lead me to believe there was more game play ahead and it really does beg more as the forest area looked so intriguing.

 

 

Thanks for the mission.COOL and CREEPY.

Edited February 17, 2014 by Tr00pertj

[Bikerdude]

Your welcome mister.

[Lux]

 

lava hop at the end. This took a few tries as I kept missing where I was suppose to go next as well as my poor jumping skills didn't help

 

 

Platformer type player engagement meets with love or hate generally. I have a buddy that has also played and loves the entire Thief trilogy and he absolutely despises these types of "jumping nightmares" as he calls them. (which makes me laugh)

 

I absolutely love them. Its a risk to implement them in any FM as you're going to have people that do not like them at all but there will always be people that thoroughly enjoy them if they're done correctly. This one was done correctly. Loved every bit of it and part of that is because the player control in TDM is finely tuned and gives an agile player the means to succeed where they think they can.

[lost_soul]

Some very nice bits here...

 

 

I especially like the part with the crushing ceiling. You can hear it getting closer, and you dare not look away while picking the lock for fear of wasting time. Then when it gets REALLY close, you can see the shadow of the ceiling on the wall in front of you... uh oh! That was a nice touch. I got through that part just in time without having to reload.

I also thought the mirror puzzle was cool because we haven't seen anything like that in TDM before. Redirecting light like that is an interesting idea.

The ghost never even knew I was there.

 

 

Thanks for the fun mission, folks!

[Thiefette]

Some very nice bits here...

 

 

I especially like the part with the crushing ceiling. You can hear it getting closer, and you dare not look away while picking the lock for fear of wasting time. Then when it gets REALLY close, you can see the shadow of the ceiling on the wall in front of you... uh oh! That was a nice touch. I got through that part just in time without having to reload.

I also thought the mirror puzzle was cool because we haven't seen anything like that in TDM before. Redirecting light like that is an interesting idea.

The ghost never even knew I was there.

 

 

Thanks for the fun mission, folks!

 

I ended up flattening myself against the door and was able to somehow avoid a squishy death

 

[Bikerdude]

I have added a poll to the OP, can people go and vote when you get a sec, ta.

 

[Bikerdude]

@Thiefette, LOL, I did wonder if that was possible when testing it.

[Mr Mike]

Just played through this and it's shit hot!

 

Really nice GFX and sound but the puzzles and architecture really made me feel like I was Garret. I'll take some time to collect my thoughts so all I can say right now is what a thoroughly excellent job. Massive props and something that TDM should take every opportunity to boast about.

 

Thank you Biker and Goldchocobo!

Edited February 28, 2014 by Mr Mike

[Goldchocobo]

Thank you Mr Mike!

[Melan]

This is a helluva mission! I am curious who did what in the building process, because its appearance, puzzles and scripting are all top notch. This is how a puzzle-based mission should be done (I really liked the one with the mirrors), and it looks great to boot. I have one small, very small complaint

 

logically, you should be able to trigger the pressure plate traps with those spiky metal ball things, but you can't.

 

Otherwise, it's interesting how the entire mission is puzzle-based, and even your sword is just an inventory item.

 

 

I hope we will see people learning from this mission, and maybe even get a few trap prefabs from the bargain - dare we dream?

[grayman]

My meager contributions:

 

1 - Scripting and map tweaking to make the mirror puzzle work.

 

2 - Graphics for the briefing.

[AluminumHaste]

I did a bit of texture work trying to match TDM resources to the look of this missions original pallette.

[Goldchocobo]

I designed and scripted all the puzzles, although Grayman took my designs, and scripted the mirror puzzle in it's entirety. I also wrote the story, did the VO, and recorded all the SFX and ambients. I also mapped about half the lava pit, and did the falling columns.

[Melan]

Thanks! So how much of this mission was in the original map?

[Bikerdude]

I did the map conversion from the old D3 map , but had to do a LOT of cleaning up mapping wise so pretty much rebuilt the entire map - see below.

 

Old bits that were retained but overhauled -

• Front façade, inner courtyard, gnd-flr room, stairwells, east 1st floor room, other 1st-flr room (which GC put the paintings & dead ghost in), basement, sub-basement, stairs to SB and the dungeon, dungeon & sword room.
  

New bits I built from scratch -

• Drawbridge, 1st-flr archers room, parts of the basement & sub-basement, chapel, lava grates in dungeon, secret exit from sword room, lava cave, exit tunnel, main menu background was lifted from the briefing images.
  

GC did all of the audio and sounds.

MD & AH did all of the new textures, we only retained a small number of the original textures.

GM did a big chunk of the scripting and was the genius behind the mirror puzzle.

 

If I missed anyone let me know and have no problem re-using any of my work, but people will have to ask GC if they can use his audio.

 

We could always at some point in the future do a "Return to the Gatehouse" where because the sword is gone there was nothing to keep the undead animated. And as a result the local builders took over the place and used the lava pits for smelting to create stuff for the order etc.

[SirGen]

While puzzle solving is not really my thing, I just have to say that this is one of the most beautiful missions I've ever seen!

[Bikerdude]

Well you can expect more of that from moi in the near future, because if you think this mission was pretty, oh dear lord you ain't seen nothing yet....!!!

 

To quote Melan (one of our most respected master builders) -

 

I finally played the mission this afternoon. It is a little gem box of an FM - production values are stellar, it is very close to flawless

[Tarhiel]

Absolutely wonderful and gameplay-wise outstanding mission!

 

Congratulations to both&all who worked on this.

Edited April 5, 2014 by Tarhiel

[Bikerdude]

Oh behalf of the little team that worked on it, we thank you

[MVT]

The first time I tried this, the sword went into the tray and got the spooky voice. I did the others and nothing happened. On checking the sword, I found it had disappeared. Possibly it fell into the wall or floor. It was not in inventory either. I fixed the problem by restarting the mission and was ok on try two.