Fan Mission: Penny Dreadful 3 by Melan and Bikerdude (2016/07/10)

[Melan 1801]

 

By way of introduction, Penny Dreadful is a fan mission series dealing with the exploits and misfortunes of Gerald Foxley, lowlife and common opportunist. To stick with the theme of lurid and disreputable pulp literature, these missions were planned to be nasty, brutish and short, which sort of worked in PD1, was not entirely working in PD2, and went out the window with PD3, which ended up much bigger than I ever expected. The series also allows me to experiment with gameplay ideas which do not completely fit TDM standards: Foxley is slightly worse at stealth than the TDM baseline, and can't pick locks: you will need to find different ways of getting into places.

 

In the first episode, The Grail of Regrets, what started out as a routine case of extortion ended with Gerald in the possession of the eponymous Grail. In the second, All the Way Up, these newfound fortunes proved to be shorter than anticipated, as Messer Montrose, a corrupt nobleman, and his ally, the local Bailiff conspired to rob Foxley of the prize to further their own ends. The Grail is now in the hands of Archibald Flint, a powerful crime boss ruling from a mansion on Fiddler's Hill, an infamous den of thieves. However, to get close to him, Foxley has to remove a few obstacles in the way...

Erasing the Trail

 

"Kill a man and take his life; wound him, and restore his pride." -- alleyway proverb.

 

"In a city where every window is an eye and every doorway a whispering mouth, it is hard to keep a secret. When I learned of crime lord Archibald Flint's involvement in robbing me of the Grail of Regrets, I knew I'd have to strike quick, and strike first. But I failed.

 

By the time I got near his place on Fiddler's Hill, every gate to his hilltop mansion was locked, every alley patrolled by thieves eager to kill. Two days later, I watched my tenement go up in smoke and flames. The hunt was on, and it wouldn't be over until they'd have their quarry dead or captured.

 

Flint's main enforcer is a man named Grunt, known to communicate in written orders after his throat was cut in some altercation... a real bloodhound. I will have to deal with him one way or another to get the heat off of my back, and allow me to reach Flint himself...

 

Flint is also looking for my dead body, and I'm planning to have it delivered right to his doorstep. Another underworld figure, Almsmaster Quandt, lives a few streets from Grunt's mansion, and he is said to be my spitting image, an uncanny resemblance. Wonder if Flint will recognise the difference... well, time to find out.

 

Sometimes the only way to deal with a hornet's nest is to kick it over. This night, I am back in the middle of it. I have already run into a pair of sentinels, but I slipped into a small garden and jammed the lock behind me with a bit of wire. Hope they don't raise the whole neighbourhood, or this will be over real quick. Time to get moving."

 

Download links:

• Mega (200 MB)
• mission downloader!

***Performance warning***: as usual, this mission pushes the limits a bit (although less than PD2). The hardware requirements exceed the TDM baseline, and the loading time is fairly long. Optimalisation should be credited to Bikerdude, while the remaining problems are all mine.

 

High-resolution player map (for printing, etc.):

 

 

 

Notes:

• Erasing the Trail is intended to be an open-ended city exploration mission, where you can approach your objectives from multiple angles, and discover multiple solutions to complete them; some more straightforward, some more obscure.
• Gerald Foxley is a rank amateur who can't pick locks. You will have to find alternate means to break into places.
• There is no poll to rate the mission because I do not believe in them. Your comments are welcome in writing, however!
• You can find my concept art in the PK4 file. These images obviously contain heavy spoilers.
• This mission series predates, and is thus unrelated to the Penny Dreadful TV series.

Special thanks:

• to our testers, Aluminumhaste, Kingsal, Nbohr1more, Oldjim, Skacky and Premier;
• gigagooga for several new ambient sounds, and sound conversions (Fabrice Hautecloque from Ishar III, tension loops from Golgo 13: the TV series);
• Yandros, Bikerdude and Goldchocobo for voice acting;
• epifire! for custom models;
• The Canon Texture project for texture work.

[Goldwell 2365]

Congratulations on the release guys! Been looking forward to this one for a while

[Melan 1801]

From initial post to the Darkfate front page: 2h 21 min. Impressive!

[Bikerdude 3738]

Now available via in-game downloader.

[grayman 2793]

Congrats for the release!

[nbohr1more 1926]

Congrats!

 

This is such a big mission and with my Iron Man style of play I probably only covered 70% of it in beta other than flying through in noclip to inspect for visual issues.

This feels like it almost rivals Behind Closed Doors in size but it has a slightly more claustrophobic street layout and, as a bonus, forces you to confront AI a little more.

 

There are at least a few really nice mantle-playground areas in this mission that are just a joy to climb around and I probably wasted a great deal of

testing time getting caught-up in all the neat ways you can get around "up there".

[Bikerdude 3738]

There are at least a few really nice mantle-playground areas in this mission that are just a joy to climb around and I probably wasted a great deal of

testing time getting caught-up in all the neat ways you can get around "up there".

Oh yes, this mission follows Melan's canon of " if player thinks they can get up there, the mapper should allow them to do so". I thne of course went through the perf hell of keeping perf up at the same time

[TheUnbeholden 15]

Screenshots?

[Bikerdude 3738]

er wait untill the mission has been out for a while fella ;-P

[Melan 1801]

There are some on the mission download page. Also, these preview images (might have slight differences to final content):

 

 

 

 

 

[Aosys 233]

Gratz on the release! Can't wait to play it

[prjames 2]

I finished this mission about 2 hours ago. Really impressive. I look forward to seeing where you go next with this series.

 

A couple hint requests (no hurry):

 

 

 

How do you get to the Red Room in Grant's mansion?

Where is the key to the small Hammer temple?

 

 

 

- prjames

[Bikerdude 3738]

@Prjames,

1. there is more than meets the eye in
   a certain bedroom

   - think classic Thief and things that are hidden.

2. Melan will have to hint you for that as I don't know, maybe on the patrolling hammer or
   perhaps look up for something

   ...

[kin 8]

 

Where is Almsmaster Quandt?

 

Edited July 11, 2016 by kin

[Vae 60]

Ah ha!...Yet another Penny Dreadful episode to brighten up my heart!

 

However, I will attempt to resist the temptation to experience it, before the release of 2.04

[Premier 7]

EDIT: Sorry, I'm withdrawaing the post as per Melan's request to give everyone more time to figure out things for themselves.

Edited July 11, 2016 by Premier

[Goldwell 2365]

Just finished the mission, wow!

 

 

 

This mission was absolutely incredible!

 

At first when I started the mission I was wondering how the lack of lock picks would be but rather than feel frustrated and key hunt most of the time you could just find an alternate way in or simply find an open window and pinch a key off a table or wall. The detail in this mission just blows my mind, it has a very strong thief vibe to it but at the same time has a Dark Mod twist to it.

 

Walking around through the city I just became lost in the detail and the ambient of the world, so many of the rooms were unique and stood apart from each other. Sometimes in city missions they suffer from blending all in together but here you had such unique and varied rooms all with a very supernatural undertone to them.

 

My favorite room was the one connected to the long shaft to a swift death (until I found out from the crypt way down below you can access some of the treasure found there). I really liked the unique architecture as well as the custom textures. This city felt dark, gritty and alive. So many plots interwoven that you can follow along with readables which I found both fascinating and making me want to figure out the next angle on.

 

The ambient music was spot on as well, I am very picky when it comes to ambiance but I really feel you hit it out of the park here.

 

The custom textures really added a beautiful detail that both made the mission feel unique to it's own and making me wish they were included in the core mod because they all blended so well.

 

After I finished the mission I decided to noclip around and discovered (despite my 3 hour playtime) that I had missed so many little rooms and secrets, I found the Lady Rowena tribute very touching and well done.

 

As for constructive criticism, I would recommend for your next mission to include a briefing video and possibly even voice the main character. I thought it was a nice (albeit towards the end very overdone) touch of having the creepy whispering voice throughout however hearing the player react to the world and situations happen would have been perfect for filling in a void that sometimes left me confused. Starting the mission with the cookie cutter briefing text and ingame screenshots panning across the background does not do justice for the incredible level proceeding this screen, I think a well done briefing video would have just been the icing on the cake!

 

The custom conversations were a bit plain but felt right for the mission as a whole, they were obvious to walk into and helped move the story along partially but some extra conversations would have helped I think, as a lot of stories in this mission was told through readables it would have been a welcome break to hear a couple of NPC's discussing what was told via notes instead here and there just to break up the constant barrage of readable after readble. The mission felt very polished so top work there Bikerdude! because i'm guessing this must have been a nightmare to optimize at times. I found myself constantly surprised that I was able to view large chunks of the detailed city without dropping frame rates drastically.

 

Overall I want to commend you both for doing an excellent job, it is obvious that a lot of love and care went into this and it really shows so well done! Thank you both!

 

 

Edited July 11, 2016 by Goldwell

[Bikerdude 3738]

@Gw, PM me a list of the asset's you would like to see in 2.05 from this mission so I can make sure there are added. That said a bunch of them should already be in SVN.

[Melan 1801]

Thanks for the detailed commentary!

 

For now, I will touch upon one point: the mission deliberately avoids repetition by making the majority of its architecture customised. I used prefabs, but where possible, it is hand.made on the spot. The idea was to rather have one room that stays in the memory than three that don't. (And now it is easy to guess why it took so long even with tons of help from Bikerdude - it went from a three-month project to a 10- or 11.month one.)

 

Many of the assets will definitely be in 2.05. This includes in particular gigagooga's sound work, but also painting skins, and some of the textures (although we will have to make a selection there).

[Goldwell 2365]

@Gw, PM me a list of the asset's you would like to see in 2.05 from this mission so I can make sure there are added. That said a bunch of them should already be in SVN.

 

I'd say you guys have probably picked up the most suitable and useful textures already for 2.05 so I doubt my opinion would be of much use there.

 

Thanks for the detailed commentary!

 

For now, I will touch upon one point: the mission deliberately avoids repetition by making the majority of its architecture customised. I used prefabs, but where possible, it is hand.made on the spot. The idea was to rather have one room that stays in the memory than three that don't. (And now it is easy to guess why it took so long even with tons of help from Bikerdude - it went from a three-month project to a 10- or 11.month one.)

 

Many of the assets will definitely be in 2.05. This includes in particular gigagooga's sound work, but also painting skins, and some of the textures (although we will have to make a selection there).

 

Well that hardwork definitely paid off and was noticeable, as I mentioned in my previous comment each and every room stood out to me as unique and interesting. It furthers my belief that customized architecture is better than modular (internally at least) as it leaves a better impression and is easier to navigate as a player, makes wanting to explore the next room even more desirable.

 

Re: the assets, that's good to hear! I was taking note while playing PD3 of the custom textures to use in future missions myself

[Ryan101 16]

Whew. An exhausting mission - and a difficult one. Maybe you caught me at a bad time, but my brain is fried after all that. I'll leave a more detailed critique eventually, but I... liked it overall, I suppose. Great architecture and atmosphere, and a good, appropriately Victorian-gritty story to go along.

 

That said, for some reason this one frustrated the shit out of me. Maybe set the loot count on expert a little down, but I guess I have only myself to blame for figuring I was badass enough to reach 2,000 without resorting to noclip. Guards were omnipresent and unforgiving, as well. Thief purists will probably be delighted by how difficult and intricate this mission is, but at the end I only felt a profound sense of relief when I lurched into the mission complete screen. Make of all this what you will!

 

Edit: the performance warning is also quite accurate. I've a fairly badass computer and this mission could only chug along in a number of areas. Be extra careful, cause the guards sure as hell don't lag.

Edited July 12, 2016 by Ryan101

[kin 8]

 

Can someone pm me how to get in the red room

 

[Oldjim 154]

@ryan101 You will be pleased - or maybe not - that the loot target was actually reduced during beta testing

[hanmin 8]

Many thanks and grats for this awsome misson.

 

 

 

I loved the many places to climb and discover vertically as well as all the locked doors. Lots of stuff to frob, highly detailed riddles and

subplots.

 

Some parts are quite difficult. For one jump, I needed to stack some chairs.

 

 

 

What I could not find out yet:

 

 

 

Where does one apply the noctural lily dust?

Where is the key to Mr Yongs room (the one with the book of enigmas)?

Where is the key to the chapel?

How does one enter the red room?

How does one enter the hidden cylinder from the crypt/where is the key to the lock in the mouth on the beast?

 

 

Edited July 18, 2016 by hanmin

[Seth9964 0]

I really enjoyed this one. I was waiting with baited breath since the beta test call came out and I was not disappointed. It took a hot minute to get my bearings in the mission but that's part of the fun. The level design was complex but I always felt compelled to investigate. The writing was superb, and the overall polish from patrols to building facades was lovingly crafted. As an aside, I just want to thank all of you wonderful guys and gals who facilitated this mod. I'm sure that we all came here for the same love of a franchise and what you have created here is really amazing.