Fan Mission: Deadeye by Sotha (2021/12/31)

[Sotha]

YOU TAFFERS! Happy new year!

Deadeye is a small/tiny assassination mission recommended for TDM newcomers and veterans alike.

Briefing:

Quote

 

This neighborhood isn't exactly the most trouble-free place, but recently it has gotten much worse than before.

Some time ago, a group of thugs and troublemakers moved into the district and started causing havoc: beatings, robberies, extortions...

The local merchants see the thugs as a threat to their businesses and would like to have the nuisance exterminated. The city watch is too busy or too corrupt to help them and what do I care?

I told them I can lend my helping hand, for a hefty sum of gold.

The gang is a loose group of cutthroats and criminal scum, but my main target is Deadeye, their leader.

A cruel and vicious man, he is the brains of the entire operation, and certainly the type of person the city would be much better without.

If I get rid of Deadeye, the rest of the morons should just disperse, and the merchants gold would buy me a lavish life-style for a while.

So, this is the plan: sneak in, avoid the other gangmembers entirely, identify and pop off Deadeye and then get the hell out.

Alternatively, if I dare, I could kidnap him for ransom.

The gang must have some ill-gotten gains lying around, so I should scoop those for myself while I'm at it.

I heard Deadeye is aptly named: he is the only one in the gang with a bad eye and wears an eyepatch. Easy clue for identifying him.

My lavish life-style is only one heartbeat away...

 

Download link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JWslTAC3Ai9kkl1VCvJb14ZlVxWMmkUj/view?usp=sharing

Enjoy!

EDIT: I promised to someone to write something about the design of the map. This is in spoiler tags below. Possibly useful to new mappers or players interested in developer commentary.

 

Spoiler

Deadeye design notes:

 

These are no objective truths, but rather my personal thoughts and preferences which came up during mapping. Yours may be different, and that's great, isn't it?

 

General:

*Small mission: easy to map and test. Relatively low level of commitment. Bite size to play, almost bite size to map. I usually like smaller missions more. Small missions are great, because player focus and energy lasts for the duration of the whole mission. It is easier to successfully make a good small mission than a good large mission.

 

*Focused: map one location well and stay focused. No wandering around a  big city, trying to find where you are supposed to go. You start right where you were supposed to go. There is only the right place to go to. Okay, the main location can be full of nooks and crannies, but if you find yourself mapping some other area than the main location, ask yourself, why on earth?

 

*Outdoor areas are usually more work per "unit of gameplay fun" than interiors. Interiors are fast to map and more fun in gameplay. I grabbed the outside area from a never released WIP and made the interior from scratch. Strangely, outdoor areas often end up as unused WIP material. Indoors turn quickly into released Fan Missions. Just something mapper might be good to be aware of.

 

Lights: adjust a light radius in a corridor so that it barely touches the walls but sinks well into floor. Repeat to all rooms with all lights. Following this rule generally makes pretty lighting.

 

AI relighting: normal people like to stay in light. AI staying in an area should want to relight some light so that they do not stay in the dark. A location should thus have a main big light and a small secondary light. AI looks natural if they disregard the large light going off, but keep relighting the smaller light. Also, in this mission all the AI has the core TDM chance to relight, but the one roaming AI has higher chance to relight. It looks nice and natural when an AI stays in a dark area and another passes through and relights for the other.

Relighting can be a pain for the player who just spent scarce water arrows. Thus, pinchable candles were used. Cheap to douse. Cheap to relight. The big main light can be costly to douse and then stays off giving the player a nice advantage. Secondary lights are to make AI look believable.

 

*AI location distribution: one or two high security zones, located in choke points that make sense. Place Quiet Areas between them. This is to give the mission nice pacing. Also, the AI functions better if they have enough lebensraum/breathing room. Ai logjams look bad...

 

*AI patrols: Each AI has their own predictable patrol of few nodes. This makes it easy to check that the pathing works. There is just one AI who patrols through the entire map and meets almost all other AI. This is to make most of the AI familiar and easy to predict for the player, but the one roaming AI has the possibility to surprise the player.

 

*The plot twist of Deadeye is that there is no plot twist. Sometimes it is okay that everything is what it seems. This is just to remind mappers that you do not need to figure out complex soap opera plot to make a fun mission.

 

*EFX reverb settings. Please always use them. This mission uses just a few presets and it really makes the world pull the player in.

 

Moveables: I don't use moveables. Just a few left lying around can really mess up the AI pathing or even block doors. More trouble than worth.

 

Edited December 31, 2021 by Sotha

[noni]

A happy new year, with health and many joys!

[Amadeus]

Happy new year Sotha, congratulations on the release!

[Zerg Rush]

Thank you and a Happy 2022. Very nice mission for a break in between.

[STRUNK]

Oooh yeahh : P
I'm gonna play it right away. Thanks Sotha, and taffy New Year to all.

[STRUNK]

Spoiler

Final pile of 2021 : )

 

[Zerg Rush]

Same here 6 KO, one death 

[STRUNK]

@Zerg Rush
I kill no humans (if it's not an objective) ... I always speak aloud, before I knock them out: "I'm very sorry, but you'll be fine", and imagine they wil wake up with only a slight headache in the morning
 

Edited December 31, 2021 by STRUNK

[nbohr1more]

Congrats on the release!

This is now available in the mission database and in-game downloader.

[Sotha]

Thanks! I edited the original post to contain some design notes for those interested.

[lowenz]

That made me smile 

Edited December 31, 2021 by lowenz

[Goldwell]

Congrats on the release Sotha!

 

Just finished playing it, clocked in at 12 minutes on expert for me. Got all of the loot too and had a blast playing it.

 

I think there's really something special to just a short and sweet straight forward bite sized mission like this.

 

Good to see a familiar face around on these forums again too

[duzenko]

This mission could use a couple of secrets, if the author ever gets to do a version 2 of it

[datiswous]

Thanks Sotha, I think the mission is a great inspiration for new mappers especially because it is small but new and not too daunting. A lot of the newer missions are really nice but also really large and complex. Older missions sometimes have outdated building techniques and therefore less useful. The design notes are really helpful.

[Zerg Rush]

19 hours ago, STRUNK said:

@Zerg Rush
I kill no humans (if it's not an objective) ... I always speak aloud, before I knock them out: "I'm very sorry, but you'll be fine", and imagine they wil wake up with only a slight headache in the morning
 

No problem, they are all OK and healthy in the next playthrough 

[Bienie]

Played through this just now, great little creeper mission. Hardest difficulty and no equipment use and managed to get a stealth score of 1. But my oh my those static candles were giving me trouble throughout! The lighting is pretty punishing but not unfair. For a very small mission this still provided a lot of gameplay when played with some self-imposed restrictions. Thanks for making it!

[Oktokolo]

Now that was a welcome and healthy snack of a mission.

Spoiler

No bullshit or the usual "unexpected" plot twists - just some good ole blackjacking and looting.

Was fun to play - and i even found all the loot this time .

[Zerg Rush]

I like these small> 2 Mb Missions, although some have good difficulties that are not exactly suitable for newbies. For example Spring Cleaning and The Bakery Job need to save the game often.

[Heuli]

congratulations on the release! Sota
That’s something completely different
Happy new year!

[thebigh]

Welcome back Sotha! Nice little level. It was difficult but not unfair.

[Cambridge Spy]

 

[NeonsStyle]

Congratulations on the release. Look forward to playing this tonight.

[gokudo]

Incredible what a fella can do with less than 2 megs these days! 

[nbohr1more]

Fantastic mission!

I got nearly all loot and scored a stealth score of 3 on a sloppy iron man run of it.

 

I have to say that this is sorta like a "Sotha's greatest hits" in terms of aesthetics.

 

High contrast lights.

Big strong normal mapped textures.

No shadows on some decorative geometry such as tables that would normally ( real world )

only produce faint shadows due to their close proximity to light sources and bounce lighting ( thus looking mostly natural )

Interesting corridors and branching.

Bold exaggerated clutter.

Good room size proportions.

 

If you had signed up with an alternate forum nick and released this mission I would probably have easily guessed

that it was really a Sotha production due to the resemblances to The Phrase Book, Bakery Job, and Ulysses here and there.

[kingsal]

Very cool mission, really enjoyed the straightforward objective, lots of attention to detail, and varied patrols. Thank you for this little gem!