Down and Out on Newford Road by thebigh (Jan 26 2022), Christmas Connections contest entry

[Braunro]

I may know why the builders and guards suddenly go all aggro, and it has nothing to do with a window. If you wait long enough, eventually Malachi gets killed by the elevator and they don't think it was because they elevator lacks safety features. I did a playthrough and Malachi was killed by the elevator but I had knocked out all the other roving builders that would have seen him. After I finished, I went in and set up on the table by the elevator that had a candlestick on it. Eventually old Malachi got chewed by the elevator and they all alerted. Sometimes other people get killed on the elevator at that point and sometimes it says I failed the don't kill anybody objective and sometimes it doesn't. Don't know if it'll happen every time. My first attempt either I didn't wait long enough or it may be some triggers need to happen. The second time

Spoiler

 I snagged the abbot's key, opened the closet in the chapel and grabbed the water arrows, went in the guard's bunk room and out the window to the alley apartment with the secret, and up the stairs to the third floor before going back down and waiting again.

I still waited quite a while but Malachi eventually died on the elevator again. So if that isn't intentional, that may be what starts the issue.

[thebigh]

22 hours ago, Braunro said:

I may know why the builders and guards suddenly go all aggro, and it has nothing to do with a window. If you wait long enough, eventually Malachi gets killed by the elevator and they don't think it was because they elevator lacks safety features. I did a playthrough and Malachi was killed by the elevator but I had knocked out all the other roving builders that would have seen him. After I finished, I went in and set up on the table by the elevator that had a candlestick on it. Eventually old Malachi got chewed by the elevator and they all alerted. Sometimes other people get killed on the elevator at that point and sometimes it says I failed the don't kill anybody objective and sometimes it doesn't. Don't know if it'll happen every time. My first attempt either I didn't wait long enough or it may be some triggers need to happen. The second time

  Reveal hidden contents

 I snagged the abbot's key, opened the closet in the chapel and grabbed the water arrows, went in the guard's bunk room and out the window to the alley apartment with the secret, and up the stairs to the third floor before going back down and waiting again.

I still waited quite a while but Malachi eventually died on the elevator again. So if that isn't intentional, that may be what starts the issue.

 

Yeah, that's two separate things going on. The Builders will eventually flip out if one of them is crushed by the elevator and they spot his corpse, but the other bug was legitimately a bug. The location separators between different areas have a sound loss associated with them so that a sound occurring on one side of a doorway is heard by AI at, say, 10 or 15 dB quieter. One of these was set to a negative sound loss, ie, it amplified the sound turning it into a huge megaphone that blasted  noise all over the level. It wasn't just setting off the Builders but also all of the watchmen, the apartment landlord, and often the undead. To make it worse, the bug only had this effect on Windows. I'm a Linux user so it took me forever to figure out what was happening.

[Sotha]

This mission was great fun. Very difficult with all the bright lights. I think I alerted everybody but managed to crawl through the mission anyways.

One of the guards

Spoiler

I tricked one guard into the guardhouse and locked them in.

I left the bow shop door open and the torch wielding guard came investigating. You can imagine what happened next. I ran off, closed the door and got enough time to climb on top of the little shelter over the fire pit. They almost saw me in the torch light, but happened to foolishly stare in the opposite direction. Very tense moments.

I liked that there was use for the rope arrow. We could use more of those.

The geometry was good, I liked the pacing, mission size was perfect for me and the experience was tense, but fun. Good work!

[thebigh]

Thanks for playing, I'm glad you had fun!