A House Call by thebigh (Mar 10 2022)

[thebigh]

1 hour ago, maxrenn8 said:

The way the letters were arranged in the book I would not have guessed that was the sequence in a million years...LOL.

That puzzle solution didn't quite work the way I imagined it would

[Jabberwocky]

Thank you for the mission. I thoroughly enjoyed it

As for the main puzzle

Spoiler

I deciphered the code but with my poor colour-sense I just couldn't tell the colour of either the books (wrong) or some of the lights. I just had to check here. But that's not to say the concept is bad. I like your approach.

 

There's another thing I'm not sure about whether I broke the game or whether it was meant to work like that.

Spoiler

I managed to enter the Doctor's room without the key simply by meddling with the door when he was closing it. The AI tried several times and then went for another round inside the room. At that point, when he was turning his back to me I crawled in. Not really very immersive story-wise but fun nonetheless

 

[thebigh]

Thanks for playing! I'm glad you liked it.

[Rio_Walker]

So I'm like - He-he the doc is an idiot, he couldn't remember which book is supposed to open the compartment so he made sure all of them open it, and then I find the desk key and find the manual... Guess I'm an idiot!
Also, the torn pages - nice touch, gets you thinking.

And then I find the clue how to open it and... I struggle bad. Because, like others. I thought "Color of books, no that's not it, color of bookshelves, also not it" (really hard to see colors on the left side, I got it right but they blend in too much, for me at least) and then I read HERE that it's a different order(!)

I read the recipe, and I am just going to ask - Six ounces of Snooze berries?! Excuse me?!

Spoiler

Where the hell am I supposed to find six ounces of DICK?!

Also, whoever made that ambient track that included fire starter sounds - damn you. DAMN YOU! XD

(How do you get into a dilapidated room? I couldn't find a switch anywhere)

[thebigh]

Thanks for playing! Glad you had fun, and I deffo learned a lot from building this mission.

[Keruah]

Walked through the mission. As everyone else here had some problems with the books puzzle. Also, opened the secret entrance to the laboratory through the wall, with the lever on the other side. Had to replay to open it with a prober books alignment. Otherwise, a very interesting short mission. 

[Tuomas]

I liked the book puzzle, however,

Spoiler

I had to check here for a hint to realize to pay attention to the dim lighting above the book shelves. Then I needed to adjust the in-game gamma setting to properly discern the different colors. But otherwise, encoding the book positioning with the upper/lower case letters was well thought of in my opinion, and having the letters in two rows also makes it explicit. Having more challenging puzzles is welcome, especially in this day and age when you can readily look for tips online if necessary. For the color blind it could be more of a challenge.

Like in the comment above, I initially entered the secret area by accidentally activating the lever through the wall. Do you have any tools as a mapmaker to prevent object interaction from certain directions?

Surprisingly I didn't manage to find the necessary loot (even playing with easy difficulty), even after finishing other objectives and re-scavenging the whole area. Am I the only one here?

[thebigh]

If I update this map I'll see if I can figure out how to fix that bug. As for the loot, I do tend to hide treasure a bit more thoroughly than most mappers. People keep giving me grief for it. But if you've looted the decoy secret and uncovered Mr. Pidgeon's secret stashes (big clues if you read all the pages of the notes he's left around), as well as scoring all the pickpockets, you should be almost at the Easy loot goal already.

[codiflow]

Hey @thebigh,

thanks for this great fan mission – had a lot of fun playing it. Many great details in there. I like them

I also finished the book shelf puzzle completely on my own

But currently I'm stuck finding the remaining 3 secrets. It says I already found 3 secrets and 3 are still to go. I went through the whole map multiple times now inspecting almost everything. Would you mind providing a list with hints to those secrets so one can find them?

Don't know if this is relevant: I'm playing on the easy level.

Thanks,
Christian

[thebigh]

Thanks for playing, and I'm glad you had fun @codiflow

Spoilers incoming:

 

Spoiler

Two of the secrets are the expensive wine bottles Mr Pidgeon has stashed around the house. There's clues written on the scroll in his kitchen footlocker. One bottle is in his bedroom; look carefully for a secret compartment. The other is in the stairwell leading up from the basement machine room. You might need to stack a crate or three to reach it.

One secret is the decoy in the doctor's bedroom. You find that pretty much by default.

Another is in the mildewy guest bedroom at the end of one of the hallways. Mr Pidgeon has left a note complaining about the damp and wondering why someone has screwed the wardrobe to the floor. Obviously someone didn't want anyone moving it. It might be worth searching around it thoroughly.

Another secret is in the machine rooms. Check out the machines. There is a valuable component you can take.

The last secret is a purse carelessly dropped by one of the doctor's guests on the foyer balcony. It's difficult to see and reach, but crates or a rope arrow should help.

 

[codiflow]

Thanks a lot

Could complete the mission now

Just 4 your info which secrets were the ones I hadn't found:

Spoiler

1. I already knew something must be in the stairways going up from the generator basement but I haven't seen the anomaly in the wall I also have been preparing the crates on the hallway already as I was sure there must be a purpose that there are so many movable packages lying around

2. I must have missed the secret in mildewy guest bedroom – I was sure I already inspected everything thoroughly

3. The purse on the balcony was really really well hidden

Thanks again for this nice mission – let's move on to the next

Edited June 16, 2024 by codiflow

[The Black Arrow]

Good mission, I was played it yesterday at night and was rather enjoying it, feels like a good refresher to play a more simplistic mission compared to something as massive as Iris or Seeking Lady Leicester, it's something like...For lunch, you will have Beef Bourgignon with roasted red potatoes, but when it's playing "A House Call", it's just cast iron-pan cooked potatoes with maybe some onions, simple but still as delicious and as filling.

I'll be doing a full review now but with spoilers.
The story/lore:
 

Spoiler

I've actually rather enjoyed how the story was made, you're a retired thief who goes off retirement only because you disagree with the greediness of one particular doctor. This is basically a gray-to-gray dilemma, which, well, it then turns "goodish gray vs opportunist evil" type, because you learn that the "good doctor" is a scumbag; he infects his own patients in hopes for them to beg him to cure him for a hefty price.

The "exotic disease" lore is nice, the mention of Newfoundland is great too, it's a real place which, I think it's also even mentioned in The Dark Mod, too? And apparently it's an arctic place, with tribals that were influenced by real life Eskimos.

Also although I'm not one myself (parent), having a protagonist who is, of course, a thief, but he retires, yet comes back due to something he considers unjust, is rather nice. Also because of the particular argument that he has a daughter, meaning he may be more empathetic than say, the good ol' thief we all know and love from Thief itself, Garrett.
What if this thief had no daughter? The story would probably be how a rival doctor hired him I bet.

The graphics:
 

Spoiler

Although I did like the simplistic and minimalist take, I've found quite the problems in it missing a lot of details, it was rather lacking.
I also mention this because I've played an older FM just yesterday too, called "Trapped", despite it being old it had a lot to give for, had some amazing details.

I think it would be best to get more practice on adding world details to The Dark Mod.
Regarding that, I've found the puzzle itself to be very dull and lacking, I didn't even notice the colours and people tell me I'm one who always notices that, because I'm an artist myself, a 3D Texturer (mostly for weapons and characters, not much for world but I do have some experience with it).

The gameplay:

Spoiler

What can I say? Well, it's above-average and I will explain why.

For one, all the enemies are daft wankers that are easy to avoid. I'm sure this is intentional, even despite the briefing mentioning how they're supposedly tougher than average, but I haven't found them anywhere higher than a bad ol' common thug.

For two, the way to find loot was...Too eccentric. Almost every loot has a very specific worth to it, like this little red gem was a mere 13 instead of, I dunno, something that would make sense to a non-fencing thief, perhaps 150? I was very baffled with this loot pricing and all.

For three, the secrets. They were actually good, it feels like some old-school egg hunting, it's not really the most interesting secret like say you'd find in Serious Sam and even Duke Nukem on some of them, but the simplicity tops it!
However, some of them were...Way too hard to get, way too tedious that I even resorted to cheat just one time, specifically on that bloody couch. The one where it's a brick and a bottle is hiding in it? Needs a rope arrow, that's...Well, I think an alternative would be better, a thief is a master with his skill, not his tools, you know what I mean?

Exploring the manor was only a bit underwhelming, again because of the loot and partly due to the secrets.
Also regarding loot, I don't like how just almost all of them were so well hidden, was the doctor THIS much of an extremely paranoid tosser that he'd hide his valuable from everyone like that?

Oh and I want to be specific about something:

Spoiler

I absolutely did not enjoy that puzzle with the books at all. It was way too complicated, especially for something where, first of all, it's PART of the main objective, second of all, the mission itself should have been rather simplistic with no ulterior motive lore that goes far and beyond (like Iris does)

The hint in the book, by the way, I had a sneaky suspicion it was related with colours because it looked like they mentioned RGB, but the small letter and the fact I was not able to see the colours in the bookcases until I've read here about it? Bad idea.

I don't hate puzzles, so don't stop making them, but please don't make them so overly complicated like that.

So, overall, this is a good mission to play if you want to relax and have some of that good ol' TDM gameplay.
I would rate it a 3.5/5, maybe even 4/5.

Edited November 14, 2024 by The Black Arrow

[thebigh]

Thanks for playing the mission! I'm glad you liked it, even if a few aspects of it didn't quite work. The damn book puzzle seemed a much better idea in my head than it ended up working in-game. Still, I think there's a place for missions filling the "medium length, high difficulty" slot and even though I'm now better at making missions I still kinda like this one.

On 11/14/2024 at 9:54 PM, The Black Arrow said:

the mention of Newfoundland is great too, it's a real place which, I think it's also even mentioned in The Dark Mod, too?

That's not actually Newfoundland. It's a Southern Hemisphere location and there's enough info on the poster to find it on a map of the real world. It's an actual real place, kinda! At the time I had plans to set a mission there, but I since realised that's probably a bad idea and difficult to pull off well.