Fan Mission: The House of deLisle

[MirceaKitsune]

And completed! Amazing FM overall, it did a lot with a relatively small space. One of the creepiest FM's I've played, even if Exhumed is the one I remember terrifying me the most many years ago.

Spoiler

Technically I achieved a little miracle with this FM. I have severe arachnophobia for large spiders, to the point I couldn't even handle seeing them in TDM and had to patch them out in the past. As my patch was crashing this map I decided to just push through and use the opportunity to challenge myself. No idea how I did it, but at the end I managed to walk around comfortably and even let one attack me! Crazy as it may sound TDM may just provide exposure therapy I can use to maybe get myself past this odd fear I had since childhood

 

[datiswous]

@thebigh I am curious why you choosed to use a video briefing over a Timed Flowing Briefing . Looking at the briefing video, there does not seem a graphical benefit.

Edit: Well apart from the first screen with the red animated background behind the text..

Edited October 13, 2023 by datiswous

[thebigh]

It was a good opportunity to learn how to do it.

[Melchior]

Burgle the domicile of some forgotten former-lord they said, it'll be easy and lucrative they said...

I should have stopped listening there, but the sound of easy currency is hard to ignore...

A single nights quick-job, no setup, no weeks of planning or acquiring equipment - a cake walk.

Spoiler

But why did I have to forget to carry a vial of anointed water...oh welp.

Mabey you should take a look too - if you dare; no scaredy cats here tho' things...lurk...as always in the dark corners.  If you have nothing better to do...enter the home of deLisle.

[grodenglaive]

Nice Halloween mission! I ran into a small bug where the headless guy got stuck at the top of the stairs going in tiny circles, so there was no way to get past him. I had to retry from a previous save. I'm not sure what triggered it; possibly collided with a spider?

 

[Jnon]

I'm sorry I took so long to get around to Dark Mod again, because this would have been perfect for a Halloween playthrough.

Very atmospheric, and succeeded in actually startling me in a few places. The front door disappearing entirely caught me off guard, certainly! As was mentioned by others, the eyeball effect in the dungeon was very well done, and unnerving.

I struggled a little bit finding all of the white you-know-what's for the great escape at the end, but it turned out the last one was staring me right in the face and I passed by it half a dozen times without realizing it. It did blend it to its surroundings a little too well... I think a more vivid color for them may have been better. Red instead of white, since the pale blues and greens of the other decorative/lighting mushrooms kept throwing me off. Red is also a better thematic color for something intended to go boom.

On the whole, a fun mission. Very nicely done.

[Dead Rat]

I really enjoyed the atmosphere of this one at first, but...

Spoiler

...searching for the fifth mushroom was taking far too long and became too tedious, dissipating the atmosphere, so I gave up.

 

[Bluehawk]

The five mushrooms can be found:

Spoiler

One in the basement, in the second wine-cellar that appears after you steal the medallion. For an added bonus, pay attention to the shadows being cast by the candle on top of the wine rack.

One can be found on the ground floor in the front parlour.

One is on the second floor, next to the fireplace, possibly the hardest to get.

Two are found in the attic: one in the dead thief's hiding place and the other in the far corner, forcing you to go around all the clutter in the middle.

I really enjoyed this mission on my first playthrough, but when I replayed it a second time to try and get all loot and secrets and ghost it, I ran into some nasty RNG that basically soft-locked me.

Spoiler

After you start the fire in the library, the enemies are aggro'd and come running into the hallway. Sometimes you'll get lucky and they'll diserpse again at random, but in my case, I had the headless father from downstairs, the wife and two spiders all stuck on an open door and running in circles. Impossible to pass stealthily lol

I'm surprised a little that we didn't get to hear the baby weird screams as described in the journal, or enter the baby's room with the crib at some point, but the imagination may be scarier than anything you can easily achieve in the game engine. A great little mission to play on the 31st, short and sweet but chewy like taffy.

[Dead Rat]

Thanks for that, Bluehawk....

Spoiler

...I had searched that wine cellar umpteen times without spotting the 'shroom, but as soon as I knew it was there, I spotted it right under my nose! Madness 

As for bugs, I've been experiencing a strange one in this mission - hitting ESC to save or reload, and finding instead that it triggers my player's death (happened three times so far).

[thebigh]

The placement of the mushrooms varies slightly depending on difficulty.

Also, you can make the return to the attic easier by lowering the staircase the first time you're up there. Just pull the iron bar out and it will swing down into the store room.

[TheUnbeholden]

Where might be basement key be? I remember in previous versions of the beta, there was a basement key found alongside the parchment in the room that opens the attic stairs down. But now it doesn't spawn with the parchment at all. So I'm kinda lost wandering around the place. Also another issue is that if I try to just noclip may way through the basement door, then it kinda messes up a bunch of different triggers/scripts so.. I'll have to complete it fair and square.

[TheUnbeholden]

I managed to figure everything out now. 

Spoiler

The last page gave me the key, and I found all the mushrooms. Nice mission indeed.

 

[thebigh]

Thanks! Glad you liked it. I set it up so you get the key to the basement after collecting all three diary pages, regardless of the order you find them. It lets the player explore the house however they like, but still end up exploring it all.

[datiswous]

 

Spoiler

Are the white mushrooms a refrence to Somewhere Above the City, or is this a general thing in TDM?

 

[thebigh]

I'm pretty sure that mission established the lore, yeah. But I also vaguely recall another mission that uses it as well.

[Skaruts]

This mission strikes a special cord in me, as I've always been a huge fan of horror. But either I'm too dissensitized to monsters and demons, or not many games actually do a good job at it.

Either way, I'm happy to say that this mission actually made me feel spooked or uneasy, hesitant to pick things up without looking behind me. At least for the first playthrough, this mission is nicely unpredictable.

As far as I'm concerned, you're doing something fundamentally right.  

The atmosphere is also really good. It really ads to the tension, and to the sense of hostility of the whole place.

Spoiler

To be honest, I don't know how I feel about spiders with lights, and those strange lights on the zombies. But I'm not complaining either. It somehow works, and I'm happy to roll with it. 

Brilliant mission. Loved it a lot. Thanks.  

 

Spoiler

The only issue I had was with the baby-room window thing at the start: it went completely over my head. I thought it was bugged, reloaded and tried again. Maybe it lacks some more obvious feedback. I never noticed the blood on the cradle until I watched a gameplay video.

I think I also wasn't expecting a horror story at that point, so perhaps I wasn't receptive to that kind of thing. I wonder if it wouldn't be beneficial to have some other spooky event happen before that, when the player first traverses the front yard or something, as a way to introduce to the player that he's playing a horror story. 

When the front door blows out, it's also not visible from up there, so that kind of didn't help with my confusion.

Or maybe it was just me being a complete dummy, I don't know. Take it with a grain of salt. It took me forever to find the mushrooms, only to see they were all in plain sight all along.  

 

 

[thebigh]

Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it. There were definitely a lot of effects in that mission that worked better in my head than I was able to achieve in the engine. But every mission I make is more technically accomplished than the previous, so yay for progress.

[datiswous]

Spoiler

3 hours ago, Skaruts said:

When the front door blows out, it's also not visible from up there, so that kind of didn't help with my confusion.

 

Spoiler

I agree this could have been done better, for example with a camera view pointed at the door.

1. So you unlock the window,
2. the view moves to a space in front of the door,
3. the door blows out
4. and the view goes back to the player.

 

[Oleron]

Nice mission, good atmosphere, and I liked...

 

Spoiler

...the phantom dewdrop...

 

...particularly, but after hours searching for...

 

Spoiler

...a magic mushroom I'm certain I got, and just isn't anywhere, the pot remains unfrobable...

 

...and I was forced to move on.

.

[thebigh]

Hey, sorry you had trouble. You need to find several of the glowing white mushrooms and put them in the pot. After that you'll be able to carry it around with you.