Fan Mission: The Threepenny Revue

[Jnon]

"The Threepenny Revue"

https://www.thedarkmod.com/missiondetails/?internalName=threepenny

"I've been in the business of other peoples' valuables for as long as I can remember, so I'm no stranger to breaking and entering. But until today, I've never done a robbery on commission. I guess there's a first time for everything..."

Randal Cartier, a local theater owner, thinks himself above paying protection money to the local gangs. You've been hired to prove him wrong.

"The Threepenny Revue" is a first attempt at a Dark Mod Fan Mission. After playing TDM for ages and loving it, I wanted to try my hand at creating one of my own. As such, this is a short, simple, and relatively straightforward mission made to learn the ropes.

The experience was very enjoyable, and I'm planning to work on another one in the future. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this one. It's available now in the mission list, but in the event anybody wants or needs a backup source I'm hosting the files on my own site here.

Special thanks to @Cambridge Spy, @thebigh, @Shadow, @wesp5, and @boissiere for Beta Testing and giving feedback, which helped enormously in ironing out problems in DarkRadiant

[thebigh]

Congratulations on the release. It's a neat little level and I had fun testing it.

[Amadeus]

Man, three mission releases in a week?! And in October!? Love it!  Congrats on the release, I'll be looking forward to playing this

[snatcher]

Congratulations on the release and thanks for your sharing your art with us!

[JackFarmer]

Congratulations on the release!

[wesp5]

Congratulations from me too! But I just replayed the final version and it probably was one of the easiest missions I ever experienced. Because if you visit the tavern early on you now get both keys and the rest of the mission is a walk in the park! Why not have Cartier only appear there after reading the note in the theatre and modifying the latter so it says something along the lines "I will do some business in the town and then take my evening meal in the tavern afterwards." Then the players would be forced to enter the theatre to read the note, exit to the tavern to get the keys and then come back again. I believe it would make the short map more challenging! Oh, and it is intended that the drunk gets up again?

Edited October 3, 2023 by wesp5

[thebigh]

The Thief's Guild people have put the mission up on their database

The Threepenny Revue

[Jnon]

23 hours ago, wesp5 said:

Why not have Cartier only appear there after reading the note in the theatre and modifying the latter so it says something along the lines "I will do some business in the town and then take my evening meal in the tavern afterwards." Then the players would be forced to enter the theatre to read the note, exit to the tavern to get the keys and then come back again. I believe it would make the short map more challenging!

I tried not to get too ambitious with my first map. If I can figure out how to flag entities for spawning on triggers, I might work that into a Version 2. In hindsight, putting the tavern beyond the theater so you can't encounter it before reaching the target building might have been wiser, but I think I'll chalk this up to a learning experience for now.

 

23 hours ago, wesp5 said:

it is intended that the drunk gets up again?

He shouldn't, perhaps I didn't edit his listening acuity spawnarg correctly. I'll have to look into that.

[Zerg Rush]

Nice little Mission to play in between in a spare time, but also with enough difficulty to avoid the guards so as not to be boring. Good challenge to enter the theater with the guards in front of the entrances. Much simpler inside, although the guards there were alerted by the lack of the paintings. The rest was quite simple.
Good job for being the first mission, congratulations

[Cambridge Spy]

Here's my playthrough video of the Threepenny Revue:

 

 

[NeonsStyle]

For future reference. In UK English. Threepenny is pronounced Throoppenny. Wierd I know. 

[Jnon]

23 hours ago, NeonsStyle said:

For future reference. In UK English. Threepenny is pronounced Throoppenny. Wierd I know. 

Man, I had no idea...

[Zerg Rush]

On 10/5/2023 at 6:17 AM, Cambridge Spy said:

Here's my playthrough video of the Threepenny Revue:

 

 

Nice walkthrough, i made it in Hard mode, entering in the sitedoor, which i think is somewhat more tricky than with the Ropearrow (not disp. in the Hard mode), Without KO nearly impossible, at least for me. I made it with 782 loot and 0 stealth. Inside is easy, normal stealth level, also~20 min.

In the Bar no stealth needed, at least when you don't rob the coins of the card player, they don't like it with the lights on. Also don't try to frob the Key for the Main entrance, not healthy with a Guard with torch, who turns in a half second without the key.

Edited October 6, 2023 by Zerg Rush

[MirceaKitsune]

Congratulations on your first FM! Not bad for a first one: It was simple and a little rough in places, but played very well and did what it intended to. I'd definitely like to see a continuation and what happens next after the events here.

[Marbrien]

On 10/5/2023 at 12:34 PM, NeonsStyle said:

For future reference. In UK English. Threepenny is pronounced Throoppenny. Wierd I know. 

Whereabouts, in Yorkshire perhaps?  I have lived in England all my life, mainly the east midlands, the north west and the south east, and everyone I know pronounces threepenny as threppenny, the double e being pronounced as a short e rather than a long e.  The UK has many accents for a relatively small place, so the pronounciation you suggest may exist, but is not the most common one.

Edited October 8, 2023 by Marbrien

[NeonsStyle]

Throopenny is the pronunciation in UK English and Australian. It's probably evolved today
into the simpler three penny. 

[Marbrien]

I would grant you thruppenny.  But not throopenny, which suggests a pronounciation equivalent to threwpenny.

[Jnon]

On 10/8/2023 at 9:36 AM, MirceaKitsune said:

Congratulations on your first FM! Not bad for a first one: It was simple and a little rough in places, but played very well and did what it intended to. I'd definitely like to see a continuation and what happens next after the events here.

Thank you! It was definitely a learning experience. I have some ideas for a second FM that loosely carries on from the end of this one, so you may get your wish.

[thebigh]

I am definitely looking forward to more missions from you.

[grodenglaive]

Congratulations on your first release, I look forward to playing it.

[grodenglaive]

And I just did.

Short , but sweet. Nicely done. 10/10 on that intro and I like how you snuck in the Skyrim reference;)

[gokudo]

Great little gem of a mission. Hopefully this is the entree to some tasty mains down the track!

[Xolvix]

Good work! I enjoy short missions because things are nice and focused - you get in, you get out. Also I tend to do better with the loot amounts and I was able to get all the loot without too much trouble, which is rare for me.

If I were to make a suggestion though - I found the intro briefing sequence a bit distracting because it was so obvious the narration was pitch-shifted to make a deeper voice. If you felt the original voice wasn't deep enough for your needs, I would either get someone on the forums to record it for you or just leave as is. That's my only real complaint and it's not even about the mission itself, so pretty good first start!

[Jnon]

On 10/27/2023 at 10:08 AM, Xolvix said:

Good work! I enjoy short missions because things are nice and focused - you get in, you get out. Also I tend to do better with the loot amounts and I was able to get all the loot without too much trouble, which is rare for me.

As a player, I've always felt the best missions are ones oriented around the "heist", where the location is clearly defined, the map and information is provided, and the player is tasked with finding a way in, getting the objective, and getting out. Some variety is always good, and experimenting with the format is fine, but that has always been the meat and potatoes of the Immersive Sim/Thief-like genre to me. Glad you enjoyed it.

[Dead Rat]

Thanks for this mission Jnon, it's a cosy little outing which I very much enjoyed. Reminded me of the classic Thief series.