Fan Mission: The Wizard's Treasure [15th Anniversary Contest]

[thebigh]

The Wizard's Treasure

 

Greetings taffers,

I'm delighted to release my latest mission, just in time for the 15th Anniversary deadline.

 

The Wizard's Treasure is a beginner-friendly mission suitable for thieving taffers ages 6-99. A powerful wizard is in possession of a huge and valuable emerald. Find it and steal it! The mission should take about twenty minutes to complete for a first-time player, so it will hopefully be a lot of fun if you're in the mood for a casual heist.

 

Credits: Huge thanks to my beta-testers and sanity-checkers Bikerdude, JackFarmer, and nightmare.

 

Available through the in-game downloader.

 

 

Enjoy!

Edited October 13, 2024 by thebigh

[Amadeus]

Congratulations on the release!! I'm 100 years old though, can I still play it?

[Zerush]

Congrats, nice little Mission, as you say, good for beginners or for relax in an break in between.

 

[chakkman]

I'll wait until it's available in the in-game downloader. Mega is as shady as it gets... (no offense meant)

Edited October 13, 2024 by chakkman

[nbohr1more]

The mission is now available in the database.

[SeriousToni]

Nice mission so far. Finally one where you can look into the house from the outside. Always longed for this! Makes it feel much more realistic.

Spoiler

Can you give me a hint how I can access the place where only the birds reside please?

 

[thebigh]

5 hours ago, SeriousToni said:

Nice mission so far. Finally one where you can look into the house from the outside. Always longed for this! Makes it feel much more realistic.

  Hide contents

Can you give me a hint how I can access the place where only the birds reside please?

 

Spoiler

Can you see the tower windowsill? You can reach it from the roof. Go climbing!

 

[Heuli]

Congrats
Thank you thebigh for the great mission
I had a lot of fun

[Heuli]

I completed the mission was not easy

[joebarnin]

I agree with @SeriousToni, I like missions where you can see inside from outside. A nice touch!

[Crafty_Creeper]

Thank you. Solid little mission, good tight layout.

Finding all the loot was a challenge.

Spoiler

Because I dumped the wizard over the last tiny piece.

 

[taffernicus]

Congrats on the release

[Goldwell]

Congrats on the release, this was a short but sweet mission. I really enjoyed playing through it.

[tib]

This is a simple excellent mission that break my mind and reminds me those sweet times at whats a grow up on TDM. Thanks you.

[Amadeus]

Moody remote winter setting - Check!
Really cool snowy mountain skybox that I'm super jealous of - Double Check!!
Fun wizard-based gameplay - Triple Check!!!

This was a ton of fun to play, and I'm a total sucker for atmospheric wintery FMs like this. Great work!

[DeTeEff]

Started playing this tonight; first time I play a mission in at least a year... I appreciate what you've achieved with (I guess from what I read in the contest thread) a big time constraint

I'm just a couple of minutes in and stumbled upon some lights in holders. Is it only me or are the shadows bugged on those? It's just a black box beneath the holder...

[hightide]

I've found one of the

Spoiler

runes down in the cellar

but where is the other? I thought I saw it, but that was just a secret cache

[thebigh]

13 minutes ago, hightide said:

I've found one of the

  Hide contents

runes down in the cellar

but where is the other? I thought I saw it, but that was just a secret cache

Spoiler

It's tucked away in the alcove under the stairs near the back door.

 

[thebigh]

28 minutes ago, DeTeEff said:

Started playing this tonight; first time I play a mission in at least a year... I appreciate what you've achieved with (I guess from what I read in the contest thread) a big time constraint

I'm just a couple of minutes in and stumbled upon some lights in holders. Is it only me or are the shadows bugged on those? It's just a black box beneath the holder...

Yeah, something is up with those sconces. It almost looks like the round holder bit doesn't cast shadows, but the wall bracket does, so all you get is a thin strip of shadow below the sconce.

[DeTeEff]

1 minute ago, thebigh said:

Yeah, something is up with those sconces. It almost looks like the round holder bit doesn't cast shadows, but the wall bracket does, so all you get is a thin strip of shadow below the sconce.

No, I meant the holders. Those have been in the mod since the beginning but nowadays they seems to be bugged. I didn't include any in my mission for that reason. There is just a black box underneath...

[thebigh]

Wow, OK, that's weird. I've never seen that before, and it certainly never showed up in my testing.

[DeTeEff]

Okay, so it must be on my end it's bugged then... good to know it's not in the core mod at least.

I reinstalled TDM and now it works

New edit: No, it's back...I'll dig up the old thread I had about this issue...

Edited October 17, 2024 by DeTeEff

[Sotha]

This was a lot of fun! Not easy though. There were very bright lights and high tension areas.

Spoiler

The mansion exterior was well built and I liked how you used the rooftops as well. TDM players don't get often to enjoy such a free movement in the rooftops. It took me a while to figure out that I indeed can climb to the roof and to the tower.

How did you make the skybox? That really with the moon and matching lighting all brought the mission aesthetics to next level. It was also really needed, too, because the player could access the roof.

The teleporting wizard was a nice touch and gave the mission something new for the player to experience. The possibility that he could appear any moment really raised the tension level. In fact, when I was in the tower, he appeared there but I barely managed to slip to the window while he had his back turned.

The player appearing inside the globe was also a nice idea and well executed. It was nice to hang around inside and wait for the wizard to leave the room.

I noticed you used semi-transparent windows, which I think was not a really good idea. They do not give much to gameplay, but they make the mission much more demanding for hardware. I had some choppy moments here and there. Also, I alerted the first floor guard and run to the upstairs and clambered on the roof, and the guard got permanently stuck into the staircase. I guess there was some sloppy monsterclipping there. It is usually a good idea to let the guard chase you a bit when you alpha- or betatest the mission.

All in all, nice 30 min sneaking mission with lots of good stuff and few rough edges here and there. Well done and thank you!

I gave:

3/5 for gameplay (minus one star for AI getting stuck in narrow geometry)

4/5 for story (creative and novel story elements!)

4/5 for aesthetics (it was functional, but performance hungry, but plus one for the gorgeous skybox!)

[kingsal]

Congrats! Thats was great little mission with a tight layout and fun twist. Thank you. 
 

[DeTeEff]

This was a nice mission. As you said, not too big, just a 20 minutes romp in the winterland. 

Gameplay 4

There were lots of places to go, to feel thiefy. Like up on the roof. Sadly I got frustrated that I couldn't enter the room with the key on the wall. A room with beds. The windows felt large enough for a thief of my size to enter but I couldn't get in. I already had enough loot so I gave up. Other than that the gameplay was balanced; not many guards/no restricting objectives and good places to hide.

Story 3

These kinds of missions do not need that much story, but enough info was given.

Visuals 3

The wintery skybox was nice and the spacey magic jumping section in the end was fun. Other than that it was fairly standard, but a bit rushed in some places with missaligned doors, but not bad considering I guess it was built on a time restraint.