Fan Mission: Penny Dreadful by Melan (2013/07/28)

[Melan]

Penny Dreadful is a new fan mission series dealing with the exploits and misfortunes of Gerald Foxley, lowlife and common opportunist. To stick with the theme of lurid and disreputable pulp literature, I plan these missions to be nasty, brutish and short. I will work on them when I get burned out with the campaign, or after we finish it.

The Grail of Regrets

"A few days ago, I received note from a man by the name of Grimy Morgan. I have bought the odd trinket from him before - he is one among the hundreds of workers labouring to keep Bridgeport's electricity supply going, and his kind always finds the most unusual things...

Morgan rigs water arrows in his underground lair, and occasionally, he is able to palm the odd piece of wind-up machinery when his superiors aren't looking... and most aren't looking too hard. This time though, he promised something more, a passage he'd discovered below the power junction he works in.

Morgan hasn't contacted me again, and I am starting to think he may be looking for other offers, or thinking of getting his hands on whatever's there on his own. So much for gratitude...

Whatever this is, he should have learned to keep his mouth shut. My name shall not be Gerald Foxley if I cannot claw my share from his hands - the only question is how much punishment he is prepared to take before paying up...

Download links:
MEGA (24 MB)
...and the mission downloader!

Notes:

• There are usually multiple ways to reach your targets - although some are less obvious than others.
• There are no lockpicks in this mission, as Foxley can't use them; also, he is no master thief when it comes to stealth - be careful!
• There is no poll to rate the mission because I do not believe in them. Your comments are welcome in writing, however!

Special thanks: to my testers, Bikerdude, skacky, TylerVocal, nbohr1more, Springheel and Premier, for detailed and thorough feedback. Springheel for the custom GUI, loading screen, and much appreciated criticism. Bikerdude for several performance and aesthetic fixes. All mistakes remaining are mine.

 

1.1 note: This mission has been released in an updated version. This update contains minor bugfixes, and cuts down on file size by removing duplicate assets which have been incorporated into the TDM core since the mission's release (24 instead of 72 MB!). Thanks are due to the betatesters of this new version, Bikerdude, lowenz, nbohr1more and Oldjim.

[Sotha]

Ooh! Congrats for the release.

 

Playing a Melan TDM FM is like making love to a beautiful woman... You reserve plenty of free time, eliminate all distractions and then... You just close the curtains, dim the lights, get into the mood and enjoy.

[Baal]

Congratulations. Now go away, summer and daylight, I want to play this.

[Melan]

Sotha: awkward analogies ahoy!

 

Sooooo, did the mission crash inexplicably?

[Lux]

That is a beautiful poster! Really captures a mood. Love it. Congratulations on yet another release, what a very pleasant surprise indeed.

 

Can't wait to dig in to this bad boy. Its 5 AM here and dark as a whore hole in here... headphones engaged!

Edited July 28, 2013 by Lux

[Bikerdude]

Mission page created and file mirror'd :-)

 

  On 7/28/2013 at 9:09 AM, Lux said:

Its 5 AM here and dark as a whore house in here...

[Obsttorte]

Yippie \o/. Can't wait to play.

[MoroseTroll]

Downloading now...

[Briareos H]

Very good mission which succeeds, in my opinion, at appearing larger than it actually is. I was impressed by the fact that all three different areas/environments clearly received equal love, each standing on its own very well. I enjoyed the architecture and texture placement very much as well as the loot -- glad to see a mission which isn't a loot fest for once, I came short of a few gold but found most of it, including some nicely rewarding secrets.

I think the mission also succeeds at appearing more difficult than it actually is, there are lots of shadows but because of the layout and enemy placement, it is tense and fun.

 

Congratulations (and thanks!) for a great mission Melan

[Lux]

  On 7/28/2013 at 9:19 AM, Bikerdude said:

Mission page created and file mirror'd :-)

 

 

 

Ooops!

 

On to the mission, wow... Penny Dreadful says it all!

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Great architecture and the areas feel complete. The machinery and steam piping and all that really makes that area feel right, great sound and AI pathing in these areas, difficult but not too difficult. Only thing I found confusing here was on my way out. I was looking for a way out because I forgot about the other door above the stairs (that I now had a key for) and the one key I had at this point didn't fit that sewer pipe door in the water filled area. So I read that note on the wall by the power area that said something with regard to, "do not expose to class A/B explosives" and I'd found that mine in the crate so I had put it on the ground and was luring the undead to walk on it and finally got it to explode but it didn't do anything to the power machinery :\ which was a little disappointing. Not because it didn't do anything but because I thought that would create my way out.

 

In any case I searched around again and remembered the door I couldn't open before and, yeah, figured it out from there.

 

The crypt areas were AWESOME!! Best mood/sound/texture/decal combinations I've seen yet to establish that dread mood feeling. It really felt foreboding, eerie, and creepy. Absolutely loved it.

 

I agree with Briareos, much larger map than initial impressions. Very enjoyable, another classic!

 

 

 

Thanks, Melan, for yet another mission benchmark! Can't wait for further missions in this series.

[grayman]

Roger Calibristan, interviewing fans at Comic-Con, elicited this reaction during one notable interview: "Every time Melan releases a mission, I end up going back and tweaking my own WIP. So much to learn, and so little time."

 

Congrats! DL'ing now.

[lowenz]

Got his error (TDM 2.0 last SVN build)

Can't make love to Melan's map

Edited July 28, 2013 by Springheel

[Springheel]

(removed image for spoiler reasons)

 

Update your SVN and try it now.

[Bikerdude]

  On 7/28/2013 at 2:00 PM, lowenz said:

Got his error (TDM 2.0 last SVN build)

Springheel did test this under 2.0 and didn't report this bug, so for now just play under 1.08.

 

[doh, ninja'd)

[Oldjim]

I have a problem - well several actually

First download link - Mega gives this result - using Firefox

Second download link - Fidcal gives this result

Third download link worked but trying it in V2 and I get a frame rate of 5 - 6 fps at the start then tried in 1.8 and got a frame rate of 6 - 9 fps

Forget frame rate problems - it is my system as I just tried Flakebridge Monastery and also got horrible frame rates - now to find out why

Update - one of the Kaspersky processes was using 97% CPU and I don't know why - a reboot fixed it

Edited July 28, 2013 by Oldjim

[gnartsch]

Phantastic mission!

I really enjoyed the setup, the puzzles and the architecture, as well as the uncertainty whether you will ever make it out again.

The notes about the machines were very confusing, though....

  Reveal hidden contents

It seems I was not the only one who was seeking a way to blow them up, either to put out the lights or get some of the doors opened that way... or something else.

 

 

Emotional walkthrough.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

I found the entry to the Power Station pretty early, but my heart was faint.

No keys? No rope arrows? How to get back? I must have missed something.

Oh well, after a while I made it down anyway, since anything else seemed pointless.

But what to do there? Do I need to blow up the machines or what?

So many locked doors and no idea what to do. Descend down even further, again with no way back?

Man, this is not good!!! Sigh... I am lost already anyway I fear, so it doesn't matter anymore. I might as well enjoy the company of those few human corpses and wait for the end.

Pretty nice tombs... and a nice throne room as well. Eh...what? Why the hell would there be a throne room?

Ah, I see... some majesty had fun watching people being thrown down into the pit. Yeah, everone has some hobbies, I guess.

And then it all clears up, hope is rising... and I am free again!

 

 

Not sure if I found an

  Reveal hidden contents

easteregg

or what... at any rate I got a fire-arrow... at some fairly unusual place.

The only question I would have :

pretty much at the beginning of the crypts,

  Reveal hidden contents

there is a large heavy gate. You can see a switch on the other side.

 

How to get to there?

[RPGista]

Hmmm... A Melan mission is a really good reason to fire up the old laptop and play TDM again. Great news, this should be great!

[lowenz]

  On 7/28/2013 at 2:10 PM, Springheel said:

Update your SVN and try it now.

Thanks, now it's working!

[grayman]

Well, the architecture is beautiful, but I must suck at this game, because I can't find my way off the streets.

[Bikerdude]

  On 7/28/2013 at 6:23 PM, grayman said:

Well, the architecture is beautiful, but I must suck at this game, because I can't find my way off the streets.

We had this issue in b-testing for some users....

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

The hint is in note from Grimey and the locked door to the powerstation, then think crate stacking

 

[SirGen]

Well this level lived up to the hype for me! The level layout was great. The use of ambient noise was spot on. The difficulty wasn't too easy or too hard.

  Reveal hidden contents

It was fun to have to use some parkour skills early in the level, in order to get inside the facility. I skimmed over some posts about blowing up something to get out of the crypt, but I just climbed out the way I came and used a rope arrow to climb up the first big drop into the crypts. Using boxes to reach the ladder was a nice puzzle/obstacle too.

I don't think that I've played any other levels by Melan yet, but I definitely look forward to them.

  Reveal hidden contents

Undead/crypt levels are really starting to grow on me.

 

 

Thanks for the great level Melan!

Edited July 28, 2013 by SirGen

[grayman]

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Two problems for me:

 

1 - I see no clue in the note.

2 - I don't know which building is the power station.

 

So I just looked around until I found something low enough to climb on, and stacked the crates to get to it, then found a way to get to a higher place, which let me into what turned out to be the power station.

 

Now I'm wandering around inside.

 

Thanks for the help.

 

 

[Lux]

  On 7/28/2013 at 7:02 PM, grayman said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Two problems for me:

 

1 - I see no clue in the note.

2 - I don't know which building is the power station.

 

So I just looked around until I found something low enough to climb on, and stacked the crates to get to it, then found a way to get to a higher place, which let me into what turned out to be the power station.

 

Now I'm wandering around inside.

 

Thanks for the help.

 

 

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Watching that first guard from the start, going between the well lit buildings? That was the first hint. This clearly isn't a good way to go. The way through the lit guard patrol path in the beginning is to just jump and mantle the low roof outcrop by the player start. Then climb on the pipe and then up to the ledge. Then you can go above the guard, like three stories up, through that area and the ledge ends right at the balcony with the unlocked door. Then in to the power station.

 

My only issue was, once I found the hatch that went down in to the power station I wasn't sure if I missed other things outside so I went back up and out on to the balcony and jumped down to check for other stuff... there wasn't anything down on the street level that I missed, so instead of stacking crates I just reloaded my quicksave from the balcony.

 

 

 

[skacky]

I've managed to Perfect Thief the mission (getting all the loot while ghosting). The mission doesn't have a lot of loot indeed, but finding everything is not as easy as it looks.

 

Grayman:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

The stool in the little shack at the very beginning is enough to mantle on the wooden roof and then on the pipe.

 

[nbohr1more]

Mirror:

 

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/17706561/penny.pk4

 

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/17706561/penny.pk4