TDP20AC Mission — The Scarlet Cascabel (11/30/2018)

Thinking Robot on 26/12/2018 at 00:10

Thanks, I finally found everything and finished the hunting for the remaining chess pieces!

I found a lot of secrets, but may have missed something - I finished with 600 short in loot. My save file tells me I needed roughly 5 hours (!) for hunting through the second mission. :eek: But it was totally worth it! Overall difficulty was hard to very hard. Mission 1 was a nice intro mission.

Difficulty was high because of the riddles, loot placement and the genius but also insane placement of the chess pieces. I nearly got stuck in the beginning. After playing I recommend being creative in this mission. Be patient while solving the countless riddles. The second mission also had some nasty horror elements. I liked the strawmen, ghosts and the other scripted sequences like the ball in the pool very much!

I wish I had a map or at least a notes page. It could have saved some time for me. And in the first mission there were some scrolls and books being frobable, but did nothing.
Sadly time ran out for the developers, so this may be OK here.

Also I was surprised, that there neither a no "no-kill objective" nor a minimum loot objective on expert. This meant I was able to solve some problems in the old fashioned way :sly:

Overall, I give this mission a 10/10 rating with 9/10 in gameplay due to minor flaws.

Well done! :thumb:

carlos schmidt on 26/12/2018 at 11:03

Second level - I am stuck at the fountain. I put the piece of clothing and the necklace in the middle level of the fountain . When i put the rosary and the journal in the upper level of the fountain ,they vanish in the water and nothing happens !! I need a specific hint , please .

Carlos - Brazil

ticky on 26/12/2018 at 11:32

Just finished both missions on expert. Thank you guys for the help, sometimes it was challenging to figure out how to go on.

Cons

x Laggy ground fog
x Some highlighted but unreadable readables

Pros

+ exciting story
+ very nice architecture
+ unique yet classic thiefy atmosphere
+ worn out textures throughout the hotel was a BRILLIANT IDEA that fits the story and atmosphere
+ nice use of vegetation everywhere
+ funny hotel guests
+ tasty thrills in hotel

and the greatest plus for me:

not too annoying undead and no unbearable enemies in the Winter Wing. When I first prepared to go there, I excepted tons of undead, maybe invulnerable/invisible ones, which would have been annoying, but no - the dummies and the red lady were fairly enough and nice. :)

I will definitely replay because of the chess pieces. I only found three of them and they must be well hidden since I don't have idea about where they could be.

zappenduster on 26/12/2018 at 18:39

Started this one ... what a nice village but I have serious performance problems obviously caused by the fog which seems to push the framerate high. There are some white surfaces in the mission, too, probably hanging plants or so. Tried to deactivate fog and weather but alas that didn't have any effect. Being in the village and avoiding the look in the fog's direction helps. :erg:

I'm afraid that I made a big mistake just at the beginning: Found that strange sack in the bridge guard's chest and threw it right over the bridge in the canyon because I didn't know that it could be important (thought of useless mechanical gears). Now it seems that I had to put it in my hotel room later on and that I have to restart the mission ... ~~how could I know that Garrett doesn't carry his baggage right at the beginning?~~ :rolleyes:

EDIT: OK, that sack of gear was in my inventory and showed up in the moment I opened the bridge guard's chest so I thought it was in there.

Inline Image:

https://www.ttlg.com/forums/images/smilies/joker.gif

Tannar on 26/12/2018 at 19:23

Quote Posted by carlos schmidt

Do not drop any items in the middle level of the fountain. They must all be dropped in the top level.

@Zappen: Glad you figured it out.

Tannar on 26/12/2018 at 19:31

Urumo, Thinking Robot and ticky: Thank you very much for your comments! We are very pleased that you enjoyed the mission. The critiques are welcome and fair, and are all things we were aware of. They will be addressed in an update after the contest ends.

Tannar on 26/12/2018 at 19:47

Quote Posted by Urumo

Are you Maybe planning to give out a lootlist? And: how many secrets are in mission 2?

Yes, we will release a loot list, and there are 5 secrets in Mission 2, but only four of them give you an onscreen message.

@Thinking Robot: Did you manage to find all the chess pieces? We are eager to hear what you thought of that quest.

Thinking Robot on 27/12/2018 at 12:51

Quote Posted by Tannar

@Thinking Robot: Did you manage to find all the chess pieces? We are eager to hear what you thought of that quest.

First of all I hope I didn't cause confusion. Yes, I entered the winter wing by the said statue next to the dining hall. But after wandering more than 5 hours through the hotel I simply forgot it.

Finding the chess pieces was a real challenge. I found them all. At first I never thought I would find so many, but luckily only two were missing. There were all extremely well hidden, many on chandeliers. So you rewarded the player for exploration and this was great! :)

The hardest piece was the one in the crypt which needed to "water the flowers of eternity. The hint was clever!

I liked the reward very much. A great hommage to a well known place in Thief 1!

In resume I would like to motivate the other players to search all 16 of them, even if it may take some time.

griswold on 27/12/2018 at 16:06

What do those 3 stone tablets do? i placed them on the fountain in the courtyard,but nothing seem to happen.
and how do i open up the grid in the kitchensink?you can see there's some loot on the bottom....
and i need 8 more chess pieces,they are very hard to find,can someone post a list of there locations?

Azaran on 27/12/2018 at 18:04

Quote Posted by griswold

The tablets are there to reconstruct the inscription so you can read it, it's an easter egg. I still haven't found all the chess pieces but got 5 or 6 atop the fountain in the courtyard, on top of the observatory telescope (you have to rope up the wooden frame in the ceiling), on a few beams high up like the one over the pub, on top of a chandelier and in an attic. Someone also mentioned one in the crypt, where you have to water the flowers to uncover the secret, I'm just about to head there now