Psych0sis on 13/11/2019 at 00:31
oh BOY
Can't wait to get my hands on it and grats on the release :thumb:
DirkBogan on 13/11/2019 at 00:38
Having greatly enjoyed Lord Robert's Painting, I've been keenly awaiting this one! A bank heist in Thief Gold is a fantastic and underused premise.
For now, congratulations on the release!
HauntHunter on 13/11/2019 at 01:09
Sweet awesome sauce!!! Looking forward to diggin in!! Thanks!:cool:
Ryan Smith on 13/11/2019 at 03:37
I'll be sure to give this one a try! Thank you very much. I love me a solid Thief Gold mission.
Yandros on 13/11/2019 at 04:41
Congrats, vegetables!
DirkBogan on 13/11/2019 at 04:52
This is a very good FM. If you read nothing more than this, know that it is well worth your time, and engaging from start to finish. It was rewarding enough that I felt it warranted a proper review, to show my appreciation. Be advised this might spoil the experience if read beforehand.
Specific praise:
1) Once again, you've captured an authentic Thief Gold style in every way without being derivative or simplistic -- the brushwork, texturing, sound design and gameplay are all very faithful, plus the custom assets are suitably chosen, and fit perfectly. The premise and story are original, and well-realised. There are so few good bank FMs, and none that I know of in Thief Gold.
2) The general attention to detail is fantastic, especially texture alignment. So many authors do not spend the time to make their texturing look realistic, so this is much appreciated.
3) Environmental design and gameplay are excellent (if a bit game-y in places, with one or two arches seeming to exist only for climbing on!). Traversing ledges and terraces felt natural, and exploration was almost always rewarded. The secrets that I did find were sensible and satisfying; the Keeper key/chapel in particular were well executed.
4) There were none of the usual FM pitfalls -- cryptic hints, extended lockpicking, malicious puzzles, bad roombrushing, overly long readables, high ratio loot goals etc. The lack of these annoyances does so much to improve the experience.
5) The map was great. The style was faithful to the originals, while actually being detailed enough to be useful.
6) You exhibited serious discipline on the technical side -- even with far view distances, the framerate stayed well above 120fps on my system. You didn't stuff any scenes with needless objects or clutter.
7) The scripting is an additional benefit, ranging from cute (remove a vase, a book falls over) to really helpful (automatically keeping track of keys).
I only have two real points of criticism:
1) The street layout, while more developed than Lord Robert's Painting, is still very basic and uninteresting. Much of the exterior amounts to long stretches of flat ground. However, you mostly avoided bland 90 degree angles, and so much navigation takes place off the street, so this is not a deal-breaker.
2) There were far too many fake doors in residences outside of the bank. A mission like Endless Rain suffered from this issue to a lesser extent, but that is because skacky was simply unable to squeeze more terrain out of the NewDark cell limit of ~32,750. Your mission is at 19,052. Of course, not every mission should be maxed out in this way, but I often thought that your interiors felt incomplete, given that many rooms had a single real door with two or three fake ones. For me, this was distracting and overly restrictive.
However, these are minor issues in the grand scheme of things, and I was fully engaged by the mission for a few hours. It is easily one of the best missions this year. Highly recommended.
Athalle on 13/11/2019 at 14:16
Congrats on the release, vegetables. I agree with DirkBogan, also for me one of the best missions I've ever played for Gold. Thank you!
vegetables on 13/11/2019 at 15:18
Thanks everyone, and thanks for the review Dirk.
Tannar on 13/11/2019 at 16:30
Congrats on the release!