Thief: The Dark Project 20th Anniversary Contest: RESULTS! Mar 1 2019 - by Yandros
Tannar on 23/3/2019 at 23:38
Ultimate Burglary
Some people love the supernatural and mystical parts of TDP most; I prefer the hybrid medieval/steampunk environments. This FM is a glorious pastiche of the latter as depicted in the original game, one that clearly prioritizes delivering a pure and satisfying package of core Thief gameplay: dispatching guards, and exploring every nook and cranny for loot. It is amazing that -Terra- was able to make stock TDP look like one of his missions, which are usually crammed with custom assets and colours, without looking unlike the original game in the way that Scarlet Cascabel does. While Ramirez's Mansion is rather small in this FM, it is at least less repetitive and boxy than the one in 'Assassins'.
My only real annoyance comes in the form of an awful timed switch puzzle, but since this was imported directly from the mission 'Undercover', I guess LGS is responsible for some of the blame there. -Terra- is only guilty of thinking it was a good idea to copy it!
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Nice map with excellent external architecture. Internal architecture is a bit rectilinear and boring. A couple of areas prevented me from ghosting it. I had to nudge AI in a few places - not against the ghosting rules. I KO'ed a burrick at the entrance to the the Quintus building. Out of frustration with difficult lighting, I KO'ed a priest in the cathedral who was looking at a necessary switch. The timed puzzle to flip the switches is tedious. The ending of the mission as soon as the last objective is done prevents going back to find more loot, or else you have to find your way back to a saved location.
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The designs were quite okay – all places were obviously inspired by original missions, but built from scratch on a new plan. Music only appeared in key locations and has been chosen correctly, but I wish it was more varied.
I liked that the map had immediately shown what was coming and it was also really useful throughout. The player was free to move around the town and choose the order in which all the independent sections are visited. The mission offered some climbing opportunities. Loot locations were often unpredictable to say the least, so a player needs to look where they normally wouldn’t and keep their eyes open at all times, especially on expert. Overall, there was plenty of classic Thief gameplay with lots of guards and valuables which I found satisfying, if not very original.
I totally buy the “ultimate burglary” idea featuring (re)claiming many precious artifacts in one outing, but it needs to be rooted in a believable story. The mission did not provide any rationale for such a development at all. The readables were plentiful, but very short. They felt as if they had been messages to the player rather than authentic texts and thus did not feel at all convincing.
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This is my favorite mission.
<Username> on 6/4/2019 at 11:31
I went through the threads of previous contests: Sometimes results were only published as an image. When imagehosts remove it, information on the contest results is gone. Therefore I thought it might be a good idea to preserve the results of this contest in text form.
* The Scarlet Cascabel, Tannar & PukeyBrunster, 26.532
* Lost Among The Forsaken, DrK (King Mirdas), 26.436
* The Sound of a Burrick in a Room, skacky (son_of_a_dude), 26.341
* Catacombs of Knoss, nicked, 25.667
* Making a Profit, vfig, 24.859
* The Burning Bedlam, Phantom, 24.500
* Rose Garden, Melan, 24.416
* The Whistling of the Gears, Firemage (Deception), 24.203
* The Tomb of Saint Tennor, vegetables, 24.014
* Heart and Soul, StinkyKitty & McTaffer, 23.487
* Darkness Walk With Us!, Haplo, 23.256
* Downtowne Funk, Yandros, 22.634
* In & Out, FrenchDecay, JarlFrank & marbleman, 22.551
* Shadow Play, Schlock, 21.795
* The Hunt, Part 1: Search, Grandmauden, 20.217
* An Enigmatic Treasure with a Recondite Discovery, GORT, 19.015
* Order of the Dew, Jayrude, 18.593
* Madness Of Wolfgang Handspiegel, mtk, 17.818
* Ultimate Burglary, -Terra-, 17.786
* The Lost City of Gazing Glass, mtk, 16.286
* Dewinder Manor, psych0sis, 15.580
* Mother Redcap's Last Request, Swiz, 14.896
* Lord G, Marzec, 13.585
Yandros on 8/4/2019 at 12:11
Excellent point, thanks! I've linked to your post from the original post. However in this case, the results image is an attachment and so it should be around as long as the forum is up, but it never hurts to be doubly sure.
Mat99 on 8/4/2019 at 14:38
Quote Posted by Username
I thought it might be a good idea to preserve the results of this contest in text form.
Quote Posted by Yandros
Excellent point, thanks! I've linked to your post from the original post. However in this case, the results image is an attachment [...]
...and secondly, the picture is unclickable for none/not logged people or lurkers without TTLGF accounts, so text version is much appreciate for them :) Good move :) Ofcourse they can read small font from the image, but... yeah ;)
Yandros: any chance to see how many of "30s medals" each of the 20th mission received? :)
Yandros on 10/4/2019 at 16:36
I assume you mean how many perfect 30 scores each mission received? There were not very many. I can look at the data and put something together.
Mat99 on 10/4/2019 at 23:02
Quote Posted by Yandros
I assume you mean how many perfect 30 scores each mission received?
Yes :) that's what I meant :)
Quote:
I can look at the data and put something together.
Great :) I'm just curious. Also it will be nice to see who is the (after-party) winner in such category :)
DirkBogan on 23/5/2019 at 03:30
For anyone interested, here are all the 30/30 ratings collated from the Google Sheets file:
Sound of A Burrick In A Room=15
Lost Among The Forsaken=14
Catacombs of Knoss=12
Scarlet Cascabel=11
Rose Garden=8
Heart And Soul=5
Whistling of The Gears=4
Making A Profit=3
Tomb of St Tennor=3
Burning Bedlam=2
Darkness Walk With Us!=2
Shadow Play=2
Downtowne Funk=1
In And Out=1
Of these, I personally rated Sound of A Burrick In A Room and Shadow Play 30/30.
Mat99 on 23/5/2019 at 13:38
Quote Posted by DirkBogan
For anyone interested, here are all the 30/30 ratings [...]
Finally! :D Thank You very much ;)