/vr/ - Retro Games

I just played through Behind Closed Doors. Basically, I liked it a lot.

The art direction clearly deviates from that of original Thief, and in my opinion, it works out pretty well. I usually don't like 19th century/fin-de-siecle settings in Thief missions, but in this case, they manage to pull it off very well.

For the level design, it's a Skacky/Melan style city mission. Lots of walkable streets, tall buildings, and parkouring on rooftops and facades. The level design had a poor start, with a lot of bottlenecks and linearity, but it opens up after a while. After that, it's pretty solid. It does a lot of things right that I feel similar authors like Skacky and Melan do wrong. For example, in missions by those two authors, you get the feeling that most of the play area is divided into entirely isolated "islands", which the AI can't move between. This empowers the player to a ridiculous degree. This problem is also present in Behind Closed Doors, but to a lesser degree. There are several places where guards can see you through sunlit windows, from places where they can reach you. So basically, being high up doesn't always make you invulnerable, as opposed to in many Skacky missions.

Ultimately, it's a very ambitious mission. It has a pretty unique art direction, which, along with the sound design, creates a very cool atmosphere. The mission goals consist of several smaller "chain quests", which have you explore all sorts of places in the district. It's very meaty. Took me a good 3 hours to complete, and that's just for exploring the areas you can see with your naked eye. I probably just scraped the surface when it comes to secrets. Ultimately a very good FM, albeit not a a flawless one. It could stand to be a bit less linear in the beginning.

Finally, to make my stance on city missions clear:I love Assassins and THC, I hate LotP, and I hate 90% of all city missions. I'm ambivalent towards Skacky and Melan, although I do prefer them to most other city FM authors.