New Dark 10th Anniversary Contest - Voting Closed, Results Soon

[Brethren]

Ok, so back in January, a contest was announced to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the New Dark patch. For those who aren't aware of the history, here's the short version:

Some background: The New Dark patch was announced on the french forum ariane4ever on September 24th, 2012, and then posted here on the TTLG forums by DrK on the following day, September 25th. The author of the New Dark patch remains a mystery, but several updates have been made and released over the past 10 years and continue to this day. You can see the original post on TTLG here: https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140085. This patch expanded the limits of what was possible in the Dark Engine and also made the game much easier to play on modern PC hardware.

The objective of this contest was to create a new mission, inspired by one of the original missions created by Looking Glass, hopefully using the benefits of New Dark to your advantage. You can see the original thread here with the details of the contest: https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=151620.

That said - we have a total of two entries that have been submitted, both for Thief Gold:

House of the Architect - TheDataElemental
Intertheft (ver 1.1, now includes a French translation) - Nomadman

The good news is, we have two excellent new missions to play, and they were both created by first time authors. Quite the accomplishment. Congrats to both of you for finishing your entries on time.

The bad news is, yes, I won't lie, I was hoping for far more entries than we received. I'm not sure how exactly to account for this. If you are an existing or aspiring FM author, some constructive feedback would be much appreciated. Why did this theme and ruleset not interest you? What could be done differently next time? Let me know what's on your mind, so maybe things can be changed if another similar contest is ever announced.

Thanks to everyone who helped out and contributed in anyway to the contest, and I hope everyone enjoys the missions we did receive. Cheers...

EDIT (Nov 19th, 2022): Voting page is now closed. Results will be up soon.

https://www.ttlg.com/polls/NewDark10thAnniversary

[DirkBogan]

I highly recommend Nomadman's Intertheft, and from the few in-development screenshots I saw of TheDataElemental's House of The Architect it seemed quite promising and creative. I'm very excited to play it.

Regarding the limited submissions: if you look at the previous four contests, most of the participants are working on one or both of the two big campaigns in-progress. As part of one of them, I know there was some interest internally from a few members, but we decided that we really couldn't afford to give another contest priority over the long-awaited project. I promise that decision has paid off massively.

A few other previous contestants have solo missions in progress (one author I know has one in beta right now), or have retired from making FMs outright. There were at least 3 contestants who didn't make the deadline, and may yet release what they started. Not my place to say.

It's possible that the theme was confusing, but I doubt that played a major part. It's more likely that the usual suspects were all too busy. The most important thing is that, despite all these obstacles, we still have two new maps and two new authors as we approach Thief's 25th year.

[skacky]

Congratulations to both Nomadman and DataElemental for their first releases! There are many files in DataElemental's archive that aren't needed (a massive crash dump, .wr files, p_portal.cow and so on). These take quite a bit of disk space when unzipped so I recommend the author to delete these files and submit another archive to Brethren.

As for the theme, I am one of those who think it is excellent and I *really* wanted to participate. I took the decision not to though for various reasons, but if I had participated I probably would've reimagined either Blackmail or Casing/Masks.

[ticky]

Regarding the limited submissions: if you look at the previous four contests, most of the participants are working on one or both of the two big campaigns in-progress. As part of one of them, I know there was some interest internally from a few members, but we decided that we really couldn't afford to give another contest priority over the long-awaited project. I promise that decision has paid off massively.

A few other previous contestants have solo missions in progress (one author I know has one in beta right now), or have retired from making FMs outright. There were at least 3 contestants who didn't make the deadline, and may yet release what they started. Not my place to say.

Indeed. I think it's not that bad. Huge projects are on the way an we have two quality entries here - also, the "off the record" missions (I mean out of deadline) are very, very promising, since there will be 5 new missions with them.

I do not think that there were anything wrong with the contest rules. They were clear, original and exciting. I think it's just an unfortunate alignment of circumstances - maybe summer (for those in Europe and North America, it became quite unbearable at places), real life and other projects together caused the low number of entries within deadline.

[Sagittal]

Congratulations to the 2 authors and thanks to Brethren for running the comp - looking forward to playing these!

Maybe worth mentioning in first post that both House of the Architect and Intertheft are for T1 / TG?

[michael a]

I simply would say that I'm glad to see new missions. However small turnout is, there are still two more TG missions to play. Congrats to anyone involved - to Brethren, to the authors, testers, and to the community!

A few other previous contestants have solo missions in progress (one author I know has one in beta right now), or have retired from making FMs outright. There were at least 3 contestants who didn't make the deadline, and may yet release what they started. Not my place to say.

Perhaps, it would be good to extend deadline - at least for this mission in beta.

[Plibb]

There was some cool WIP screenshots in the announcement thread, hopefully they see the light of day at some point Either way, 2 missions that I can't wait to sink my teeth in, downloading now!

[DirkBogan]

Sorry, to be clear the mission in beta is a solo mission unrelated to the contest, but by a competitor in a previous contest. The point is that many prior participants are busy with other FMs.

[michael a]

Sorry, to be clear the mission in beta is a solo mission unrelated to the contest, but by a competitor in a previous contest. The point is that many prior participants are busy with other FMs.

OK, understood.

[A.Stahl]

>If you are an ... aspiring FM author

I have 2 most crazy (but interesting, I hope) ideas. Simple ideas. I've spent a week or something playing with DromEd and no... just no. Maybe I'm missing some trivial thing but I really don't like the DromEd. I hate it. And I'm old enough to remember (and still keep a rather warm recalls) Duke/Blood engine.

There were a few guys writing the modern wrapper over the DromEd and they were in the late stages of that process but no new news from them for a long time.

I suppose we will start getting MUCH more new missions if those guys will succeed, but DromEd is just too ugly. It kills the enthusiasm and is plainly near to unusable.

[Bosh]

Congrats to Nomadman and TheDataElemental, and thanks to Brethren for organising. Started with Intertheft and what a polished FM - the place feels lived in (looks and sounds great) - enjoying my romp around the map so far

[Lord Taffer]

Congratulations to two new authors who managed to finish their entries on time and thanks Brethren for organizing the contest! I'm one of those who started building a mission for this contest but couldn't make the deadline.

I think there was nothing wrong with the theme or ruleset. This time there just wasn't that many entries but I'm glad that there's two new FMs to play! I will continue building my FM and will release it later on.

[nicked]

Lol, I've heard a lot of reasons for not wanting to use Dromed, but "too ugly" has gotta be a new one.

My reasons for not participating are that the theme didn't appeal strongly to me; any kind of restriction on story tends to kill my inspiration, and I also have another mission that I'm working on that wouldn't have worked for this contest anyway.

Just finished House of the Architect and that was great! Gigantic mansion to explore with tons of different routes and ways in, and a hefty dose of weird. Piles of treasure and a glut of richly-textured brush-based detailing. Felt like a cross between a Schlock mission and a Kfort mission.

[pwl]

Great to see new missions congrats to the participants!!

Is there another link to Intertheft the one here is not working at the moment??

Never mind I tried it again and it worked.

[Ascobol]

If you are an existing or aspiring FM author, some constructive feedback would be much appreciated.
.

I think a factor may be that most folk are now back in their place of work and there is not as much flexibility as in the prior year(s).

Regarding FM authorship for me personally, I am awaiting the new editor coming out as it's QoL improvements appear to be tremendous.

[pwl]

Just finished House of the Architect and WOW!! that was awesome. I hope the next one is this good.
Thanks to the authors
pwl

[Samantha1]

Congratulations on the releases!! And from two new authors on top of that!

I have to be honest, I was also surprised to see only two entries for this long awaited contest, but I too think that many authors were just too busy (summer, other BIG missions, etc.). Still, very happy to see that we got new missions to play! Thanks alot for this!

[Thinking Robot]

I once again heartly express my gratitude to the two mission authors. So congratulations on the releases!
I played both and both of them are jawbreaking. Definitely a well-deserved addition to the top FMs out there. I liked Intertheft a little bit more gameplay-wise, but House of the Architect is huge and was amazing, too.
No spoilers, I´d heavily recommend to play them both.

[pwl]

Intertheft is a very solid nostalgic T1 mission I enjoyed playing it!! Though the mission ended without me getting to an exit, I had only the bracelet to find and when I did the mission ended.


Thanks for a Great playing experience!!

pwl

[downwinder]

downloading missions now,going in 100% blind have no idea what to expect ,will post an update ,and thank you so much for the hard work/congrats on releases

[Aemanyl]

Thanks to Brethren and the authors!

Finished House of the Architect first. Here are my first impressions:

I can see that a lot of work and effort went into this level. Wonderful architecture and overall design. I've had a very enjoyable time exploring the architect's mansion and all its numerous nooks and crannies. The level is massive, but I never felt lost. The Maw part was a positive surprise and the surreal curtains area with the original bug-beasts must have been inspired by Twin Peaks. I loved the outer space tower patrolled by fire elementals.

The only real drawback was the lack of readables, which made the FM a bit random. I felt as if I was robbing A mansion not THE mansion. Because I couldn't really immerse myself in the story, at some point I gave up on ghosting and just started knocking everyone out to get that next piece of loot. I can see the value in environmental storytelling, especially in the more bizarre parts of the level, but a couple of short manuscripts about the architect himself and life inside the mansion would greatly help with immersion. This would be my only criticism. That being the case, it's a great submission. Congratulations.

[Chronicler]

Haven't finished Intertheft yet and I'm already going to give it a 9. Awesome!

Not sure if the proper thread for it but here goes: any help on the location of the bracelet (who's the right hand man I should be after?) and the location of Reuben's crypt key? Thanks.

[Marzec]

@Brethren. I've added missions onto my portal. For how long should I keep users' rating hidden, and where we can cast the official vote?

[downwinder]

i am guessing these are thief 1 fan missions?

[Brethren]

Yes, both are for Thief Gold. I'll edit the OP.