I'm a little bored so I'm gonna kill this evening by doing something odd: I'm gonna replay the King's Story FM by Zontik.
It's probably one of the most ambitious FMs ever made, and yet riddled with many terrible design decisions. I'm gonna take notes on those design decisions and show people how NOT to do things. One of the most memorable ones is the "You're leaving the combat zone!" objective which fails the mission if you step in the wrong place. No, I'm not shitting you, this is present in King's Story.
More later.
EDIT:
# Intro video is surpisingly good and faithful to Thief.
# Difficulty levels are irrelevant for the first mission, there is no loot and only one secret.
# One objective is not to let the castle guards raise the alarm, which makes sense. Another objective is the aforementioned "you're leaving the combat zone!" objective. This is very much in part like the "don't go down to ground level" objective from "The Life of the Party" OM in Thief 2. There are a LOT of slopes and deep chasms around, and for those I expect this to be perfectly natural. Except sometimes there are areas which don't seem to be "out of the combat zone", like a bunch of dead trees at the bottom of a cave you're supposed to go down anyway. Hop down to the trees and it's Game Over.
# The author uses the same texture for EVERYTHING. Walls, floors, cave ceilings, rocks, etc. EVERYTHING LOOKS THE SAME. Which makes navigating and getting around kinda difficult.
# The FM comes with a map, but there's NOTHING on the map which says where we are on it.
# The starting area is a ledge by a rocky outcropping that stretches above you, a tree is visible on the top. There is NOTHING that tells us how we got here, we were just dumped in the wilderness on the chance that no one would ask questions such as these.
# I have a look at that tree, and found a ill-traversible path up there. My reward? 7 Moss Arrows. Getting down... seems impossible without taking damage. Whatever.
# My starting equipment is the blackjack, compass, lockpicks and ONE broadhead arrow.
# At one point while trying to traverse the landscape a "ghost" appears on a cliffside. However he is easily missed because in order to trigger him you have to be looking in another direction.
# I follow the path beyond the ghost and I can choose two directions; forward up a slope or to the right into a cavern. I go up the slope and see some scenery below, however every attempt I make to go down the slope is met with the "combat zone" objective failed. Clearly I'm not supposed to go this way.
# After a while in the cavern I seem to reach its end where it opens up into a large chamber. In the center is a rock from which springs water and some bottles. I can't do anything with them, so why bother having them there?
# I also start hearing sounds like I'm being hunted by a wolf-like creature, yet no such creature is around. Weird.
# I find a chest which contains a single Rope Arrow, but otherwise I'm at a dead end.
# Some backtracking later and I spot dead tree hanging over a ledge at a funny angle. I try to embed the rope arrow in the tree, several reloads later tells me that it will only fasten in the trunk itself, not the branches.
# Several attempts later I manage to jump up on the ledge and progress. I have never gotten this far in the mission, so whatever awaits me here is new to me.
# I found a small lake with a wolfman standing by its shore. Before trying to confront the wolfman I explore and find a cave with nothing in it but a skin bed and some bones. I hear that "wolfman" sound again, but nothing appears.
# By this time the music starts getting strange. It gets tense and suspenseful, and yet there's nothing here. Nothing happens.
# I go back the wolfman and suddenly I'm CamVatored while the wolfman runs up a steep slope, enters a cavern then makes a sharp turn right while I continue... I fall down a waterfall and arrive safely at the bottom. That's where the game gives me back the controls. So yeah, I got whisked away by a wolfman who dragged me along like a balloon before dumping me down a waterfall. This mission sure makes little sense so far.
# The good news is, that this waterfall is one of a handful of landmarks on the map, so now I know where I am and where I should be headed!
# A short look around gives me two choices: Follow the water or climb up the rocks on my right. Following the water takes me to a little shed that contains a bottle just like the ones I saw earlier (and couldn't do anything with). Clearly someone lives here but that bottle is the only item I can interact with. There's a book on the table, "The Beast Within" by Jane Jensen. (Nice reference.)
# I climb up until I reach a tree and a chasm. Along the way EVERY LEDGE I have to climb on is designed in such a way as to hinder my progress, upward-facing angles that make it very hard to mantle on to or land on properly.
# Once I reach the place with the tree and chasm I seem to be stuck. I can't make the jump across because the tree is blocking my way. Shooting a rope arrow into the tree doesn't seem to do anything. So I saved and paused the game there.
EDIT 2:
# I taff around and realize that I missed a sword in the shed. Using that I chop down the tree and use it as a bridge to cross. A short climb later I emerge with the castle right in front of me! Cool! Mission almost complete. Err... no. I'm at the mouth of a small cave overlooking the castle, and I need to get down there first. There's a guard looking my way, and he almost spots me at one point but does nothing.
# It's here that I notice that the texture used on every surface has changed. At least I think it has changed. It's more yellow now than gray.
# Then I reach the bottom and there's a canyon where a guard is lighting torches along the wall. I knock him out and proceed slowly the castle in a clockwise motion until I'm at the far end of the castle. In front of me is what appears to be a gate, it's thoroughly locked and nothing immediately visible that I can interact with. I do notice, however, what appears to be a small path leading further clockside along the castle. I follow that.
# After walking along some of the narrowest ledges in Thief history, I reach the part of the castle closest to the cavern mouth I emerged from earlier. Here I find a back door, and the guard outside was so gracious enough to "lend" me the key. Except... there's no lock. In fact, the door doesn't look to be frobbable at all. So I'm no better off.
# After a few minutes of examination, I notice that a tiny circle of the door lock is frobbable. I use the key and a beeping sound starts and a light above the door flashes red, but the door doesn't open. A few seconds later the alarm goes off and the mission fails. Nothing I do seems to be able to stop this.
# I backtrack back to the front gate. After taffing around there I find a window that's too small for me to get through, but I see a lever inside that I can't reach. I spend a few minutes figuring out that I have to stand on the outer wall, quite a distance from the window, and shoot an arrow inside to hit the lever. This raises the front gate. Except...
# Beyond it is ANOTHER gate, and two cameras positioned so that it's impossible to not get spotted by them. And there's a lock that must be picked. Yeah, this is not happening. Clearly I'm missing something, so I give up and consult a walkthrough.
# Turns out that I am supposed to disable the cameras by going in through the back door. How do I open the back door? By first using the key on the itsy bitsy teeny weeny lock on the front door, then turn around and pick the OTHER itsy bitsy teeny weeny lock on the rail.
#
# I try this, and find out that there's NO room for error, you HAVE to pick the lock PERFECTLY or the alarm goes off. Or, as I found out after a reload, pick the second lock first, then use the key on the front door.
# Inside I find a way to disable the cameras on the front gate, and a note mentioning the second lock and the new time the guards have to open both locks.
#
...
# This....is...beyond retarded. Having the only note that gives you ANY clues about what you're supposed to do with a door, be located BEYOND the door that you're trying to open!?!
# Anyway, I tiptoe along the narrowest ledges in the universe back to the front gate, and try to pick the lock there. I quickly realize that something ain't right here. The lock ain't picking, it just keeps going back to the starting position.
# So I experiment. Turns out that the author did manage a slight bit of brilliance here. BOTH picks work in the lock at the same time, but if you choose the wrong pick the lock resets, or at least slips back. So the trick here is to find out in which order you're supposed to use the picks. On one hand this brings a new dimension to the lock-picking minigame. On the other hand he picked the WORST imaginable lock to do that with. Because assuming that people didn't get through the back door (and considering how much of a clusterfuck that is, I'm guessing not many) their only option is to try to game the cameras to get a handful of seconds where they can fiddle with the lock. I'm guessing that opening the lock flawlessly is a 45-60 second job, imaging having only a few seconds at a time before having to dodge away from the cameras?!?
# Anyway, picking this lock finishes the mission.
All of Zontik's missions are like that. They are obviously carefully planned and he spends immense effort on them, but they are about as enjoyable as getting your teeth pulled. I remember The Golden Book of the Keepers being devilishly frustrating - and that was after I restarted with a printed walkthrough. With King's Story, he rebuilt Neuschwanstein Castle... in order to create a mission that's unplayable except for the hardest of the hardcore. Well done, I suppose. I have been playing these games far too long, but I'm not touching this mission with a ten foot pole.
