Rose Cottage

By Saturnine and crew

Note that the reason I haven’t posted screenshots is that the mission author has requested that there are no shots posted so everyone can “get the full effect of the mission as it was planned”.

Over a month has passed since Halloween and this year it was one to remember for all the Thief fans. The released missions were simply jaw-dropping. And while Mike (first name “The”) did beat me to a very nice review of the mind-numbing mission Eclipsed, I still have the long anticipated Rose Cottage for myself.

Background

Mister David Tonkinson, or most known as Saturnine, needs no introduction to most Thief FM veterans or regular fans. He is most familiar to all by his “award-wining” mission The 7th Crystal (10 Hammers at The Circle and 11/10 at the Keep of Metal and Gold) and his work, helping Purah, on another “standard-setting” title – Calendra’s Legacy. As Thelvyn said on the TTLG forums when Rose Cottage came out “… it’s Saturnine! Nuff said!” The whole Rose Cottage team is consisted of well know community members. The mission itself was originally intended for the 2007 Masters of Horror contest. It was of great surprise to all the fans when it finally came out in October 2009, as the rumors of another FM from the same author were really heating up.

The Mission

The first thing I want to say is that I haven’t played a mission like that on Thief before, in all aspects including sound, vision, but most notably gameplay. The second is that in order to retain the experience for first time players that the RC team requests, I will try to be as brief as possible.

The storyline is quite simple at first and is a good deviation from the regular Garrett thing. You are a paranormal investigator sent by a client to his home, Hollow Lane Mortuary, to find out why has the house and surrounding complex recently became haunted. This is pretty much all you need to know of the storyline to get you started, as it gets very interesting very fast.

If we talk about a Saturnine mission we talk a lot about visual design. The fact here is that Rose Cottage is not only magnificently designed in the sense of buildings architecture and room furnishing, but there are a ton of small, sharp details that one would be surprised to find in a Thief 2 FM. The map literally shows that the Dark Engine is capable of achieving great visual appeal with very well looking objects and textures, even without the Shaders Support that new game engines have. The great gloomy house, complement by the light fog and creepy lanterns, can only be matched by all the small pictures and drawings that create this wonderfully creepy atmosphere. Both the house and surroundings are magnificently done and leave the impression of “over-satisfaction” in the player. There is just no “simple looking” corner of the map that is not originally intended to look simple by Saturnine. And I must say that the drawings made by Saturnine’s daughter are adding a lot to the missions appeal.

Speaking of atmosphere, it can simply be described with the word Halloween. All the holiday lovers will be pleased both visually and auditory from the very first moment the mission loads. As Purah himself said “October 2009 is a good month to be a Thief fan”. The mission direction first reminded me of a Scooby-Do episode, but as one ventures further into the map thing start looking like a Dean Koontz novel. Both the ambient and event triggered sounds are magnificent. I could not have thought of a better sound atmosphere to fit the visuals. I don’t want to go into details here, but the sound is very creepy, standing on the edge of becoming horrific. But once you enter the house itself, the audio really kicks in and thing now start smelling straight like Stephen King! Saturnine keeps the tension in a very original way with a witty combination of triggered events – some of which are a real novelty for a Thief FM. I dare not spoil the surprise, but things get a lot more adrenaline rising later.

But the main jewel for many is the gameplay. It is really an investigation mission that a regular rob and vanish one. The player starts with no weapons (a good sign), a few med packs (not a good sign) and a scroll form the owner of Hollow Lane Mortuary, describing the situation. The whole deal here is to think and use what you can find to solve all the puzzles that you come across. There is no problem that has a very simple solution. The map architecture and room furnishing really come to the aid of gameplay as the objects and texts are well placed to match each scene. The mission makes one think and the player feels like he is outsmarting the mysteries of the mortuary. The focus is mainly on the strange happenings as there is no loot on this map. However, for the collector type, there is a very originally done set of numbered Tarot cards scattered around the map in hidden places. There are 20 hidden cards that once found are arranged accordingly on a special board. To the date I’m writing this review, there are only a few taffers that have found more than 10 cards (without using a locations list), which describes the challenge.

The only thing that I found a tad negative was the challenge level. All good FMs are difficulty and that is how we like them, but one won’t find anything self-explanatory in this mission. There are some items that are ridiculously hidden, some don’t even suggest that they can be picked up, some of the paths are camouflaged in challenging ways and I spent an hour wandering around before discovering something I needed in plain sight. One should really pay attention to the details when playing. At the forums, the few that have managed trough the mission on their own, give way to the many that stand puzzled of what to do next.

Conclusion

On the good side you have a great mission done by a great author, magnificent Halloween atmosphere and a challenging and innovating gameplay.

On the bad side you have nothing. There is just no negative thing to say as a whole about the mission.

In the end, this is a good map even if you like to see some great visuals and explore a life-like haunted mansion. But if you are in for an adventure that sometimes even gets close to a Silent Hill experience, go for it!