Journey through The Dark Project: Part 1

So, it’s about time I finally did it. Join me as I play Thief: The Dark Project; I’ve never got further than The Sword before. Thanks to the No Spiders mod from Andy Durdin I hope to actually finish it this time. I’ll be playing Thief Gold, I have multiple copies of The Dark Project but they’d require me to dig through boxes to find. Thief Gold is the only one reliably available online. I am reserving the right to level skip past the Thieves Guild, though. I’ll be using the New Dark version, but sticking to a 4:3 aspect ratio.

I love the sequel, The Metal Age, and have less than fond memories of “Down in the Bonehoard” and the early parts of “Break from Cragscleft Prison”. I am unconvinced zombies make for engaging enemies, so this is going to be interesting. Because I am a rational and completely well adjusted adult with nothing to prove, I’m going to be playing on Expert…

I want to try and complete one level a night, though that probably won’t be maintainable as the game goes on.

Despite playing Thief Gold I’ll be referring to it as Thief: The Dark Project because that’s just a much better name.

 

“A Keeper’s Training”:

God these games have an aesthetic… Maybe sacrilegious but I do sort of wish the games themselves had an art style closer to the cutscenes, though I understand that wasn’t something that was achievable at the time.

It’s hard not to get nostalgic for Quake went presented with such chunky BSP architecture, though Quake was never this colourful. Greens, yellows, and purples, it’s surprising how colourful a game about sneaking around in the dark actually is.

So here’s a weird fact, I’ve not finished Thief Gold but I’ve started it a bunch of times. Recently I’ve had to have several dental treatments (Yay NHS), and during them I tend to zone out and mentally run through levels in my head, Bafford’s is one of those I use.

I can close my eyes and mentally walk through the entire level. I can do that with a lot of levels, but Bafford’s is one of the few where the mental image is so vivid I can just close my eyes and be there. Another is The Golden Cat from Dishonored.

It’s a bit late, so going to save “Lord Bafford’s Manor” for another day. Just wanted to make sure everything was running properly, and play the tutorial today. My bow skills are still on point, and my sword fighting is as terrible as ever.

A little disappointed the basketball court and quote scroll aren’t in the Gold version anymore. Or maybe I messed up and this isn’t on Expert… I can’t remember the exact requirements to reach it anymore.

Looks like I hadn’t started on Expert, which explains why I couldn’t get to the basketball court. Good thing you can just restart the level and change the difficulty.

Restarted on Expert.

 

“Lord Bafford’s Manor”:

The conceit that the maps have been hand draw by somebody (in this case your fence Cutty) is wonderful. It’s even better when Garrett has drawn them because he cannot draw to save his life and just labels things “caves”.

I have a thing for boundary conditions in levels and this is a good example, clear and unambiguous. Some players might search for a switch, but unlikely since they shouldn’t have encountered one yet.

It’s also neat because the exit from Bafford’s is on the far side of this gate, though you might not recognise where you are when you’re making your escape.

Electric lights in the sewer? Really? Going back to the map from before, there’s no layout of the sewer. Why? Because Cutty never went into them, he’s a fence not a thief.

That you start on the streets of the city and most people just walk past you is such a great idea. It’s a shame they never really use it much after this. The idea of public and private spaces is underutilised in stealth games, but something Hitman gets right.

Yeah you get a bit of it in Assassins and that’s it really. The distinct public/private spaces is something I really conceptually like, too. – Dillon Rogers.

It’s related to another thing I wish these games did, which is acknowledge the context of the noise you make. So running in a noise environment doesn’t trigger an alert, but any sound in a secure area is immediately important.

I’ve played Bafford’s so many times that I’m going through it a little fast this time so I can get to the levels I’ve never played before.

Even using the New Dark patch I feel light I’m fighting with the controls occasionally. It doesn’t like it if I keep one finger on any of the speed modifier keys while I try and lean, a habit I got into in The Metal Age where I nearly constantly had Creep held down.

I remembered where the secret passage was… Though I only used it to dowse the torches, as jumping down would cause damage.

Best corridor in the entire game. FIGHT ME.

I absolutely mean it. The use of carpets and hard stone floors is superb, and really solidifies why sound is so important in this game. You could get through this corridor with your eyes closed and that’s some incredible design. All the rooms off this corridor are brightly lit by electric lights. You need to close the door if you want to search them, and that means you are forced to rely on the sound of the guards footsteps to determine if it’s safe to return to the corridor.

“Heh, it’s a throne room, how pretentious can you get?”

It’s at this point that I realised how cocky Garrett is, he broke into Bafford’s without any lock picks.

“Milordy Bafford -” Aside from the writing style, this note (found in Bafford’s library) is important because it’s the first mention of Victoria\Viktoria.

No time to mess around, a jump from the top floor into the pool and a quick dart across the corridor to the exit.

I’ll spend more time on the subsequent levels, wanted to get through this and make sure I was feeling comfortable with the game again. Controls are going to take a little getting used to. I kinda wish I could just play through these levels with Dishonored 2‘s moveset.

A few moments of annoyance, like when I was confident a guard wouldn’t spot me when he walked past, only for him to immediately attack once he got to me.

You start this level with your Blackjack, Sword, Broadhead Arrows, Water Arrows and Flash Bombs. You have only a small part of your eventual kit, yet the core mechanics of the game are so solid it feels like plenty; maybe even more than you need.

The “bear pits” conversation is great, though on reflection it runs a little long. A lot of the incidental guard conversations are maybe two or three lines longer than feels necessary.

Eric Brosius made some manner of satanic pact, that’s the only plausible reason for his audio design to be this good.

Dan Thron is the perfect straight man to Stephen Russell’s Benny. Somehow despite having not played System Shock 2 for years I can’t help but think of him as the Navy Recruiter.

 

“Break from Cragscleft Prison”:

So, can we talk about how Garrett rescues Basso from Cragscleft just so he can get laid?

I don’t like zombies as a concept and this level is doing nothing to dispel that. The idea of using Holy Water to bless your Water Arrows is great, but that it still takes two to explode a zombie feels shitty. And you can fuck right off with whatever this is…

Well, that’s a useful map… Ahem.

It’s such a change of tone from the first level. For some reason it’s hard for my brain to align itself to the idea of just sneaking past the zombies like I do with the human guards.

Finally made it through the mines, just in time to hear a pair of Hammers discussing those “bloody millennials” (not an exact quote). The lower floors of Cragscleft are really constricted, claustrophobically so.

I’m either incredibly out of practice, or actually getting into the factory level is really hard. Narrow corridors, lot of right angled corners, and then metal floors around the switches you need to activate to proceed.

I actually managed to find Felix before Cutty asked me to, and that doesn’t break anything which is cool.

Urgh… This is where the physics/movement system of the Dark Engine comes back to bite me. I know exactly what I want to do, and how to do it, but I keep fucking it up. Took eight attempts to finally get across and blackjack him without being spotted.

As has been pointed out, I didn’t need to jump across at all because I had the key and the door can be unlocked from the outside. There are two reasons I didn’t realise this:

1. It was too dark.
2. At this stage you’ve not been introduced to locks separate from the doors themselves, so I never even thought to look for one.

I’m also ninety percent certain I did the exact same thing last time I played. It made sense that the guard room was locked from the inside, so I just went with that assumption. I don’t understand why this level does it that way, what’s the design reason behind not having the doors themselves be the locks, ala the first level?

That top one means rapists doesn’t it? Lovely company Cutty is keeping.

Alright, so this was both annoying and hilarious. Cutty finally dies after telling me about Felix, just as a Hammer walks past. Hammer sees the body, screams about an “assassin” and enters the cell, spotting and killing me immediately. Emergence! Not sure what the detection criteria are for physical proximity to an AI. I’ve been spotted a few times, yet totally ignored at others.

Some world building flavour, “boxman” in the context of “Basso the Boxman” means safecracker.

Shhh… There’s nobody here… Bit of a sweaty palms moment this one.

Deirne, interesting that Cragscleft isn’t exclusively for male prisoners.

This asshole however is Tarquis (I assume the same one mentioned in the previous letter to Milordy Bafford). Tarquis spotted me briefly and would not shut up about it. Like seriously dude, you think you’re going to get early release for being a snitch?

The maps for the upper levels (factory and prison) are of a much better quality than those of the mines. Which makes sense because some of the prisoners will have been sentenced to work in the factory, so any that were released will know the layout.

This game can be rather silly at times. Look I’m hidden!

Navigating the four cell blocks is fairly repetitive, which makes sense. It’s also easy to get lost, which also makes perfect sense for a prison complex. It’s not exactly designed to be welcoming to “tourists”. No decent map of the highest level, again thematically consistent as no prisoners would have been able to access this floor. Garrett has a pithy comment about how many valuables are on display in this chapel.

Nammon escaped and made off with half the contents of the evidence box… Fortunately I already found his body, and the game acknowledged that. So really I didn’t even need to come up here; except I did because loot.

I’m learning, never trust an obviously placed banner.

So, funny story. I have a memory of escaping Cragscleft with Basso via the water. There’s a waterfall earlier in the mines and in my head I remembered going over that while holding Basso… There’s water at the top so I assumed this was the escape route…

Except that’s not possible… This water doesn’t link to anything else. If I’m to escape with Basso I need to carry him back through the factory and mines. This memory of a water escape was so vivid that I included a homage to it in one of Wildfire‘s levels; yet it’s not something that ever happened. So after bringing Basso to the top level for a daring waterfall escape, I now have to carry him all the way back, through the prison, to the factory, and the mines beyond.

Ah ha! I must have originally played it on Normal.

It absolutely is! There’s a secret door behind that banner you cut down that leads to the water passage you remember. It varies between difficulty levels though: longer on Normal, shorter on Hard, not accessible at all on Expert, if I remember rightly. – Andy Durdin.

Standing next to a door – an unconscious Basso over my shoulder – listening for a Hammer to reach the end of his patrol route and so turn his back to the door, I may possibly have said out loud: “Yeah, this game is pretty fucking good.”

Oh, and Garrett still didn’t bother to pack his lock picks, even when he was infiltrating a prison. *Shakes Head*

Getting out of the prison was fairly straightforward, and judicious use of my one Noisemaker Arrow allowed me to dash past the Hammers in the factory. I was able to use the water to avoid some parts of the mines.

Finally back on solid ground I opt to use my Holy Water and the last of my Water Arrows to destroy any zombies in my way (because fuck them, that’s why), and make my escape with Basso over my shoulder. Let me remind you that Garrett only got Basso out to impressive Basso’s sister… Garrett also threatened to kill Cutty… Garrett is kind of a dick.

That this game keeps a separate record of knock outs performed “While Airborne” is why it’s cool… I mean there are other reasons, but we all know this is the main one.

What struck me about Cragscleft was how claustrophobic it was. It feels like the entire thing could fit inside one of the warehouses from “Shipping and Receiving”.

That said it still felt complete, it had four cell blocks of ten cells each and didn’t have any separate wings that were “out of bounds”. No toilets though, but I did miss part of the barracks so maybe they were in there. There are little inconsistencies between levels (like the separate lock boxes next to the doors in Cragscleft) that indicate there probably wasn’t a single “Lead Level Designer” who oversaw everything.

The differences between difficulty levels are really worth talking about. I believe the Gamasutra post-mortem admits they took the differing objectives based on difficulty from GoldenEye on the N64, but I don’t believe that game also changed the layouts.

Now that I know I wasn’t making an entire part of the level up it makes sense why it wouldn’t be available on Expert. Without it you’re forced to traverse the entire level carrying Basso.

Where are we now in terms of the plot? Garrett breaks into Bafford’s because he knows the Lord is out for the night. His fence Cutty has his payment but has been taken to Cragscleft by the Hammers. No fence, no money, time to break Cutty out. When Garrett gets to him Cutty admits he doesn’t have his money and then keels over dead; prison exacerbating a lung condition it seems. Before he dies he tells Garrett where to find the map to The Horn of Quintus.  Right now we are still in Act 1 and these first three missions are just Garrett doing a job and trying to get paid for it. There are hints at the main plot but it hasn’t really kicked in yet. As The Dark Project is really just a film noir this is the part of the film where the protagonist is finishing up his last case before the femme fatale walks through his office door. This film noir structure is also why sticking “The Downwind Thieves’ Guild” in after “Assassins” makes for such awkward pacing, but I’ll talk about that when I get there.

 

“Down in the Bonehoard”:

Unfortunately now it’s time for “Down In The Bonehoard”, a level I have repeatedly said I hate.

Despite minor complaints, the inconsistencies between different levels is for the best. Having maps of some locations and not others is inconsistent systems design and perfect narrative design. Yeah, real fucking helpful map there Felix. <_<

Putting a zombie right at the start is a real statement of intent. I wish I didn’t find them so completely unfun to deal with. They aren’t difficult to avoid, they are just annoying, I never feel stealthy just rushed.

This is a cool little secret, especially as it gives you a full eight Water Arrows.

I do rather like this first area. I assume that’s a representation of the Trickster in that foruth image? That’s what he looks like in the background of the briefing cutscene at least.

I think maybe this is a trap!

“The Many welcomes you…”

Bonus points for fungi as light sources.

“Oh no. You did NOT shoot that green shit at me!”

So it’s like that is it…

I don’t actually mind this section that much. It’s not the getting lost in caves part of this level that annoys me. Exploring the vaults and the caves, finding the bodies of the thieves who tried to reach the Horn before you is narratively rich, very much my kind of thing. It’s just what you need to do to get the Mystic’s Soul and Mystic’s Heart that annoys me.

Though trying to find my way into the Alarus Extension for the Bow Upgrade is really annoying too. ;)

I love the architecture and layout, and how it changes across the three different areas. Great use of colour and materials. There’s an abundance of traps yet they aren’t cheap, there are environmental clues everywhere, if you pay attention you shouldn’t get caught.

Simply put, these two rooms are why I don’t like “Down in the Bonehoard”. I managed to get through the statue room on my second attempt which was a surprise, but the first room still took a dozen tries. :(

Most of those failures were just flat out failed jumps. I knew exactly what I wanted to do and when, I just messed up the jumps repeatedly. It will also kill you if you fall from anything but the lowest beam which feels like an non-systemic “special case” contrivance.

I don’t really remember this level. I found this above ground area, is this somewhere that counts as “outside” for the Mission Objectives? Ala can I just go back here when I have everything I need? Otherwise I’m not sure what it’s for. I’ll try it anyway. (This does count as an escape route, because the objectives say return to the “surface”. I assume it’s still possible to get all the way back if you don’t find this area though.)

Cool visual effect… Wait a minute, I’m not falling for this one. I’m not standing in that patch of “light”, you aren’t tricking me.

I spent a portion of this map carrying around parts of a Golden Skeleton, which sure is a thing. Turns out I could offer them to a coffin below that Hammer symbol for a bunch of useful equipment.

Came around a corner to find this, and I do not trust it… I’ve been giving it the side eye while slowing edging into the passage on the right.

I don’t understand the detection criteria for Burricks – though I believe these may be sleeping, something to do with the sound of the Horn making them docile? They don’t appear able to “see” me, is their behaviour primarily based on auditory detection, or some form of proximity?

Horn of Quintus acquired.
Number of deaths due to ladders: 3.
Number of deaths due to missing a jump: 2.

I guess I was probably supposed to find this before I grabbed the Horn.

That’s the Mystic’s Heart, and Horn of Quintus secured; I’ve also stolen the crystal eyes of some creepy face that spoke to me – this game is weird. Time to get the Mystic’s Soul and GTFO.

Of course, on the way to get the Mystic’s Souls there’s a literal man on fire. I assume this is a Fire Elemental, so logically Water Arrows should work. He takes about two hits then runs away like something out of a Benny Hill skit.

Problem…

Solution…

Result. The Mystic’s Soul is mine!

That’s “Down in the Bonehoard” done. On reflection I don’t hate it, I just don’t like that so many parts of it rely on making precise jumps that the game’s controls don’t really accommodate.

There’s another reason I don’t like levels like this that much, and it’s simply one of prefered playstyle. I’m very fond of ghosting, of finding creative solutions to go undetected. It’s hard to avoid detection from zombies, burricks, and other creatures. Because the game doesn’t really care if you’re detected – only what you do about it – it’s not afraid to just throw a bunch of zombies at you in a way that makes avoiding detection impossible. Once I accepted that, and overcame my inherent frugality when it comes to using resources, dealing with zombies became much more tolerable.

Both Rope Arrows and Fire Arrows have now been introduced so Garrett’s inventory is almost complete. Still don’t think I’ve fired a single Broadhead Arrow yet though.

Already the three factions in the world of Thief have been introduced, though not all explicitly so. Each of the three briefing cutscenes (and to an extent the missions they introduce) has been focused around one of the three factions: Keepers, Hammers, Pagans. Each faction has their own aesthetics, and that influences the style of the briefing cutscenes. This is one design choice that is consistent across all of the first three Thief games. Even Deadly Shadows separates the briefings by faction.

 

Next: “Assassins”