The Dark Treasure: Credel Castle's Untold Story
Release Date: August 10th, 2013
Creator: KreaturetPlot Premise from ModDB:
Baron Raymond Renald was a man of power and was greatly admired by his folks. He was considered one of the mightiest barons of all time which had caused inhabitants from several nearby villages to migrate within his field of power. A few weeks ago, Raymond suddenly vanished without a trace. Rumors got passed around, even horror stories. Some people claim he was murdered by evil monsters, but that is just plain nonsense to scare children, right? Others claimed he developed a severe depression after his mother's passing during the plague, and chose to take his own life. If that was the case, the servants of the castle would had already found him and reported it to the governor. Seeing that nobody has seen or heard anything of the servants though is awfully odd. What has actually happened to the Baron?
Review will be SPOILER FREE! Read the whole thing after the break!
Mapping/Setting:
I'll start off by saying I think you did a pretty decent job in this respect. It wasn't really anything awesome, or mind-blowing mind you, but I think you captured plenty of the settings quite nicely enough. I can see several places where you tried very hard to add variety to the maps, and I applaud you for that.
Also a lot of great standout moments in set pieces are really good!
However there seem to be some parts in which the fog seems to have a rather "sharp cut" which means the fog is something like a wall, and I can't see anything on the other side until I enter it after which I see perfectly. It's so blatantly serious that I think it just might have something to do with my Amnesia, so I'll let this one slide.
The level design however has a bit to be desired, and I'll note a bit of that below in gameplay.
Scares/Atmosphere:
This was for the most part done VERY well, both atmosphere, and actual scares. Custom sound helped a lot in this aspect. The atmosphere was in certain parts absolutely chilling with moderate use of jumpscares as well as subtle happenings in the background.
Storytelling:
Maybe I didn't find everything, but I personally found the story incredibly hard to follow. I really had not too much of an idea what has happening. I could kind of guess where the story had gone, but not enough clarification was given to make it satisfying alongside self-interpretation.
A general rule that I abide by: Keep the player in the dark just enough to make them want more, but let them know enough to not feel stupid.
The parts that i did get however, which were mostly in the front half of the mod I felt were delivered fairly well without too much glaring issues. For sake of a spoiler-free review I'll refrain from commenting on them for now.
Sound design as well as some pretty good voice-acting also helped quite a lot in this section.
Gameplay/Puzzles:
The puzzles I really enjoyed. They were mostly riddle-ly, and were easy enough for me to figure out by my own while still retaining satisfaction when I did.
The level I feel could get positively confusing at many times however. More than once I was completely disorientated from some hallways looking far too alike, and had to spend a good amount of time re-acquiring my bearings. It's not a huge issue though since it usually doesn't take incredibly long to do so.
Oil, and tinderbox placement was perfectly adequate I feel, and well balanced (If it was intentional that is)
Verdict: Decent mapping, and scares albeit with a confusing story that's hard to follow still make this a rather exceptional piece of work that everyone should give a shot with. 8/10
No comments:
Post a Comment