Your name is Michael Underwood. What started as enjoyable part time work in a magnificent castle soon turned into a living nightmare, a nightmare you feared would finish you off... but you did what no-one else has been able to do: you escaped. But your ordeal is far from over. To get out of the Castle you must venture back into the darkness, find the Master key and escape. The Earl of Brackenburg has servents roaming the halls, dont let them find you!
Before i start, i would just like to note that this is the first mod that i have ever given a 10 too in the past few months i've been playing/reviewing Custom Stories.
Positives:
- Really Scary Atmosphere
- The right amount of tinderboxes and oil
- Monster spawns were done sparingly at the start and in good places.
- Dramatic build up at the start which held true throughout the CS.
- No bugs or glitches, minus one with a lock which really wasn't serious.
- A decent story with an interesting finale (when you recover from your Amnesia fully)
- The Castle design was fantastic, it really felt like i was in a castle/mansion of sorts.
- The detail of each area and environment was great. When i was in Storage it felt like i was in a massive underground Castle Storage Room, same with the Wine Cellar and Guest Rooms.
- Good use of Light and Dark areas, plenty of torches/lanterns to light if needed.
- Sound effects were used to great effect, and often made me jump
Things to improve on:
- Next time it would be great to see some voice acting added in as long as it's done to a great extent like the rest of the mod.
- A possibly more engaging story, that's not to say this one wasn't, but a few more side plots or side quests would be cool.
Conclusion:
This is my favourite of two mods i've played this year, and i strongly encourage you to continue making mods to this quality, because you have great potential and have nailed modding on your first attempt
Kudos to you and thankyou yet again for this mod!
I was amazed by this story and the truths behind castle Brackenburg! A really great Amnesia experience I highly recommend to anyone looking for a great story to play!
When I saw the description, my first though was: "Oh, another you must ecape story, this will not be that special probably". You showed me wrong! If this really is your first story, then please don't stop making stories! You have level design skills :)
Oh, and as I said in a comment I left, don't use flying naked guys! You didn't use them in this story but you said you thought about using them. Look how it turned out when you didn't use them ;p
Positives:
- Incredibly good level design (do you work for frictional games? You should)
- Long story
- Good story-line
- Challanges
- Perfect atmosphere
Negatives:
- Scares are a bit repetitive
- No autosaves (although few people know what they do, so no points removed)
- A few glitches in the level design, although nothing huge really. A fireplace had fire sounds even though no fire was on, and in the dungeon part, at the suitors first appearence, there was a table and a couple of shelfs right next to the table. I could jump behind the shelf and get stuck there. Was forced to load from the latest saved game
10/10 - Masterpiece
I truly enjoyed this! One of the atmospheric and really good mods recently played.
I have enough oil, it took me over 2 hours because I just stop looking how greatly you have mapped everything I loved that Storage area there are some little floating entities, but it's fine. Scares are really nicely placed and didn't ruined atmosphere not even once! End maps were really terrifying and that one chase was intense and I was like "WAAAH he's gonna get me, he's gonna get me" and just made it to the door. Wow, great job there and it was long that was really good part! Maps are just really beautiful all assets, enviroment everything was nicely fitted, but maybe little originality with the map sizes and never-seened stuff, however I enjoyed it and only felt little disappoint at the end because that little maze and many prison cells and those grunts was little annoying for me.
What need to improve:
- Maybe more original / never-seened puzzles + something new
- More unique stuff
This is just my opinion and I'm just helping to get you even better, but I love your mapping skills no problem there, maybe more work on the billboards, but I'm satisfied :)
Overall this was great triumph and I give you eight for hard effort, well done man as your first! :)
Fantastic CS
I tracked this a while back and I'm really glad I did.
The premise is simple. You have to escape, but to do that you have to go to the deepest regions of the castle and back again.
There's a goal, a reason to throw yourself into torture chambers, not simply, I HAVE AMNESIA AND I DONT KNOW WHAT TO DO GUESS ILL JUST GO BACK IN THE DUNGEONS AGAIN.
Guy says it's his first story and he didn't even know how to script before making this. This is one of the finest CS's I've played in a long time. Please make another one sir, it was a fun ride. It was also very scary and had a really unnerving atmosphere. Excellent pacing that kept me guessing again and again. You might THINK you know what's gonna happen next but you really don't. There are no generic "pick up key and monster spawns" encounters here. They all make sense and surprise the **** out of you.
This is fantastic! The level design was beautiful, and the scares were great. With all those unexpected monster encounters, dark corners, eerie atmosphere and the fact I didn't know what to expect, there wasn't one place where I felt safe. You used all the monsters, and I liked that. The Grunt was present, along with the Brute, the Kaernk and even the Suitor was there. They showed up in perfect times, and the music you have chosen for your levels was perfect fit. Though there were many horrifying parts, such as the Grunt chase though the last corridor of the cellar, the ending really got to me, when I was in the maze-like dungeon and its cells. It was scary, and I never knew where the monsters were, which made me freak out. The intense music was perfect for that area, I must say.
I don't have one negative thing to say about this awesome and amazing mod. I think it's perfect the way it is. The scares were frightening, as I said, and everything else I really enjoyed. You did indeed use a perfect amount of oil and tinderboxes, so if I used it up, there simply wasn't anymore until I found more of them. A great mod, it had everything that frightened me. Keep up the good work. You have skills, and concidering this was your first one, that amazes me.
Great mod, but there is a bsp bug. I wrote about it in the comments to the file
Very great long custom story! Well done!
Great
An absolute masterpiece. It almost matches the quality of original game in terms of level design and scares.
It is not too original, but, it's what you call a GOOD custom story! Definitely recommended!
Very good mode. You can find video of this mode on my Youtube channel Swankest CZ.