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September 20, 2000
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Author: Pinky and The Brain
Contact info: berry_rk@onthenet.com.au
Date of Release: September 20, 2000
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Title: Night at the Theatre
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Mission in a Nutshell:
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The autumn season of Ye Olde Lost City Playhouse is opening in a fortnight. Unfortunately,
the director of this fine establishment, an old friend of mine, has some 'business' he
needs me to attend to after hours. It seems he's having some difficulties with his actors.
Should be interesting. After all, I've always tried to avoid the spotlight. . .


Description:
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An old friend of mine is having some difficulties with his business. Belvedere is
a theatre director at one of the more minor playhouses of the district. He makes
little enough profit as it is, and the place is known by only a small section of the
district's artists, most of whom don't earn enough to attend. Still, there are enough
nobles who enjoy looking pretentious to cover his costs. That is, of course, until
Belvedere's new star, an actor called Flamingo, came along.

The patrons despise the arrogant bastard, and no-one could understand why Belve kept him
on, considering he can't act, or sing, and his biggest stage credit is as a security eye in
a Mechanist musical. I couldn't understand it either, until, that is, Belve came to me the
other night, half-drunk, almost in tears after a performance, to hire me. Apparently one
night, after a particularly succesful performance, Flamingo, (who was cast, at that time,
as a dining-room chair), suggested he and Belve play some drinking games. One thing
led to another and, after several rounds of voddy and the elation at the performance,
Flamingo persuaded Belve to write a letter to the theatre's main patron and provider,
Lord Turnberry. Turnberry's been on Belve's case for months, demanding certain shows
for the season, insisting on needless repairs to the theatre roof, but Belve can't very
well say no to him, considering the moula the old guy's pouring into the place. The old
nectar does wonderful things for the nerves though, and Belve let the old bastard have it.
The letter, apparently, expresses Belvedere's true feelings for his toffy-nosed patron,
so you can see the problem. It would have been just a harmless, drunken stunt, if the letter
hadn't been gone when Belve awoke. In it's place was a note left by Flamingo, indicating
that he'd like a little promotion in the coming performances. A simple blackmail. Now Belve
needs that letter. He can't afford to lose Turnberry's funding, and nobody wants to see
Flamingo play Madame Bovary again.

Belvedere's hired me, then, to find out where Flamingo has hidden the letter, retrieve it,
and get out. Belve knows that Flamingo keeps a detailed journal in his dressing-room,
so he may have left a note as to it's location there. If not, I'm sure I can 'persuade' him
to tell me. Belve's pay is pretty menial, but he's an acquaintance. As well as that, I'll take
great pleasure in watching Flamingo fall on his arse. Fickle business this, but, who knows,
I might be able to make it worthwhile for myself . . .


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Objectives:

- Find out where Flamingo has hidden the letter
- Retreive the drunken letter
- Retreive the valuable mask (Expert only)
- Get 500 in loot (Hard and up)
- Don't kill any humans (Hard and up)
- Return to where you first started

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* Play Information *
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Game: Thief: The Metal Age (aka Thief 2)
Mission Title: Night at the Theatre
File Name: miss50.mis
Difficulty Settings: yes
Equipment Store: yes
Map / Automap: yes / no
New Graphics: no
New Sounds: no
EAX Support: yes - but I don't have the hardware to test it ;)

Briefing: yes - 1.34Mb Unzipped / 27 Seconds - no audio.

Difficulty Levels: Easy, Hard, Expert

* Construction *

Base: Constructed out of thin air
Build Time: About 2 weeks to flesh out the mission, 3 months to finish it off!

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Development Notes:
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Our first mission!

It's only short, and once you know how to do everything you can complete it in 10-15 mins. (This
was great when play-testing it :) ) The mission was originally conceived as a way of testing
just what could be done with DromEd and also of learning different techniques.

Current Bugs:

* Frame Rate issues. Because of the size of the theatre room it can get a bit choppy. If
you're just sneaking around though this shouldn't be too much of a problem.

* Knockouts - I would have really liked to included an objective saying "No more than 2 KO's",
but I don't know how to do this yet. Any assistance would be gratefully received.

* Not all the aristo's run to the correct flee points all of the time. Usually the guards are
still alerted, but not always.

There's probably more bugs than the ones I've listed above, but it's all I can think
of at the moment. Please E-mail me if you find any more or if you know how to fix the ones that
I've listed.


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* Loading Information *

DarkLoader 3.0 ready. Filename: theatre.zip

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* Copyright *

Copyright (c) September, 2000 by Pinky and The Brain

Permission is given to freely play and distribute this level, provided that it
remains whole and intact.

This level was not made and is not supported by Looking Glass Studios or
Eidos Interactive.