For example, sound accurately propagates between rooms and through surfaces. You can move relatively quietly on stone, for example, while metal surfaces will have you clattering around like a professional kitchen.īut Gloomwood also replicates many lesser systems of Thief. ![]() Thief’s light crystal is replaced with a waxing and waning moon that shows you how visible you are, while different floor-types affect the loudness of your footsteps. Stealth is both light and sound based, with shadows and silence being your two most effective weapons. Gloomwood dives deep into replicating the base mechanics of Thief for its own purposes. But the house is fortified with a magical barrier that can only be disabled by finding two talismans, one housed in the nearby jail, and the other located somewhere in Gloomwood’s sprawling docks. Your initial objective is to rendezvous with an associate who goes by “G”, hiding in a manor house on Main Street. Gloomwood puts you in the role of a nameless doctor in a city ravaged by a mysterious affliction, which could be a disease, or could be something else. From the couple of hours I’ve spent with Gloomwood’s (now available) demo, the results are potentially very interesting. Developers Dillon Rogers and David Szymanski (who previously created the splendid retro-FPS DUSK) have their own ideas of what it wants to do with Thief’s template. That isn’t to say, however, that Gloomwood exists purely as a tribute. From art to audio to systems, it is a delicately crafted homage to the original stealth masterpiece, one that seeks to remind you of all was great about Looking Glass’ most successful game. But Gloomwood is a pastiche in the original sense of the word, namely elevation through celebration. Today pastiche is often used as a derogatory term, for artworks that are viewed as a lesser version of an earlier, better creation. Gloomwood, however, drinks more deeply from Garrett’s (presumably stolen) cup, entering into the more specific territory of pastiche. The Dishonored series was “inspired” by Thief, taking the broad design ideas and spinning them off with a bunch of other concepts into something largely new. It would be easy to say that Gloomwood is inspired by Thief: The Dark Project. And whilst players might be disappointed in the inclusion of such powerful weaponry as this might detract from the stealth factor, for the most part the ammo for each weapon is quite scarce on the medium to hard difficulties.Developer: Dillon Rogers and David Szymanski ![]() As you progress throughout the level you will equip various items such as a cane-sword, revolver pistol and a shotgun. The game’s arsenal is also quite diverse but familiar. However, I’m willing to overlook this as I imagine the demo is acting as an introductory level and as such, I can only assume that the game once fully released will present the player with greater consequence in future levels. While Gloomwood is certainly described as a stealth title I found that there was little to no repercussion for being discovered by enemy NPCs unless they were wielding a shotgun. Throughout my multiple playthroughs of the demo I found that whilst the overall goal was the same there was a great level of player choice involved with how you choose to approach each section. Gloomwood also differentiates itself from Thief through its open world approach to both storytelling and level progression. Thief presented itself with very few horror elements and acted much more as an overall stealth game. This “review” is a very surface level look at what Gloomwood is when in actuality while it may at times present itself as such is far from it. Most comments or reviews surrounding the game have described Gloomwood as Thief (Eidos Montréal & Square Enix) but with guns.
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