I actually played this all the way through with just one character and no hired runners.

Good, except i can't get past 3rd map because of the insanely high difficulty.
Sorry for your efforts, job and all, i wanted to play the whole campaign but i'm ragequiting.

Dude, that's awesome.. was wondering what those dependent story vars were for. And apparently I totally missed the alternate way to play, will have to try again. Thanks for the UGC!

Hi @Scratch - thanks for the compliment, I'm glad you enjoyed it! This is a short campaign, but a few things will carry over to Eclipse: whether you completed Johnson's mission or switched allegiances to Kali; which runner you hired; whether Johnson was killed or not .

For both Shadowrun Returns and DDC, you can access variables set in other UGC by using the "Get dependent story variable" function. This will let you access global story variables defined in the first campaign. You will need to add a dependency on the first content pack from the second, which is why (for example) you can't run "Antumbra 2 - Eclipse" without also having "Antumbra" installed.

Have fun with the rest of the campaign!

This is one of the best UGC I have played so far: well-written dialogue, solid map design and lighting, challenging encounters, and puzzles are an interesting twist. Seems pretty combat focused, and hints at an interesting story, but this first installment is very short (~30 mins on normal for a player who is good at combat, would guess an hour or so for folks who take their time with tactics in the last two battles). Looking forward to trying the next chapter.

I'm not sure what is meant about how choices affect future chapters since I didn't find any significant choices to make, and I am not aware of a mechanism for transferring "choice" variables across UGC (maybe this is different in the DDC vers?).

@Mako Sochou - Thanks for the note, I'm glad that you enjoyed it! I appreciate the info about the final fight, too... I haven't tweaked difficulty on this, but I think people can have very different experiences depending on their build, companion, and lucky rolls. Have fun with parts 2 and 3!

@malletmann117 - Yep, I'm in the process of updating the Antumbra games for DDC. It's going a bit slowly, but I'll make an announcement here once it's available. All three games will be combined into a single downloadable campaign that's been tested to work with the new game engine.

@Karriq - Thanks for the feedback, happy to hear that you liked the campaign!

Wow, just played through this and had a blast. Writing is solid, it has a cool feel to it, and I'm interested to see how my choices affect 2 and 3. I will say though, that if the spirit has been tweaked since the June comments you may have gone a little too soft. I dropped him in the second round, and my team didn't take any damage.

Will you be updating this trilogy for Dragonfall:Director's Cut? I would be very happy if you did.

Short but sweet. This mod felt refined, but I was oh so disappointed when it ended so soon. All in all not bad for my Rifle/Decker Elf

Completed 7/25/2014 with no showstopping bugs.

Would advise a 'lock' an entry when hacking an entry in for yourself. It seems odd to me that you could go back and change it and the guard wouldn't notice something fishy going on.

Well... i used cheat engine after another 10 deaths. XD Yeah its not fair... but im tired to die! :) Just finished all 3 Antumbras. Great story and i realy ejoyed it. 9/10 :) why not 10\10? Well... Sorry... But endless spawning mobs in antumbra 3\3 is annoying thing :)

Key @Karriq, sorry to hear about the trouble! Facing the spirit one-on-one can be very challenging. Did you hire another runner for help? Have you tried activating the pillars?

Spirit does 18-36 damage per attack. Fresh toon have about 30-40 hp. Well.. i tried about 10 times... and i always was dead in first turn. :(

Cool. :)

Oh, gotcha. Yeah, taking cash and recording a demo have the same in-game impacts. It affects the immediate dialogue (Kali is happier to be recording), but the long-term effects are the same.

Ah, I meant as opposed to taking cash for taking sides. Might give it a poke and see for myself some time, I guess.

Yeah, the final fight and the ending change a bit. It also affects the situation at the start of Antumbra 2.

BTW, what happens if you take Kali up on her offer of recording a demo tape? Anything?

Awesome, congrats on the win!

Managed to beat it on the 3rd try this time. Still had a 24 dmg crit mess me up, but that attempt was ruined by a mislick bringing me out of cover to get shot in the back, uh oops. Knowing the earth elemental was there helped a lot too. Still hard, but much more managable now.

Cool, I'll give it another go :)

Thanks, that's helpful info. I've published an update to version 1.2.2, which you should receive after restarting the game and/or Steam. You'll need to load the Autosave for the fight ("The Site of Power") to get the changes. The coding for this is a little tricky, but it should help ensure that you and Dalmin get to move first at the start of the fight.

There are a couple of viable strategies for the boss fight, so you might need to try a few different techniques. If you manage to kill the boss, its minions automatically disappear, so if you have heavy firepower you might try rushing it. Otherwise, I generally find that the best approach is to hurry my main character up north to activate the pillar and Dalmin south to activate the earth elemental. Continuing to move around the chamber and activating pillars will convert more of the minions to your side, which helps enormously... the spirit is powerful, but can generally be overwhelmed by enough opponents.

Good luck!

I should in fairness point out that the combat up til that point is pretty good. I had no real trouble, even with the ghoul swarm, by playing smart, luring with the drone and using cover. A 20 dmg crit from a shotgun guard had me a little worried, but end of combat healing covered it. Things work well up until the Spirit fight.

I tried moving to poke the pillars, but it meant leaving cover, which just got me killed. Having a drone on the field as another target helped, but the Nature spirit would hit me or Dalmin reliably, and I couldn't get very far around.

Thanks for checking in, @RuinsFate. I'll take another look at that fight - it's meant to be tough, but dying before you get a chance to move is definitely no fun.

Out of curiosity, for the other four attempts, did you explore the chamber and activate the pillars, or just focus on attacking the spirit? Was Dalmin able to summon the Earth elemental?

So, playing on normal, as a Rigger with body 4, 40 HP, got to the Nature spirit and died 6 times, two of which were on the spirits 1st turn, before I even got to do anything. That fight is a bit much for the resources available. Perhaps give the dwarf heal, or stop the spirits going first, giving the player time to get into cover? I gave up on the mod thanks to that fight, I just could not beat the spirit before it killed me, usually by critting for 24, reliably.

Thanks, @Bolt! I appreciate the feedback, getting data points like this is very helpful. Congratulations on the victory, and I hope the sequel goes well for you!

I just ran through this mission. After years of GMing pen a paper games I know how tough it is to run a balanced and interesting game. I also know that it takes a lot of time to work with the game editor. All in all I say good job. About to play the 2nd installment, and I hope you do more. I ran with an Elf specialized in pistols, and took the dwarf with me. I had a couple of deaths, but with more carefull setup, I had no problems.

I play all content on very hard, and I was running a ranged combat character. The fact that you're limited to the shitty 6 damage pistols is the worst part. Had to use a shotgun to do any damage, seeing as I couldn't afford to hire a companion _and_ buy a rifle plus armor. The reload on every 4th shot is brutal, and shotguns aren't as accurate at long ranges as I'd like them to be.


SPOILERS
It doesn't help that the spirit at what I presume was the end hit a dodge 4 character 100% of the time (as far as I could tell - I had it hit me 6/6 times) and crit for 24 (out of my 30 health) and that you only get two med kits.

@Janus Bifrons - Yeah, it's definitely tough. What difficulty level and archetype are you using? A few people have managed to solo it under Very Hard, but it's very challenging even under normal conditions.

The module is very combat-focused, so I'd recommend building around a strong team. I've had the best luck with a Street Sam paired with Dalmin, or a Mage/Shaman paired with Turm.

I'm not sure why you think a single/two shadowrunners can take on multiple enemies in series who deal 10-12 damage per attack with around 50 karma and starting gear.

I think that if the PC decides to tell Mr. Johnson, but backs down when he threatens them and sticks to the mission, then the logical outcome would be a downer ending. Perhaps you could make it more palpatable by adding some companion dialog where they are on your side, telling you that keeping your reptuation as a Shadowrunner was the right thing to do.

Perhaps you could allow for a third outcome in which you are blackmailing Mr. Johnson. The whole reason I confronted him on it was because the shaman had suggested it. Instead, Mr. Johnson was pretty much "I hate your guts because you know...just do the mission!" without giving me the opportunity to blackmail him. I realize that means more work for you, but it might be an interesting outcome.

I appreciate the feedback, folks! There's a hidden variable that tracks Mr. Johnson's opinion of your conduct, and an earlier version of the mission gave slightly different final conversations depending on how much he liked you (keeping quiet and doing the job makes him happy, asking lots of questions or confronting him makes him unhappy). But, the ending with grumpy Johnson seemed like a let-down in early playtests, so I ultimately removed the negative ending. I might revive it at some point, though, you're right that it does break immersion.

This totally seems to be a scenario for Street Samurai, which is fine, but I think it needs to be made more clear. Also, I found it a little jarring that if you confront Mr. Johnson about the fact that there are nanites in the box he gets very cross with you and nearly pulls the plug on the mission, but then later on is happy to talk with you and cheerfully says that he knew he could count on you. I'd love to see him acknowledging in later conversations that you know what's going on rather than completely forgetting about it.

I haven't beat the content yet- was killed on the 2nd floor of the club. From my playthrough (difficulty on the game was normal setting-not sure if that impacts anything) I can see that the content needs some balancing- enemies are either to many or to tough for a 2 person team. To help balance the Mission, I would start the player and companions with some health packs and gear or give the player more options or cash to get the gear for the mission. By tweaking this point, this will allow you to keep the number of enemies and their difficulty level. Outside from that the design of the content is good. One last thing, on the 2nd floor there is a solid door which opens up and enemies/guards come from the room- since there is no lock or sign that the door could actually open, you will end up with players thinking its a static door only to have it open and be blind sided unfairly. Keep up the good work and look forwrard to finishing the content.

Thanks for checking in, @Zane Grey, and congratulations on pulling off the win! Yeah, the boss fight can get even tougher if you stick with Mr. Johnson and face the spirit yourself. There are a few other options available to other runners (like an earth spirit that shaman can summon). Cheers!

Hard. The battle at the end seems insane at first. It's a good thing Mr. Johnson is tough enough to kill the spirit. I finished on the first try by pure luck alone. I kept as far away from the spirit as possible and let it and Mr. Johnson duke it out together, and then my hireling swooped in and finished off Mr. Johnson.

Two street samurai did the trick. Some extra health kits were desperately needed, but in absence of them, I was able to get out with fewer than 10 hit points between myself and my hireling. I can't believe we survived.

In as much as I wasn't too overly frustrated with the difficulty in this particular UGC, I found it a blast. It's incredibly well written, exciting all the way through, and one of my favorites to date. Bonus points for labyrinthian puzzles.

After your kind words over at "Antumbra 2" I decided to try again. And yes, completing the run is possible, but it is absolutely essential to take a street sam, buy at least the Ninja armor, and absolutely take Trum with you (the dwarf is always dead pretty soon). Heal (spellcasting 2) and Haste (conjuring 1) applied to Trum help. I made a pure spellcaster on trial 2, and failed again extensively. Trial 3 with sammie worked.

Thanks for the feedback! Unfortunately, deckers are by far the hardest archetype to play in this module, since it's very combat-oriented; Samurai, Shaman and Mages are the best.

There are a couple of medkits by the elevator before you go down into the tunnel that might help. For the ghouls, it helps to keep your distance and try to shoot them down before they reach you. They're melee-only, and pretty stupid, so you can often pull in one or two at a time without alerting the rest if you advance slowly.

Good call on the Doc Wagon; that would be a helpful item to add. It's pretty expensive to buy, so I'll check and see if there's a good place to drop it during the mission.

Thanks again for your thoughts! It helps me a lot to hear about the experiences people are having.

As much as I appreciate this run, what kind of difficulty is this? I am at the "Site of Power" and the boss kills me off with 2 attacks, for the 6th time already! (Ork decker with Dodge 2, which is about maximum I can do with the 5 karma points I got). Trum already got killed before by the army of ghouls, way to easy to die.

Seriously, I am abandoning this. You might adjust the level to include a health refresh at start, a DocWagon resurrection item, or more medkits on the way. This is just ridiculous, I suppose you need a healing mage to have any chance of surviving this.

Thanks, folks! Glad you enjoyed it!

Funds have been a recurring issue. I deliberately wanted to keep them relatively low, since I think it makes the game more interesting when you need to make decisions about trade-offs. Is it better to hire a runner or get better gear? Do you want the best weapon or the best armor? That said, it's also true that this affects some classes more than others, just because of what gear they would want to buy.

As @SimCoder points out, if you continue into the sequel and do the optional side-quests, you can eventually get a lot of cash, which feels nice after starting relatively poor. Still, I'll see if there are ways to ease the frustration of low resources at the start of the game, hopefully while keeping interesting trade-offs.

I agree about the funds. It’s like you make too many runs pro bono. Never tried to hire more than one other runner as I couldn’t afford it and afford to get gear. Finally near the end you start to see some funds if you made the right “choices” (nice story line there).

Finished this up recently, good stuff!

Main problem with playing a Sam or caster is how tight funds are. Hiring a runner is $500, a decent gun is $400, even a med kit is $150.
And the main difficulty of playing an Adept is that all the areas with ranged enemies are mostly open. First fight only triggers when I'm in the middle of the room, too. Second fight is more manageable, since I can just open the door and let them come to me.
Dealing with the hellhounds, basilisk and ghouls was actually really easy. I had the troll with me. Just hung back and had the hounds come to me, then rushed the basalisk when they were dead.
But then the spirits shot me from halfway across the map, with rather surprising accuracy at that.
Much as I want to enjoy the mod, and it's well put together, I'm not the type who likes reloading eight times trying to figure out the one path to victory. Losing to a coin flip when I'm planning ahead doesn't appeal to me.

Thanks for checking in, Kiana! The combat can be rather brutal, and I know some other people who have played as Adepts have had a tough time. If you feel like giving it another shot, you might want to try a Street Samurai, Shaman, or Mage. (Good call on hiring a runner, though, it's extremely difficult to beat this solo.)

Low starting funds, no starting equipment, can only create a new character. Even custom tailoring my build (unarmed adept) to compensate for the cash restrictions, I could still barely afford any supplies and one runner.
Despite playing it safe and luring enemies to me one at a time, combat was still based more on luck than planning and tactics. Nature spirit and its minions also have massive range and always attack first, so it's a flip of a coin if I'll survive the first round. Even when dropping the difficulty all the way down to Easy.

Wow, thanks @W.Ribeiro! That's very kind of you.

Best custom story so far. Nice dialog, plot, level design, innovation and story. Looks like a Harebrained Schemes expansion. Unbelievable good. I don’t have anything bad to say about it. Congratulations and, please, keep making this great work.

Hey, everyone! Version 1.1.0 of Shadowrun Returns has now been pushed out to everyone. This includes some underlying engine changes, many for the better (more powerful Adepts!), but also a risk of introducing new bugs. I've re-tested a run through Antumbra and everything looks fine, bug if you run across any issues, please report them in The Bug Thread.

Antumbra 2: Eclipse will take me much longer to re-test, but I'll try and get through that sometime this week.

Haha, thanks @zel! You only need to work out one in order to proceed, but I wanted to give a variety so more people would be able to figure it out.

lol at all the film references in the graveyard gate. Quite fun working them out :)