Deadly Typeface
I finished my first playthrough* of Thief: Deadly Shadows over the weekend.
I managed to hold this in through the whole game, but now I feel I must speak out. I can hold my peace no longer.
OMG PAPYRUS.
The whole game is in the Papyrus font. The menus are Papyrus. The game interface is Papyrus. The loading screen quotes are Papyrus. Every man, woman and child in the City writes their journals, missives and Post-It notes in Papyrus. PAPYRUS PAPYRUS PAPYRUS.
Even messages from engraved plaques are displayed in Papyrus, though that is technically game interface; the plaques themselves are illegible textures. The same could be said of documents, except these are a direct graphical representation of a scrap of paper or book instead of the HUD overlay of the inscriptions.
Considering this is a game in which notes from a mystery sponsor are a major plot point, it would have been nice to maybe have one or two distinctive handwriting fonts?
But anyway.
PAPYRUS.
* This isn't me finally finishing something I started in 2004, I picked it up on Steam relatively recently - I don't even remember where or when, probably there was a sale - and only just got around to playing it. My only previous interaction with the series was a brief stint on Thief II some years back; I didn't finish it, I think because I found a particular level too hard, and in any case my copy lacked cut scenes for some reason so I didn't really know what was going on. I found Deadly Shadows much more inviting, either because of the cut scenes or the improvements in game mechanics between 2000 and 2004.
I managed to hold this in through the whole game, but now I feel I must speak out. I can hold my peace no longer.
OMG PAPYRUS.
The whole game is in the Papyrus font. The menus are Papyrus. The game interface is Papyrus. The loading screen quotes are Papyrus. Every man, woman and child in the City writes their journals, missives and Post-It notes in Papyrus. PAPYRUS PAPYRUS PAPYRUS.
Even messages from engraved plaques are displayed in Papyrus, though that is technically game interface; the plaques themselves are illegible textures. The same could be said of documents, except these are a direct graphical representation of a scrap of paper or book instead of the HUD overlay of the inscriptions.
Considering this is a game in which notes from a mystery sponsor are a major plot point, it would have been nice to maybe have one or two distinctive handwriting fonts?
But anyway.
PAPYRUS.
* This isn't me finally finishing something I started in 2004, I picked it up on Steam relatively recently - I don't even remember where or when, probably there was a sale - and only just got around to playing it. My only previous interaction with the series was a brief stint on Thief II some years back; I didn't finish it, I think because I found a particular level too hard, and in any case my copy lacked cut scenes for some reason so I didn't really know what was going on. I found Deadly Shadows much more inviting, either because of the cut scenes or the improvements in game mechanics between 2000 and 2004.
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