jbluestein
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1670
Registered: 12-23-2005
IP: Logged

I just mastered this hold, and I have to say: Great first hold, silver!

I know, I spent some time beta-testing it, but to be fair I didn't get to devote much time to it, so most all of this was new to me.

Puzzles were good and writing was excellent.

Overall, I give it an 8 for design and 6.5 brains for difficulty. However, I feel compelled to air my one (small) gripe: there are a few incongruously difficult rooms mixed in with the rest. Nothing super-hard, but a good bit harder than what surrounds them. (The most striking example of this is still Gardens & Laboratories: 1N1W).

Still and all, as you can tell from my rating, this is a pretty minor quibble.

More please!

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"Rings and knots of joy and grief, all interlaced and locking." --William Buck

Tim
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1979
Registered: 08-07-2004
IP: Logged

I've also just finished this hold (not mastered though).

For a first hold, this is really cool. The puzzles were just hard enough, and even though I still don't like goblin levels at all I found I have enough motivation to continue.

The only thing I do want to say, is (spoilery):

Do I need to master the hold first before the story explains why?

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noma
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1594
Registered: 11-22-2006
IP: Logged

Let me start out with the fact that it's a good thing I like goblin manipulation, 'cause I intensely dislike spiders. Well, DROD spiders. Real spiders I don't have a problem with.

It took me two years to complete this hold. In fact I had given up shortly after starting the hold because of a "small diversion" in Garden Laboratories 1N, 1W; I just could not solve that maze and somehow never noticed that there is a demo available on H&S. (Thank you disoriented and key-smiter.) But I went back to it recently and I'm glad I did: it is a fun and worthwhile hold to play. Even considering the blasted spiders. I wasn't thrilled to realize that I'd have to play through the second half again in order to complete the hold and have a shot at optimal solutions on many rooms. However, considering that I picked up (temporarily at least) three #1's doing it, I'll forgive the architect. And it turned out that it really wasn't that onerous. Overall I give this hold an 8 for fun. Although a couple of rooms were certainly pretty hard (what do you rate a room that takes you two years to solve ) overall I give it a 5 for difficulty.