×North Carolina by Jim 25:58 + 14:12 - I played all the way up to Twice North in the Charlotte level, (edit- 2N "
was"
completable... I'm a dumby) I appreciated the scope of puzzle elements he used and the noticeable refinement in the puzzle quality from first to second level. The North Carolina theme was odd...
60 minutes by Krissan - 28:52 final time - Really good, large room-filling puzzles, though nothing really new - funny use of story where I actually laughed at the lame attempts. The best rooms had elements of "
Perfection"
, such as 3N (three roaches + arrow + trapdoors) and 1S,3W was an elegant room. (Mud spawns and trapdoor chambers)
A decision of no choice by NiroZ - 30:42 - (good puzzles that are mentally challenging, but not too hard to do) - It seems that I only got as far as 3E and then gave up, but I can't remember why now. Apparently, I was only 10% done with the hold too! This requires revisiting in the near future.
A story about a man by The Spitemaster - 20 minutes - Very tricky puzzles... and one with snake movement considerations which stopped me (He Died) - a confusing story text that didn't seem to add much.
A visit to Mellenfral by Tahnan - 15 minutes - Excellently funny story and has a good historical parody of mazes and maze philosophy. I was going to give it a 9 at first but The museum guide character is super memorable! Big 10!
Beethro Budkin Stars in by G-spot - 8:45 final time - Fairly interesting movie references and good scripting. The James Bond room is extra-special in its thematic re-interpretation into a DROD puzzle.
Beethro the Gatherer by Coppro - 18:17 - This was a very difficult hold - but the puzzles are articulate and excellent even though I could only beat 3 of them. Another hold that I will eventually finish.
Beethro's Shortcut by Kevin - "
another hold full of very difficult but excellent puzzles"
- that's what I wrote. However, I failed to complete any of the first four rooms, and I gave up after 10 minutes!
Bugged by Jacob Grinfeld - 10 min - Played some and then got frustrated - full of very hard mini-perfection routines with ortho squares and jokey repetitive rooms. Now that I look at it again, I'm remembering that it was beastly hard! Should be worth a re-visit.
Chambers 1-5 Hold Al Dente by Tokyokid 40:23 - A collection of lots of close encounters - no story, but fun
Hold Al Dente by Tim006 - 27:20 - The guard room held me up after 7 minutes - Tim had codes and map messages like my hold! Sadly, I could not finish because of the required room behind the master door, but that didn't affect the high score I gave it.
Hold Al Dente Lst6 by Armin - 10:21 - has a quiz show in it and I appreciated the craftsmanship that goes into such scripting... like how the player wouldn't know if they answered correctly until every question was done. Kinda tough questions though and I didn't really want to go on google and look up the answers. The monster-slaying rooms were average.
Hold of the Hour by Chaco - original and solid usage of queen spawn moving - also, an original puzzle where a path must be made for roaches to "
flow"
towards Beethro when he opens their gates from far away. Thrice South is very tricky -- "
Magic Show"
tricky. I have no idea how to block the tar growth. Rest of hold is "
A"
material. In hindsight, this was certainly a challenging hold and I angry at myself for not beating it
Holds Al Dente by TokyoKid - Finished - A fun hold, with good visual design. Simple, basic puzzles... and mine fields!!!
Hold Al Dente by Jason - the third room is way too hard! I got stuck and demoralized at 1N2W. Seemingly excellent
puzzles though!
Holds Al Dente by Jeff_Ray - One of the mud levels has an impossible room - the eye level has red doors that block the way. Excellent puzzles, but it seemed like the levels have not been playtested all the way through.
level20061022 by boyblue - Good golly! Excellent "
roach-in-goblin horde"
shuffling puzzle - new to me! Really clever/tricky puzzles. Damn! 8:55 so far - 44:45 total - Hard puzzles with very unique solutions but these were in no way, easy puzzles. Outside of the Al Dente contest, this gets a 10 from me.
Moebius Hold by Schep - An interesting design for a hold, but I was stuck on the top room with the tar all the way up to 18:53 - Figured it out... I had to leave tar there to block tar baby spawning - super tricky! The seep killing part got me cause I didn't really understand the orbs at first. I solved it in 47 minutes, and I ranked it highly.
Nightmare Roses by Gerry - This hold is MAD! Mind Blowing!!! There's a repeating series of rooms, all the same, and you need to enter it from the right direction in order to take out everything in the room. Nutso! An automatic 8 if I can beat it in an hour. I actually needed to restart and it took me 2 retries and about 30 extra minutes before things starting falling in place - worth a 10!
Oct1006 Contest - Spider Invasion by Techant - A hold full of very neat, large puzzle rooms featuring spiders, snakes and brained roaches. Challenging tactical and strategic room-wide gameplay. The longest text intro to a hold I've ever seen!
- clever mimic and spider room, and only 3 spiders to invisibly hunt too which is forgiving and therefore, perfectly al dente.
- a trapdoor laden secret room with mud and tar! Yikes! Crazy challenging!
Puzzling Limits by Ptanzoricus - starts with a small rectangular room and 4 goblins! A bad introduction to a hold for people that can't handle goblins. 5:45 in and then gave up, though I did take a peek at the other rooms in the editor and they seemed ornate, though I only felt I should play through them in order. This was the only entry I smacked with a "
unfairly"
low score, but I was really upset by those four goblins (I thought Halph has a bad day had made me a goblin master)!
Shortness by Someone Else - a hold that uses bugged stairs to lead to puzzles that are timed... a little infuriating and not easy or initially entertaining - no story to make me want to work.
The Pyramind of Doom by Ezlo - a theme hold with a pyramid and locks that open via stairway. A good trapdoor and snake puzzle for a high al dente score, but the rest of the hold is kinda easy and has too many included cheats, and I was pumped up for challenge by the previous bunch of holds. The lower-right lock (Mimic + Green Door + Brains) didn't open for me since the mimic sword starts on a brain and never kills it though I did peek at the ending with the editor!
Under the Trapdoor by Henri - A collection of expertly designed puzzles with all sorts of tricks to fool the player. It popped out of its hour because it's so deceptive, though I gave it a high score for its consistent high quality.
Valley of Nowhere by Holdmaster - these are easy puzzles by a beginner hold maker, but they are methodical, aside from a few walk-heavy rooms with face-value puzzles and rooms filled with simple hordes of monsters and at least 1 trick to survive them. The secret room with the horde of brained golems was a delight.
Generally, I found something in each entry that illustrated how diverse and powerful the DROD muse is. This is the first contest I've judged where every entry was in some way tapped into that giant, ethereal DROD muse and everybody,
pulled of a unique chunk of it, gave it a name and called it their own. I was shocked! If I didn’t mention that unique element in my comments it’s only because I forgot to write down the specifics.
×Originally, I had no intention of entering this contest, but early on, when Mattcrampy recieved the first few entries, he mentioned that one was a labyrinth that was special. This somehow sparked my imagination and I got motivation to at least start making a simple labyrinth that was "
more"
than a simple labyrinth. The idea to have numbers on the map which lead to doors arrived after I thought about having a line connect from one room to another - this came from wanting to make dead ends
valuable. After that, ideas snowballed and the hold just about made itself in four days (I even skipped playing Valkyrie Profile 2 for the last two days -- I was in the zone and man, I wish I could voluntarily get back in it!
).
To fulfill the Al Dente requirements, I tried to strike a balance between giving out hints and making each new obstacle frustratingly unresponsive (and having Beethro verbally respond when it doesn't work or when he messes up). "
Chewy"
was my target consistency. Pain was as important as the reward of reaching a new challenge. I definitely wanted people to learn and relearn how the map was the main source for insight into solving the puzzles, and towards the end, I wanted to be mean and
tried to burn the theoretical target player in my head with false/useless information (the red plus marks). I do hope that some people tried desperately to not kill the roaches and wraithwing in those 4 rooms in order to preserve "
information"
Beyond the doors, numbers, and hidden messages on the map, I aimed to fill other rooms with interesting and unique content. My favorite of these rooms is the snake room with the text-adventure-style entrance messages. I should have made the entire hold filled with that stuff!
If I were to go back and remake the hold, I'd make it easier by introducing each challenge step by step using more obvious visual clues - a series of rooms would then build upon each other, stacking the challenges and maybe messing with the challenge definitions a bit (but with a hint that something was amiss). Also, I screwed up the final "
escape"
room -- it's just not fun and barely funny, and I'm apoplectically apologetic!
I'm glad I was able to surprise some people!
.
who has now done it twice and is working on a third.
The first golemless loops try to force you into thinking you have to.
. I know why so low? The first rooms were interesting especially 1N1W. A very interesting concept. 1W; 1E; 1S AND 1S1E were some what fun but the secret room discouraged me and when I got to 1S2E I decided to move on then I saw 2S tried it a couple of times and just gave it up. I never saw any of the other rooms. I think that the impression I had at the end made me forget any fun I had with the first rooms. I don't mean to hurt your feelings 
this was just my experince.
moment now. Call me dense but even with the arrows in room 1W (a room I liked), I didn't notice that with the green door gone I could now access the tunnel. That was a trick I might have put in one of my rooms. I now will rethink that in the future. The diagonal to the tunnel threw me so I thought it was a deadend and didn't even try it, (Sorry). I only noticed it just now when I looked at the build to see what I had missed. I guess I need a scroll or a straight entrance. 
In the winner HELP!!