b0rsuk
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It seems there's only 1 music in demo (custom holds/editor). TCB is the first version of DROD which made me turn off the music. And yes, I could listen to DROD:AE Palace music for hours.
Sometimes the music stops playing (The Magic Show hold).

Missed opportunity to make Tar Baby and Mud Baby different. I would prefer either Tar or Mud baby to be killable with hot plates.

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Oneiromancer
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b0rsuk wrote:
Missed opportunity to make Tar Baby and Mud Baby different. I would prefer either Tar or Mud baby to be killable with hot plates.

Didn't miss the opportunity, we decided against it.

Game on,

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Unkillable Cat
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I just wanted to chime in with briars being a bad thing in TCB. I thought that after the Great Library I would be rid of them for good. I was wrong.

Another thing about TCB that I don't like is the number of new things in TCB - there are too many of them! Every time I enter a new level, I can be certain there is at least one new thing for me to learn to use. I'm having enough trouble keeping tabs on everything that's been introduced so far.

Maybe it is just the pace of how the new things are introduced.

Tahnan
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Unkillable Cat wrote:
Another thing about TCB that I don't like is the number of new things in TCB - there are too many of them! Every time I enter a new level, I can be certain there is at least one new thing for me to learn to use. I'm having enough trouble keeping tabs on everything that's been introduced so far.

Maybe it is just the pace of how the new things are introduced.

That was kind of true in DROD 2.0, wasn't it? I may be wrong.

I'm starting to have mixed feeling about briars. I think they're a more interesting timing thing than bombs with long fuses that hit orbs that close doors: they can be used to progressively cut off bits of room ("make it to here by move X, to here by move Y...").

But they do seem just slightly hard to predict, even with the ability to click the root and see the number of turns to next growth. I suppose that, even though they grow in the same manner as tar--i.e., outward--I have a hard time guessing how long the next cycle will be. I know that, once the tar grows, I've got 30 turns until its next growth; but if the briars are about to grow, I just can't tell how long it'll take for its new edges to mature.

coppro
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If you click on a root, then the number should remain visible and change each move.

NiroZ
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coppro wrote:
If you click on a root, then the number should remain visible and change each move.

Odd, I didn't noticed that at all. All I saw was that it highlighted all of the 'roots'

RoboBob3000
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NiroZ wrote:

coppro wrote:
If you click on a root, then the number should remain visible and change each move.

Odd, I didn't noticed that at all. All I saw was that it highlighted all of the 'roots'

You're confusing briars and briar roots.

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Tahnan
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coppro wrote:
If you click on a root, then the number should remain visible and change each move.

You didn't actually read my post, did you? The problem isn't knowing how long I have, the problem is that even if I know (a) that the briars will expand three turns from now, and (b) exactly where they'll expand to, what I can't tell is how long I'll have to get around them after they expand.

(Like, they're going to expand three turns from now, and in doing so they're going to leave a one-square-wide, ten-square-long corridor to where I need to go, I can't tell whether I'm going to make it. After they expand, will I have seven turns? twelve? five?)

coppro
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Ah. So you're seeing you don't know what the spawn after will look like. Yeah, that can be difficult. But fortunately, briar rooms are by their nature quick, so you could put up the move counter, say "I have till turn #178 to get through here", and then keep playing.

BDR
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coppro wrote:
But fortunately, briar rooms are by their nature quick, so you could put up the move counter, say "I have till turn #178 to get through here", and then keep playing.

I thought one of the core gameplay ideals of DROD was to diminish the amount of trial-and-error in solving... this workaround requires at least one restart, and will require more if there's more places that can become inaccessible through overgrowth. From what I've played of TCB, there aren't any rooms that really punish you for this, but I'm sure it wouldn't take a lot of work to make use of this workaround fairly tedious and not-so-fun.

silver
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I thought it expanded just like tar? (without the need to make babies where it can't grow). I mean, why don't we have the same complaint about not knowing where tar will grow after the spawn?
are you sure this isn't just a matter of something to get used to?


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b0rsuk
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I only have the demo, but even I have serious doubts about something as one-sided as briars. I mean, basically indestructible killing tar with irregular growth speed ?

In my opinion it suffers from Slayer problem. It's too brutal to be manipulated. Actually Slayer seems easier to manipulate, which says a lot about how flexible briar is. Tar (the original, dark blue one) is more than capable of creating time limits and mostly indestructible sections.

Mandatory speed potion ?

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[Last edited by b0rsuk at 04-09-2007 07:02 AM]

Yellow_Mage
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I'd say Briars are nigh unmanipulatable. You could have a broken wall next to a pit and you must destroy the wall in order to make life easier for you... or the room possible.

I'd say Briars should be more thoughtfully used for efficiency rooms (in TCB Briars are used good). There is a combination of things that would make Briars much more interesting...

I wouldn't call them random either. Their growth is fairly constant within the same room, so if you restart, you can easily estimate their growth. But it can make really ugly rooms easily but have Roots in strange places or bottlenecks causing it to grow like wildfire.

And probably the most impoartant difference between Briar and Tar is that you don't have to go anywhere near it where as Tarstuff probably needs to be handled so it much more important to know what the Tarstuff is doing and even tho' there is there is a sort of vagueness with Briar (harder to predict), it is less importantas your priority is not to be standing next to it when it grows and the most important indicator you want is when is it going to expand, which you do.

Anything that follows you directly is manipulated. A Slayer is pretty much a soft touch. But one this I have to say I don't like about Briars is how they "swallow" bombs. If they went around them or blew them up, that would be ok. It just seems bizzare.

End of commentary...

Um, there would be one thing I don't like... Gel, surprisingly. I like my Tarstuff, but Gel has the combination of being tricky and in large quantities plain annoying. It's annoying. Really annoying. That may change as this might be considered how we all were introduced to Tar in Level 8. That was new then. Also that was tricky, but we think it's all so easy now don't we? JtRH was an easy ride, I must honestly say. I can't remember how fast I went through it but I'm finding TCB much harder. I don't think is just that it's because of the new elements but combination of 'smarter' room design seem to make 1 + 1 = whoa! too hard using several new stuff at once.

Well, that's how I think and feel.



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Blondbeard
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I agree. Gel feels rather tedious. I can't think of any really good use for it. Cutting Tar Stuff in order to open a door isn't my favourite room type, and that seems to be the main usage of Gel. That and placing monsters inside of Gel. The problem seems to be that it's tedious by definition. With both Tar and especially Mud it is easy to clear a given block. It is also easy to see how you can reach from point A to point B. This (I feel) is not the case with Gel. On the other hand I guess that Gel Babies might be used cleverly.

Of course some great architect might step in and prove me wrong. That would be nice. Maybe TCB will prove me wrong, since I haven't compleated the hold yet.

Tahnan
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Blondbeard wrote:
I agree. Gel feels rather tedious....

Yeah, I'm not sure it isn't tedious, myself. I think perhaps we're just not used to it yet; I certainly remember a time when I couldn't look at a chunk of tar and tell whether it would be clearable. (OK, I can't always do that now.)

My favorite uses of gel so far, I think, have involved the Tarstuff Switching Tokens; I think there's some mildly interesting things you can do in a room with those, since they give the player the chance to switch any given chunk from unclearable to clearable. Combine that with a mother, and yo, you've got a puzzle.

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stigant wrote:
I have a question (not a criticism, but an inquiry) about mirrors. I was hoping that they would change the direction of beams (say by 90 degrees rather than 180 degrees). I'm sure this option was explored. Can you explain why the 180 option was chosen over the 90 option which seems to open up a lot of possibilities without closing any doors?

I vaguely remember talking with Mike about this, and either he said this thing below and I agreed with him, or visa-versa...

If we added in the ability to set up routes for the beams, it would take a large step into the familiar puzzle territory occupied by Black Box, Aargon, Lasertank and dozens of other "mirrors and lasers" games. DROD is essentially a game where you manipulate one character--the focus is not on arranging pieces on the entire board. It doesn't present a good interface for piece arrangement puzzles. Even if we somehow fixed the tedious interface of Beethro moving mirrors to certain positions or designed the puzzles to go light on this aspect, I still don't like the idea of reimplementing an old game element that is already well-represented. If we made a laser routing game, it would be designed from the ground up and offer significant new ideas that had not been seen in laser routing games yet. I would feel embarrassed about tacking a 3rd-rate laser routing implementation on to DROD.

I was also reluctant about the "pushable" aspects of the mirrors, but I realized that the way Mike had it coded was sufficiently unique. And also that I shouldn't let my pride about saying "no pushables" so many times in the past get in the way of adding a decent new element.

-Erik

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eytanz
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I only have the demo, but even I have serious doubts about something as one-sided as briars. I mean, basically indestructible killing tar with irregular growth speed ?

Except that it's not indestructible. And the speed pattern is irregular - which can certainly be a problem, but it also means it's very tweakable by the architect. Briars can be made to grow really fast, but they can also be made to grow really slow. Sure, there's many annoying rooms that can be made with briars - but one important design principle is that it's impossible to stop people from building bad rooms, and it's stupid to choose features based on that. Rather, try to design features based on what you think their potential is. And I do believe briars have potential, and will surprise you yet.

As for gel - as has been pointed out in the "the new tar" thread, gel is not a particularly interesting element on its own - but it has a lot of uses in combination with other elements. And also, I'm sure there are some people who are interested in more complex cutting puzzles with black doors. I'm not one of them either... But just because that's the first use that comes to everyone's mind hardly means it's its only use.

The problem which I have with the above threads is that they are examples of what I've seen called in a different context "attacks by failure of imagination". It's not saying "I don't like the uses briars/gel are put to in TCB/holds", but rather "I can't imagine how anyone will use them well, so they must suck". That's just not a very helpful argument.

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[Last edited by eytanz at 04-09-2007 05:38 PM]

eytanz
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Interestingly, my comment about the criticism of briars also applies to Erik's post - I for one think he's wrong here - there's ways to implement beam rotators that would both be unique and in good keeping with the DROD interface, allowing new puzzles without being limited to recreating other people's games. But this is not the place to debate that.

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[Last edited by eytanz at 04-09-2007 12:35 PM]

Krishh
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An interesting thing about briars that Banjooie pointed out yestarday is that they don't grow over long monsters. In fact, there aren't any rooms in TCB with both briars and snakes. (non-secret ones at least) So I feel it's still too early to judge the potential of new elements, before all the possible interactions are known, let alone their puzzle potential explored.

BeefontheBone
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I'm not quite sure where to put this, but I spotted a typo in TCB - the level start text for EC has a change of tense in its first sentence; "receded" should be "recedes" methinks.

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eytanz
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Typos should be reported in the bugs forum...

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BeefontheBone
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Okey dokey.

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Snacko
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My only real complaint is that it gets off to a slow start so demo-ers won't get the full picture, especially if this is their first DROD.

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Strabo
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Snacko wrote:
My only real complaint is that it gets off to a slow start so demo-ers won't get the full picture, especially if this is their first DROD.

Seconded. I liked the demo, but only because I'm a veteran DRODer, I think that the UnDRODed won't fully appreciate the majesty that is TCB when most of the demo is unDRODy talk-an'-talk.

John259
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From the moment I first ran it to the moment I eventually finished it, I thought AE/KDD was a masterpiece. Similarly, I thought JtRH was a masterpiece. So far, I'm very undecided about TCB. What follows are purely my opinions of course, based on the demo which I haven't completed yet.

Over 40MB for a demo is too big. Not everyone has broadband yet. A demo should ideally be no more than 5MB and never more than 10MB. That could be achieved by cutting out all the irrelevance at the start and commencing with The Uncturage, the first level with anything interesting in it.

Beethro sheathing and unsheathing his sword seems to be completely unnecessary. Until you release that it happens automatically, you can wander round the documentation for quite a while failing to find the right keys to do it.

It's very difficult in places to see where Beethro can walk and where he can't. Yes, I know I can move him and see what happens but that shouldn't be necessary.

Transferring between game levels without any stairs is unfortunate. Yes, I know that various areas of the city are on the same physical level in story terms, but it means that unless you're very careful you miss the introductory screen for the new level. The level introduction text needs a non-standard keypress introduced to acknowledge it, so it can't be accidentally missed.

The dreaded Danforth is still around I see. I thought we'd seen the last of him. For anyone in two minds about purchasing the game, Danforth will in most cases put them off completely.

Maybe TCB gets better on the later levels. Certainly the force arrow rotation puzzles in The Uncturage are excellent and I hope for more of the same kind of creativity as I explore further.

There are far too many game elements now. The beautiful game has lost its elegance.

I'm sorry, I feel very guilty now and really wish I could be more positive. I do realise what an enormous amount of effort and passion goes into the creation of a game of this nature. I will continue to tell people outside of this forum how magnificently superb the earlier versions of DROD are and just keep my mouth shut regarding TCB for now.

John

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NiroZ
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John259 wrote:
Over 40MB for a demo is too big. Not everyone has broadband yet. A demo should ideally be no more than 5MB and never more than 10MB. That could be achieved by cutting out all the irrelevance at the start and commencing with The Uncturage, the first level with anything interesting in it.

I agree that it's far too large, but I disagree that cutting out the introduction is a fix. That would make it rather confusing when transfering to the full version, now wouldn't it.

Beethro sheathing and unsheathing his sword seems to be completely unnecessary. Until you release that it happens automatically, you can wander round the documentation for quite a while failing to find the right keys to do it.

I dunno, it seemed pretty obvious to me.

The dreaded Danforth is still around I see. I thought we'd seen the last of him. For anyone in two minds about purchasing the game, Danforth will in most cases put them off completely.

Are you kidding? He is AWESOME! What have you got against him?

Maybe TCB gets better on the later levels. Certainly the force arrow rotation puzzles in The Uncturage are excellent and I hope for more of the same kind of creativity as I explore further.

Heh, the irony. I hated the force arrow puzzles. However, I can assure you that the level of creativity doesn't stop.

There are far too many game elements now. The beautiful game has lost its elegance.

Yeah, you do get that impression at first. However, you get used to them pretty quickly.

Banjooie
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Yeah, the demo starts off a bit slow, but 40MB IS acceptable in this day and age of 500MB demos at times. 5-10MB just doesn't happen anymore.


Danforth is awesome. If you're the kind of guy that takes that seriously, you're not the kind of guy for this game, I figure.

Briareos
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John259 wrote:
Over 40MB for a demo is too big. Not everyone has broadband yet. A demo should ideally be no more than 5MB and never more than 10MB.

*hysterical laughter*

Sorry, but them's the breaks...

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Banjooie
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I like the 2.6 GB one.

It's fine, l2cable

Oneiromancer
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I suppose it could be possible to release a demo without any voices...that would reduce the size considerably without affecting the story or the puzzles. Maybe it would make the hold IDs too different to allow importing to the full version though. Still, it's a thought.

Game on,

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