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worm
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icon One question about the City Beneath. (0)  
How often do rooms get bitterly unfun? Going through 24 and 25 in DROD is a very bipolar experience. I don't mind the challenging rooms, however it seems like the challenge is increased and increased until you ultimately need hints. So if the difficulty progression consistently goes toward "you can't do this one neener neener" I don't think I'll be picking it up.
05-28-2007 at 01:12 AM
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Beef Row
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worm wrote:
How often do rooms get bitterly unfun? Going through 24 and 25 in DROD is a very bipolar experience. I don't mind the challenging rooms, however it seems like the challenge is increased and increased until you ultimately need hints. So if the difficulty progression consistently goes toward "you can't do this one neener neener" I don't think I'll be picking it up.

At least as far as I've gotten, there seem to be many more rooms which look impossible until you spot the trick, than rooms that are actually hard even after you've seen it.

Admittedly I've had to leave a fair number of them alone for a while, then come back and realize 'oh, so THAT'S how you do it!', but so far there's been nothing as nasty or stacked against you as the end of JTRH. Instead of overwhelming force, TCB seems to be more about spotting subtle tricks.

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05-28-2007 at 01:31 AM
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calamarain
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Oh, I'd disagree. There are some absolutely *evil* levels in TCB, that require you not only to spot the trick but execute it too. The classic example I'd give are the levels where...
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05-28-2007 at 01:36 AM
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worm
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That's all I need to know. If it's not so much changed in that even a minority of stages require perfection I really don't want to start it up again.
05-28-2007 at 01:42 AM
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bwross
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icon Re: One question about the City Beneath. (+1)  
Do you mean King Dugan's Dungeon by "DROD"? If that's the case, then it should be noted that that entire dungeon is all over the place with difficulty. The City Beneath is much smoother, like Journey to Rooted Hold... only a bit easier. Personally, I found TCB about a difficulty 5 dungeon, although it plays a bit higher the first time till you get used to the new elements. I was never at a sever loss for what to do (and needed no hints), although some perseverance was needed to get through a few rooms.

There was nothing along the lines of some of the level 24-25 rooms of KDD with their lack of checkpoints or that nasty JtRH room where you need to fight off oodles of roaches efficiently while waiting for Halph to open the doors.
05-28-2007 at 01:52 AM
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bwross
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worm wrote:
That's all I need to know. If it's not so much changed in that even a minority of stages require perfection I really don't want to start it up again.

There was only one level I really found that required being highly efficient in TCB... and that occurs early on and features Briars.

Some of the other levels had rooms which required a bit of efficiency, but nothing I'd really count as requiring perfection beyond Briars (Builders just seemed to be more about chance than perfection... probably my least favourite new element).
05-28-2007 at 01:58 AM
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worm
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icon Re: One question about the City Beneath. (0)  
Sorry. I mean JTRH. Level 24 and 25 seem less on intuitive design and more on memorizing guard movement and demos for me. I figure if it wasn't felt that it was an issue to be addressed then TCB isn't for me.
05-28-2007 at 02:02 AM
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worm
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UT, and now I finished JTRH, and no matter how much wonderful anger it brought out in me, I want to play TCB. I have no money currently! Regardless of the obvious negative impacts on my social, mental, and hygiene sim bars, I will play and defeat TCB.

It's King Dungan's Hold 2.0 a proper supplicant for the original game? I'd rather play that and avoid purchasing another game.
05-28-2007 at 04:29 AM
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CuriousShyRabbit
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worm wrote:
How often do rooms get bitterly unfun? Going through 24 and 25 in DROD is a very bipolar experience. I don't mind the challenging rooms, however it seems like the challenge is increased and increased until you ultimately need hints. So if the difficulty progression consistently goes toward "you can't do this one neener neener" I don't think I'll be picking it up.

I really enjoyed The City Beneath :)
To me, it seemed that TCB was more about introducing new game elements and the cool ways to use them than challenging you to your limits with efficiency rooms. It also has a fun story.

In your case, I see that Journey to Rooted Hold is the only hold you've played. Before going on to TCB, I recommend enjoying some of the many wonderful user-made holds available on Holds board. They come in all different sizes, difficulty levels, with or without stories... I've never seen so much diversity, cleverness, and creativity concentrated together on one web site.

Coming back to your question about what's challenging to the point of being "bitterly unfun"... playing all those user-made holds changed my perspective on Journey to Rooted Hold. When I first tried it, last October, I was very much a beginner. The last few levels were a little too hard for me. I kept my nose glued to the Hints and Solutions board, and downloaded and copied any demo that was available. After completing JtRH, I started exploring the user-made holds. Then, in March, my computer at work got replaced, and I lost all my DROD progress. So I redownloaded JtRH and played it again. What a difference a few extra months of playing experience made! Those puzzles that seemed impossible to me back in October are now fairly straight-forward, monster movements that seemed random back then now make sense. Of course, some puzzles still seem impossible to me... but I hope you see my point. If you gain more experience playing, you'll be able to solve more and more challenging puzzles. What seems "bitterly unfun" today won't stay that way forever :)
05-28-2007 at 04:41 AM
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Oneiromancer
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worm wrote:
It's King Dungan's Hold 2.0 a proper supplicant for the original game? I'd rather play that and avoid purchasing another game.
If you want to play KDD 2.0 you have to purchase it. There is a free version on the Holds board (or you can download DROD: Architect's Edition for free too) but the high scores, scripting, voices, and bonus secret rooms are only available with KDD 2.0. On the other hand, the original AE ending is one of the most unique endings in videogamedom. It's your call.

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05-28-2007 at 04:58 AM
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worm
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Oneiromancer wrote:
If you want to play KDD 2.0 you have to purchase it. There is a free version on the Holds board (or you can download DROD: Architect's Edition for free too) but the high scores, scripting, voices, and bonus secret rooms are only available with KDD 2.0. On the other hand, the original AE ending is one of the most unique endings in videogamedom. It's your call.
Ah, what's that thing in my smitemaster's selections then? Is that the free version? I didn't purchase it, at least I don't think I did.

Thanks for your post CuriousShyRabbit, I'll try some of the usermade holds I think.
05-28-2007 at 05:28 AM
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Blondbeard
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Many usermade holds are extremly good. In my opinion a good deal better than the oficial holds. Odyssey, and Tunnel Vision perhaps. Simons Dungeon is also really good, and I didn't find it that hard. About TCB I found it a good deal easier than JtRH.
05-28-2007 at 08:56 AM
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Sillyman
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worm wrote:
Ah, what's that thing in my smitemaster's selections then? Is that the free version? I didn't purchase it, at least I don't think I did.
If KDD 2.0 is in your purchased smitemaster's selections list, then you did purchase it with Journey's End. If it's on the left side however, then it is available for purchase.

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05-28-2007 at 09:00 AM
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slimm tom
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CuriousShyRabbit wrote:
Coming back to your question about what's challenging to the point of being "bitterly unfun"... playing all those user-made holds changed my perspective on Journey to Rooted Hold. When I first tried it, last October, I was very much a beginner. The last few levels were a little too hard for me. I kept my nose glued to the Hints and Solutions board, and downloaded and copied any demo that was available. After completing JtRH, I started exploring the user-made holds. Then, in March, my computer at work got replaced, and I lost all my DROD progress. So I redownloaded JtRH and played it again. What a difference a few extra months of playing experience made! Those puzzles that seemed impossible to me back in October are now fairly straight-forward, monster movements that seemed random back then now make sense. Of course, some puzzles still seem impossible to me... but I hope you see my point. If you gain more experience playing, you'll be able to solve more and more challenging puzzles. What seems "bitterly unfun" today won't stay that way forever :)

Yeah, that happened to me too. But there are still puzzles that are really evil. But there are also really good (and not too hard) puzzles around. (Hail to the makers :Notworthy )
05-28-2007 at 09:19 AM
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zex20913
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I can speak to the fact that "years" instead of "months" would also apply to CuriousShyRabbit's comment there.

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05-28-2007 at 11:40 AM
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bwross
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slimm tom wrote:
But there are still puzzles that are really evil.

Yeah, there's that one efficiency room in JtRH where you have to work through a long stretch of tar carefully arranging things so the mud doesn't overgrow, then efficently remove a huge number of trapdoors while clearing the various tar shapes on them. All in a limited amount of time. That room is just completely evil for newbies... the only advantage for people who've done it before is more confidence that they'll be able to do the trapdoor section fast enough, but it's still a long slog that could use an extra checkpoint or two.

On the bright side, there's nothing like that in TCB. The one good thing about Briars is that they make levels fast and short... you're not going to spend a thousand plus turns on a level to find out that you've just come up a few turns short.
05-28-2007 at 12:35 PM
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worm
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Sillyman wrote:
worm wrote:
Ah, what's that thing in my smitemaster's selections then? Is that the free version? I didn't purchase it, at least I don't think I did.
If KDD 2.0 is in your purchased smitemaster's selections list, then you did purchase it with Journey's End. If it's on the left side however, then it is available for purchase.
It doesn't come with the CaravelNet account, or isn't a reward for having a rather old account (back in 2005)? I've got no idea how I have them all. I'll have to contact the bossman to see my purchase history, just to check if I'm having blackouts.

Anyway, I'll give KDD 2.0 a roll. If I do reasonably well on it I'll pick up Architects Edition to see that ending.

bwross wrote:
On the bright side, there's nothing like that in TCB. The one good thing about Briars is that they make levels fast and short... you're not going to spend a thousand plus turns on a level to find out that you've just come up a few turns short.
This is exactly what I wanted to know. Once I dedicate a little more time to some of my backlog I'll be ready to scream less curses at my monitor whilst playing TCB.
05-28-2007 at 06:57 PM
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Oneiromancer
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worm wrote:
Sillyman wrote:
worm wrote:
Ah, what's that thing in my smitemaster's selections then? Is that the free version? I didn't purchase it, at least I don't think I did.
If KDD 2.0 is in your purchased smitemaster's selections list, then you did purchase it with Journey's End. If it's on the left side however, then it is available for purchase.
It doesn't come with the CaravelNet account, or isn't a reward for having a rather old account (back in 2005)? I've got no idea how I have them all. I'll have to contact the bossman to see my purchase history, just to check if I'm having blackouts.

Anyway, I'll give KDD 2.0 a roll. If I do reasonably well on it I'll pick up Architects Edition to see that ending.
Yeah, I didn't realize that your account was so old. Yes, you probably do have it already, as part of your previous CaravelNet subscription. Never mind me!

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05-28-2007 at 07:10 PM
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slimm tom
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bwross wrote:
slimm tom wrote:
But there are still puzzles that are really evil.

Yeah, there's that one efficiency room in JtRH where you have to work through a long stretch of tar carefully arranging things so the mud doesn't overgrow, then efficently remove a huge number of trapdoors while clearing the various tar shapes on them. All in a limited amount of time. That room is just completely evil for newbies... the only advantage for people who've done it before is more confidence that they'll be able to do the trapdoor section fast enough, but it's still a long slog that could use an extra checkpoint or two.

I remember that room. It wasn't too evil for me, i conquered it in 10 minutes. But it was fun though. :yes
05-31-2007 at 11:40 AM
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bwross
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slimm tom wrote:
I remember that room. It wasn't too evil for me, i conquered it in 10 minutes. But it was fun though. :yes

It's evil because it has two very long stretches that require a bit of efficiency with a good degree of perfection and forethought, where a single mistake can require a lot of work needing to be redone. It tries to make up for this by having a cryptic hint which can easily be misunderstood the first time through.

In short, the entire point of the trapdoor section (and even the earlier one) could have been done with much shorter stretches (making it an evil design because of it's overly long slogs). The TCB hold seems to follow that mantra, it doesn't push things past the point where you've proven that you understand the point. That's really my point with that example.

KDD 2.0, on the other hand... regularly does, and often has its checkpoints very conservatively added after the fact in poor locations if at all. At least playing the 2.0 version has them, and has undo (which might actually hinder learning about things like tar... doing the 3 tar room without it made it absolutely essential to understand how tar would slice and grow). It has many rooms that can become bitterly unfun if you're a newbie (but does have the nice feature of multilevel warp points, if you can find them)... it's better tackled after a bit of experience with user holds (a good number of the rooms of KDD 2.0 aren't so bad, but only if you know how to quickly and efficiently attack them before they get out of hand... that requires a bit of experience).

[Last edited by bwross at 05-31-2007 10:40 PM]
05-31-2007 at 10:35 PM
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Note that the checkpoints in KDD were added with the Architect's Edition, not in KDD 2.0. Maybe there were a few extra ones added for the re-release, and of course the secret rooms are new, but other than that, the checkpoints are as they were since AE was beta-tested. And back then we didn't have high scores either so we didn't care much about moving a few squares out of the way to get the checkpoint.

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05-31-2007 at 11:12 PM
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calamarain
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Oneiromancer wrote:
Note that the checkpoints in KDD were added with the Architect's Edition, not in KDD 2.0. Maybe there were a few extra ones added for the re-release, and of course the secret rooms are new, but other than that, the checkpoints are as they were since AE was beta-tested. And back then we didn't have high scores either so we didn't care much about moving a few squares out of the way to get the checkpoint.

I really don't want to think how evil Webfoot DROD was then, if there were no checkpoints. Some of the rooms would have been utterly sadistic.

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05-31-2007 at 11:47 PM
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zex20913
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Not only no checkpoints--no undo either.

If you care to think about that, I'll be ready with the ice pack.

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06-01-2007 at 12:46 AM
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bwross
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I've been playing KDD 2.0 under the 3.0 engine the last two days, and in the first 16 levels I'm pretty sure at this point that no checkpoints were added from AE (I also looked at level 25 (on the 2.0 engine) and it also shows that lack of checkpoints I fondly remember from my first time through under AE).

Another hardship from AE is that you don't have an on screen clock. You essentially learned to count and bring up the status window (with Enter) to sync up occasionally.

Undo, of course, is the big thing that makes me think I've gotten a bit soft. Maybe I should make a feature request for an option to turn it off.
06-01-2007 at 02:34 AM
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zex20913
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It's been suggested before. And for the most part disliked. If you don't want to use undo, don't use it. Have a friend or family member remap the key so you don't know where it is, and play through if you want.

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06-01-2007 at 02:51 AM
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Monkey
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One thing: He/she can just look at the settings. I say put it to something you never bother to touch. Pause/Break is a good one.

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06-01-2007 at 10:11 PM
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I played shareware Webfoot DROD back in the day. When I saw checkpoints in Caravel DROD I was happy. I can't imagine doing level 8 in Webfoot DROD. That beast of a room... 7S 3E. Oh yeah. I'll remember that room for a long time. Undo makes me lazy, but it allows you to experiment. It makes you do "risky" moves that you would normally never do, which end up being your staple maneuvers. For me, I accidentally point my sword away from goblins and end up having to press R.

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06-01-2007 at 10:36 PM
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Banjooie
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I would say that undo allowed me to actually understand goblin movement to the point where I see three goblins coming at me and I'm like 'sup noobs'.

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06-01-2007 at 11:16 PM
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Yellow_Mage wrote:
I played shareware Webfoot DROD back in the day. When I saw checkpoints in Caravel DROD I was happy. I can't imagine doing level 8 in Webfoot DROD. That beast of a room... 7S 3E. Oh yeah. I'll remember that room for a long time.

I possess on my hard drive a copy of Webfoot DROD, with the save game still where I left it -- the triple tar mother room.

I'm fairly certain I tried that room for *weeks* before I gave up.
06-02-2007 at 01:41 AM
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mrimer
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Oneiromancer wrote:
Note that the checkpoints in KDD were added with the Architect's Edition, not in KDD 2.0. Maybe there were a few extra ones added for the re-release, and of course the secret rooms are new, but other than that, the checkpoints are as they were since AE was beta-tested. And back then we didn't have high scores either so we didn't care much about moving a few squares out of the way to get the checkpoint.
I added nearly all of the checkpoints to KDD in v1.5 (Caravel DROD). Iirc, I placed them in every level except for L3, which I think Krammer did. Erik told me what criteria I should use in placing them -- usually between semantic sections of the room, with about 5-10 minutes of play in between. So if some rooms played out in 2-3 minutes, there was no reason to include any checkpoints. And L25 didn't have any because, well, the final level is supposed to be hard, right? Right? :P

Man, these days, if you say there is 5-10 minutes of play in between each checkpoint in your hold, people just get mad.

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06-03-2007 at 05:11 PM
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