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