eytanz
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Based on a suggestion by Krammer in another thread, I've decided to hold a small DROD editor contest:

The longest room contest

Basically, the task is to create the room that requires the highest amount of moves to solve. To make it fair, all rooms must obey the following conditions:

- They must be the only room in the hold. They must contain a stairways. The movement count is from the beginning of the room, until reaching the stairs, in a single "play". If, for instance, a room has a tar maze which requires multiple replays, only the last one counts.

- The room must be solvable in a finite amount of moves. If no-one manages to solve the room, the room author must show that it is possible or it will disqualified.

- The task is to reach the stairways. If it's possible to do so without clearing the monsters, that still counts as finishing the room.

====

The way the contest goes is as follows: until a certain date (TBA, based on whether anyone wants to actually do this), I'll collect rooms. Then, everyone plays the rooms, sending victory demos. The shortest demo for each room becomes the official room move count. The room with the longest move count wins.

This means that everyone who participated will not be only motivated to submit a good room, but also to submit good solutions to other people's rooms.

===

Anyway, do people want to participate? If I get at least 2 or 3 people who want to build rooms (I'll do one too), I'll set a deadline and we can start working on this. If anyone has any idea for a prize (or wishes to donate one), let me know too.

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Schik
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This sounds really fun - I'd love to play the rooms, and I'll even try to come up with a room of my own.

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ClaytonW
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I'll give it a shot I suppose. =)

Schik
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So should we just attach rooms and demos for other rooms here?

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StuartK
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- They must be the only room in the hold. They must contain a stairways. The movement count is from the beginning of the room, until reaching the stairs, in a single "play". If, for instance, a room has a tar maze which requires multiple replays, only the last one counts.

Does this exclude any rooms which involve repeating large (or small) areas? I see problems with a couple of dungeon features, which it might be an idea to prohibit in the rules.

- The room must be solvable in a finite amount of moves. If no-one manages to solve the room, the room author must show that it is possible or it will disqualified.

Define 'show' Would a mathematical proof suffice, or do we require a demo?

Tscott
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StuartK wrote:

- They must be the only room in the hold. They must contain a stairways. The movement count is from the beginning of the room, until reaching the stairs, in a single "play". If, for instance, a room has a tar maze which requires multiple replays, only the last one counts.

Does this exclude any rooms which involve repeating large (or small) areas? I see problems with a couple of dungeon features, which it might be an idea to prohibit in the rules.

I'm guessing he means that restarting from a checkpoint after dying in, say, a tar maze doesn't count towards the moves. Or in other words, only the moves that lead to the solution count, and not having numerous failed attempts.

Of course, if I'm wrong let me know, eytanz.


Speaking of checkpoints, should they be enforced? If the rooms are going to be as grueling as I think they'll be, it'd be rough to have to start from the beginning everytime you misstepped. Also, a room with no checkpoints might not be 'tested' quite as much as one with a reasonable amount.

Also, if we're going to go with the demo counts of moves (which I'm guessing is the easiest way to do this) do the demos still count mimic placement as an added series of moves? If so we'd have to adjust the count if there's mimics in the room.

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Mikko
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In the hold I'm building (very much under construction, <15% complete), I have a puzzle that is essentially the Hanoi tower puzzle. If I expanded it to cover the whole room and made the passages more narrow, then it would easily require millions of moves to complete, so some restriction on yellow gates is needed to make this competition work.

Mister
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Mikko wrote:
some restriction on yellow gates is needed to make this competition work.

I propose a second contest, called "everything goes longest room contest" that allows... well, everything. It will be boooring for the testers unless mathematicals rooms of completability are used to test the rooms... Most of the contestants will come with be hanoi-like puzzles, but there is still room for variation.

krammer
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Heh. I wasn't actually expecting anyone to take up that idea, but thanks for the credit.

Now to see if I can actually think of anything that will be an actual challenge.

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ClaytonW
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I was thinking of something more along the lines of a Long Room Creativity challenge. Sure, you can get millions of moves with Hanoi, but is it any fun? Is it interesting? Is it something nobody thought of?

Why not have a bunch of submissions, then have a poll to vote for the most creative room that requires at least (15,000? 30,000? 100,000?) moves? It all depends on what we would consider a long room.

Tscott
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Perhaps requiring a completed demo of the room as proof the room could be done would deter people from making rooms that will take years to complete?

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And I can recall our caravel: a little wicker beetle shell with four fine maste and lateen sails,
its bearings on Cair Paravel. O my love, O it was a funny little thing to be the ones to've seen.
-Joanna Newsom "Bridges and Balloons"

Aris Katsaris
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It's extremely easy to create the ultimate in tedius rooms using combinations of doors and orbs.

Here's the variation I suggest - disallow all yellow doors. No yellow doors allowed whatsoever. Perhaps no red doors allowed either.

The task therefore will be to create the longest room that requires only monster-slaying (not orb-striking or trapdoor-felling) to complete.

It'd then be a real challenge to create a long room that's actually conquerable, when you don't have the use of orbs to force Beethro on a set course around the room.

RoboBob3000
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I love this idea, and even though I've never had any experience with the editor, I think I'm going to give it a try. One question though:

Aris Katsaris wrote:


Perhaps no red doors allowed either.

Why do you suggest no red doors? There's no endless opening and closing of them involved. I think removing the red doors will not add anything to the contest.

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eytanz
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Ok, I've been giving this some thought, and I indeed see that there are two different ways this contest can go:

- An "abstract" contest, where one needs to create the longest possible room; but this will probably remain untested as a Tower of Hanoi puzzle room could seriously take millions, if not billions, of turns.

- A "make the longest room with a given set of constraints" contest, which follows my original proposal, except that it adds limitations.

I'm tempted to actually have both - one contest for longest room possible, and one where we need to be imaginative with a more constrained pallette - if people are amenable to this idea, I'll think of a good set of constraints and post them tomorrow.

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Aris Katsaris
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Why do you suggest no red doors? There's no endless opening and closing of them involved. I think removing the red doors will not add anything to the contest.

To tell the through, mainly because I don't like them that much, and it's often busywork to collapse every single piece of trapdoor...

But, besides that, I also think it might be cool if no doors whatsoever were allowed -- no yellow, red, *or* green.

That would prevent the designer from easily coming up with a way to stall the player and the player might try to find ways to "head for the gate" (to use an example from Ender's Game) where they avoid as many monsters as they can in order to get to the staircase quicker.

RoboBob3000
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Well, here's one entry. I'm using snake loops, which I'm sure will be outlawed soon just like the yellow doors. I didn't try to maximize this at all, so I'm sure a solution requiring many more moves can easily be created with snakes.

It takes approximately 87 million moves to beat, so of course I don't have a demo, but if you want to see that it's beatable, go into the editor and make yourself a copy where the trap door is moved up one notch. Apart from the waiting, it's not a difficult puzzle at all.

Edit: Ack! look two posts below for the hold now.


[Edited by RoboBob3000 on 11-16-2003 at 03:34 AM GMT]

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The_Red_Hawk
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It's not that hard, actually. What were you talking about a roach though? Did you forget to put a part of the puzzle in? My guess is that you were going to put a roach between the red doors, then you have to wait 87 million moves. But I did it in a time that was much shorter, of course.

[Edited by The_Red_Hawk on 11-16-2003 at 03:31 AM GMT]

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Slashing, whirling, diving, twirling,
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The red hawk's dance of death.

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RoboBob3000
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File: 87 Million.hold (2.3 KB)
Downloaded 308 times.
License: Other
From: Unspecified

Oops. I messed that up. I'm posting a better version in two seconds.

[Edited by RoboBob3000 on 11-16-2003 at 03:28 AM GMT]

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The_Red_Hawk
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____________________________
Slashing, whirling, diving, twirling,
Snapping, turning, rising, swirling,
Screeching, flipping, gliding, sliding,
The red hawk's dance of death.

.....the king of the skies.....

Aris Katsaris
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RoboBob3000 wrote:
Well, here's one entry. I'm using snake loops, which I'm sure will be outlawed soon just like the yellow doors. I didn't try to maximize this at all, so I'm sure a solution requiring many more moves can easily be created with snakes.

You forgot to add the roach, I think.

[Edit - ah sorry, has already been noted above. ]

[Edited by Aris Katsaris on 11-16-2003 at 03:37 AM GMT]

RoboBob3000
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Hahaha. Now you see why I wanted red doors. It was one of the only remaining ways I could trigger events.

Anyhow, I think that this contest is going to need some very harsh restrictions on it otherwise we're going wind up having to mathematically prove the solution to every puzzle we create. I think we should outlaw the yellow doors, snakes, and dare I say it, roach queens (because if you get them to spawn slightly fewer than 30 roaches at a time, Beethro will be barely moving through most puzzles) and tar mothers (similar reasoning).

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Tscott
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File: This Unrest.hold (3.4 KB)
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87 Million

I'm out. My best attempt so far is only around 7,600 moves (see attached)... but at least I give the player something to actually do with those moves besides waiting.

____________________________
And I can recall our caravel: a little wicker beetle shell with four fine maste and lateen sails,
its bearings on Cair Paravel. O my love, O it was a funny little thing to be the ones to've seen.
-Joanna Newsom "Bridges and Balloons"

Tscott
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File: TU Jangle in a mess The Entrance Victory.demo (7.1 KB)
Downloaded 291 times.
License: Other
From: Unspecified

And here's the victory demo if anyone wishes. The only really tricky part was the single row of trap doors you need to fell.

(And if you don't know, you can press "arrow up" while watching a demo to speed it up so you don't have to suffer through 32+ minutes of my pressing QWQWQWQW [it looks really cool sped up, too ])

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And I can recall our caravel: a little wicker beetle shell with four fine maste and lateen sails,
its bearings on Cair Paravel. O my love, O it was a funny little thing to be the ones to've seen.
-Joanna Newsom "Bridges and Balloons"

RoboBob3000
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File: TU Slightly more efficient.demo (725 bytes)
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I didn't watch your demo all the way through, but the rows of mothers can be killed a bit more efficiently. Attached is a demo of how you can clear a row. You have to keep an eye on the spawn timer to keep from getting yourself messed up.

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ClaytonW
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File: Tedium Ad Nauseum.hold (2.6 KB)
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Well, I beat TScott, but I'm nowhere near RoboBob. This One takes 28,000+ moves. (I had a demo, but it seems demos are removed if so much as the hold description is changed. I didn't want to do it again.

StuartK
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File: Snake Spiral.hold (1.4 KB)
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Another snake entry based on LCMs and a spiral. This one takes 5.1x10^19 moves to complete using the intended solution.

Note I made the orb a toggle. Anyone is welcome to try finishing the room quicker. Could be pretty 'interesting', and will definitely be a long solution.

I'm having a go at making another with diagonal walls, but it's making my head spin trying to fit everything in properly. Actually, there are better ideas than that to use less walls. Working on it...


Hanoi Tower is going to be by far the longest solution though. If a puzzle element takes 8 tiles, that's a total of 152, or 2^152 orb activations to get to the solution, not counting the number of steps. If a puzzle element can take 6 tiles (note I've not worked this out) that's 2^202 orb activations. Any solution will take far longer than the projected end of this universe to complete, unless Erik really works on those DROD speed improvements

The_Red_Hawk
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File: Trying for Longest Room.hold (904 bytes)
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OK, here's my first try, "Length Equals Strength."

You have to wait in place for 268 spawns, giving a total of 8040 moves.


____________________________
Slashing, whirling, diving, twirling,
Snapping, turning, rising, swirling,
Screeching, flipping, gliding, sliding,
The red hawk's dance of death.

.....the king of the skies.....

The_Red_Hawk
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File: Trying for Longest Room II.hold (1.1 KB)
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And here's another. It takes about 6500 moves to complete it, but you have to do stuff most of the time instead of waiting.




By the way, if everything is going to be outlawed, what's the point in doing this? If anything should be disqualified, it's puzzles where you stand in place most if not all of the time.

____________________________
Slashing, whirling, diving, twirling,
Snapping, turning, rising, swirling,
Screeching, flipping, gliding, sliding,
The red hawk's dance of death.

.....the king of the skies.....

levelthirteen
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StuartK wrote:
Another snake entry based on LCMs and a spiral. This one takes 5.1x10^19 moves to complete using the intended solution.

Note I made the orb a toggle. Anyone is welcome to try finishing the room quicker. Could be pretty 'interesting', and will definitely be a long solution.

Delete the snake of length 6 on move number 353
Delete the snake of length 10 on move number 1389
Delete the snake of length 14 on move number 3961
Delete the snake of length 22 on move number 26003
Delete the snake of length 26 on move number 58941
Delete the snake of length 36 on move number 209951
Delete the snake of length 38 on move number 236169
Delete the snake of length 46 on move number 244443
Delete the snake of length 56 on move number 372903
Delete the snake of length 60 on move number 528299
Delete the snake of length 74 on move number 578013
Delete the snake of length 84 on move number 585059
Delete the snake of length 86 on move number 586003
Delete the snake of length 94 on move number 586183
Delete the snake of length 166 on move number 586311

Aris Katsaris
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File: TfLR LengthStrength Aris 354.demo (908 bytes)
Downloaded 184 times.
License: Other
From: Unspecified

The_Red_Hawk wrote:
OK, here's my first try, "Length Equals Strength."

You have to wait in place for 268 spawns, giving a total of 8040 moves.

I conquered this in 541 moves, and could perhaps cut another dozen if I worked a bit more efficiently. :-)

Attaching demo.

Edit -- oops, never mind the above count, here's one even faster, with 354 moves...

[Edited by Aris Katsaris on 11-16-2003 at 05:11 PM GMT]