I've just completed the hold, Nillo (well as far as I know - the exit stairs for Sanctum take me back to the start of the level), and it's been quite a lot of fun.
Here are some comments (Quite spoiler-ish, so don't look if you haven't finished it):
×Top Level
1E - Quite interesting, especially with manipulation of brained roaches in the open.
2E - This was not very hard in the sense that you could create a diagonal in the tar mass, butgetting the serpents to go in it was a little tricky.
1S 2E - A mixture of ideas here, the mimic manipulation in the final section being quite difficult because you are in a cramped space.
1N 2E - This was quite a nice room - it was more tricky than it seemed to get all the roaches without trapping yourself anywhere.
1S - I had to look quite closely after looking at the scroll. I think the choice of tileset didn't really help much.
2S - This was quite interesting as well, for you had to manipulate the serpent carefully so you had enough time to wait before you could leave its coils.
2S 1W - This was also quite a nice room. Dodging tar babies coming from all sides was not very easy, although quite fun.
2S 1E - Hmm... I agree with the scroll. In fact, it is more obligatory not to do it than just being unnecessary.
[3S] - Why would this room make me crazy? - There isn't anything in it!
1W - I think this was one of those rooms that look more challenging than it actually is - the crumbly walls made it quite easy to find a safe spot to hide in when the horde was released. Perhaps if you want to make it harder, remove some of the crumbly walls to force the player to go to a particular area to make a safe zone.
2W - This too was a nice room - removing
allthe trapdoors was a bit tricky.
1N 1W - Manipulating the mimic here was tricky as you needed to take advantage of the evil eyes to move the mimic, avoid the walls in your area, and kill the eyes, all at the same time. I had to restart once or twice when I had accidentally killed the eye I was going to use to shift the mimic's position and became unable to use the mimic to reach the eyes further to the right.
1S 2W - This was a fun room, probably one of the harder ones in the hold. Getting the serpents to do
exactly what I wanted them to do was quite difficult.
1N - This was an easy room, for you could kill the goblins in the trapdoor passages quickly, making the mimic potion unnecessary.
2N - Also quite easy - killing the serpent was not difficult as you could just step diagonally to create dead ends.
2N 1W - I again agree with the scroll.
1N 1E - Similar to 1N 1W, the comments I would make would be the same. The force arrows made it a bit more difficult to move around, but the fewer eyes arranged in a pattern made it easier to kill them.
1S 1W - Hmm... I think the scroll is correct here.
1S 1E - Quite a nice idea - I didn't realise what the goblin was for to begin with.
Entrance - Quite hard, especially when the queens ran away creating many spawn, but going in from the south passage allowed you to get the brain quickly, reducing the problem.
Voids
Entrance - Manipulating the horde to start with was tricky, but movement rather than swinging helped a lot.
1S - I liked this room - getting the mimic where you wanted it was a bit difficult in such cramped areas.
1W - Not too hard - getting away from the serpent to deal with the goblins was a bit difficult, but once I was in the southern passage with the goblins, it became quite easy to kill them all and then get the serpent.
1S 1W - I enjoyed this because of its style. The freedom to do as the scroll said was quite refreshing.
1N 2W - This room was interesting - at first I was a little confused about what to do, but then I realised you needed to kill the serpent first.
1N 1W - This is possibly one of the hardest rooms in the hold. Finding a way through the chambers was very difficult, although the orb at the end was very rewarding.
1N - Placing all the mimics was quite time consuming, but the end result was fun - Beethro's Spiked Mimic Wall Of Death!
[1E/2W] - I can see there is some "
secret"
I missed, but I couldn't see any way to reach it. Is 2W a red herring?
Lava
Entrance - This was quite hard. Figuring out what to do and how to do it was difficult, especially as the roaches didn't make life very easy for me with a huge serpent just behind!
1N - The crumbly walls made this room very easy to do, for you could just sneak behind monsters and emerge at them from the wall. Perhaps if you made most of the crumbly walls solid, the room would be more challenging.
2N - Again, the crumbly walls and narrow passages made it fairly easy to reach the brains quickly before the roaches caught up with me from behind. Perhaps putting the brains bhind solid wall chambers, forcing queen and roach removal first, would make the room more difficult.
3N - And again, the crumbly walls looked nice, but made the room very easy to complete.
4N - This was quite interesting - finding a path that allowed you to drop all the trapdoors and then killing the queens at the end in a cramped space were both quite tricky.
[5N/6N] - Is there a secret here? I followed the crumbly walls, but didn't find anything.
Palace
Entrance - Again, serpent manipulation in tight spaces was hard, especially as this was a long one, but thankfully do-able.
1E - I liked this room, again for its style.
2E - I think this room would be generally considered hard - It's just that after playing King Reubus' Palace L4, I'd be a jaded audience because I've practiced doing things with Wraithwings like this, so I found it easy.
1N 2E - This room was again stylish, although very easy because standing on closed Yellow Doors made you invulnerable.
1N - This was also quite interesting - killing the wraithwings in the correct order was not very easy, especially with brained monsters just to the left of me.
Catacombs
Entrance - More serpent manipulation here, except this time with three of them, which made it much more challenging.
1E - This was quite a nice room - taking advantage of horde movements in different directions was quite unexpected.
2E - Basically very easy - the only problem would have been avoiding trapping yourself, although since the area of trapdoors was rectangular, the chance of this happening if you are careful is low.
4E - Quite interesting, although a bit small. Perhaps a few more areas where you need to move the roaches carefully around would have made this room more challenging.
1S 4E - This was a hard room in the sense that it was very compact, so you needed to move carefully or you would get trapped or stabbed. In fact, it reminds me of the "
Cerebella Archipelago"
in terms of size, style and difficulty.
1N 4E - Not too difficult, although figuring out how to clear the trapdoors was not very easy either.
1N 3E - Moving the mimic around here was quite hard, due to the small space and the walls in Beethro's area. I quite liked this room.
Secret Level
1E - Quite a lot harder than the original - It's interesting what the addition of just two Roach Queens can do.
2E - I don't think this was much different to the original.
1N 2E - The brains here added an unpleasant but fun twist to the room, which I enjoyed.
1S 2E - This room wasn't much harder than the original. In fact, most of the south portion of the room with the tar was not really necessary.
1S - The difference here actually made the room's solution more obvious.
2S - I think this one was identical to the original.
3S - This room, however, was again not very easy due to the serpents needing to so into a small gap in the north wall, but the space I had was larger than in similar rooms elsewhere, so it wasn't as difficult.
2S 1W - Arrrgh! Tar babies everywhere... and brained! This was very difficult, I can assure you. Dodging them in the original was bad, but this was many times worse. However, it was also many times more fun.
2S 1E - This was different to the original, but I don't think the "
unnecessary"
walk was very long, contrary to what the scroll said.
1W - The introduction of Brains and Roach Queens to this room really made it difficult - I was grateful for the Crumbly walls in this room, for they made it much easier to go after the queens and make safe areas to wait in when waves of attacking roaches approached.
2W - The trapdoors were quite a lot harder to remove this time, mainly because they were not in such a regular shape. Again, I do not think the scroll is quite accurate - the Red Door was not quite permanent.
1S 2W - The introduction of Brains here also made getting Serpents where I wanted them even more tricky. Quite unpleasant, but fun.
1N 1W - I think this was identical to the original too.
1N - This was a bit harder, but destroying the goblins in the trapdoor passages was still quite easy.
2N - This was a bit harder, but not by very much. It was about the difficulty of L7 1N in King Dugan's Dungeon.
2N 1W - This was again identical to the first.
1N 1E - The introduction of more force arrows made this room a bit more difficult, but remained enjoyable enough to be fun, not frustrating.
1S 1W - The additional eyes here added more of a twist to the original idea - it was quite innovative.
1S 1E - The brain actually didn't make much difference here, for there was only one goblin to manipulate.
Entrance. Like the original, entering from the south passage allowed quick access to the brain.
Sanctum
2N - Getting the brains and then queens proved quite difficult, and I was also worried about trapping myself, but there were enough trapdoors, so I avoided this problem narrowly.
2N 1W - The Wraithwing manipulation here was also interesting, although like before, I found it quite easy.
1N 1W - This was similar to 2N 1W, although with Wraithwings attacking from several sides, which made it a bit more difficult.
1N - Only one Tar Mother here made it very easy.
2N 1E - I didn't understand the anti-green door mechanism here, but I found the method killing of the serpent was very clever. I was originally fooled into thinking the mimic was necessary for this room.
1N 1E - The goblins here were a bit tricky to keep in control, but if you've played Dugan's Dungeon L14, then this room would not be too difficult to complete.
Overall, this hold is a fun hold, mostly easy to moderate difficulty with some nice puzzles and quirks in it,, although there are one or two rooms that are exceptions and quite difficult. I'd recommend it to anyone about up to level 20-22 in King Dugan's Dungeon as it is about the same sort of difficulty, although there are challenging rooms in this hold for more advanced players as well.
Born to be wild!