zzyzx
Level: Delver
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Registered: 02-02-2004
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File: Loony Labyrinth.hold (42.2 KB)
Downloaded 87 times.
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I finally got around to finishing my first hold. It's a collection of easy to moderate puzzles, with an emphasis on mimics. Any feedback on level design, what you liked and what you hated, would be most excellent!

Thanks



[Edited by zzyzx on 03-11-2004 at 04:46 AM GMT]

DiMono
Level: Smitemaster

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Entrance: Once North, Thrice West needs a free square to put your mimic if the serpents aren't lined up

Entrance: Once South, Quarce West has a trivial solution:
Entrance: Quince West: the scroll is unreachable

Entrance: Twice West: the green door is redundant, as you can enter Thrice West from Quarce West

Entrance: Twice North, Twice East can be entered from the north, negating the red door.

It's clear you've spent a lot of time on this hold, it's very well designed. It's also in desperate need of checkpoints though, as some rooms are quite long and unforgiving.

[Edited by DiMono on 03-02-2004 at 04:12 AM GMT]

[Edited by DiMono on 03-02-2004 at 04:33 AM GMT]

[Edited by DiMono on 03-02-2004 at 05:59 AM GMT]

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Deploy the... I think it's a yellow button... it's usually flashing... it makes the engines go... WHOOSH!

zzyzx
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 74
Registered: 02-02-2004
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Great, will look into it. Thanks!

zzyzx
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 74
Registered: 02-02-2004
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Entrance: Once North, Thrice West needs a free square to put your mimic if the serpents aren't lined up

Entrance: Once South, Quarce West has a trivial solution:

I made a couple fixes, and added a few more save points. Will attach the file to my earlier post.

DiMono
Level: Smitemaster

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Is this hold really 150 rooms on one level?

Edit: If you exit Thrice South, Once East via the left of the two north exits, without having cleared 2S1E, 2S, or 4S1W, then you are trapped and can do nothing.

1S2E has a trivial solution:

And in my personal opinion, this hold should be scattered over several levels, as it's simply too big for one.

[Edited by DiMono on 03-02-2004 at 06:19 AM GMT]

____________________________
Deploy the... I think it's a yellow button... it's usually flashing... it makes the engines go... WHOOSH!

Scott
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 578
Registered: 02-12-2003
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South east section needs some looking at (assuming the 4 linked queen rooms is the south east). I got trapped in that section, not the queen rooms but in that area twice. First time I went to the queen rooms I couldn't get north because I hadn't done a room up that way that needed to be done. The second time I got trapped in the tar room directly west of those rooms because I handn't done the orb room to the west of it and you can't got north from the tar room.

zzyzx
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 74
Registered: 02-02-2004
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Is this hold really 150 rooms on one level?
10x10, so 100 rooms.

Edit: If you exit Thrice South, Once East via the left of the two north exits, without having cleared 2S1E, 2S, or 4S1W, then you are trapped and can do nothing.
Whoops, tried to be really careful with that kind of thing. I modified the green door in that room to keep that from happening. I also modified the green wall in Thrice South.

1S2E has a trivial solution:
Um, ok. I'm a dork. It's fixed now.

And in my personal opinion, this hold should be scattered over several levels, as it's simply too big for one.
Next time...

zzyzx
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 74
Registered: 02-02-2004
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South east section needs some looking at (assuming the 4 linked queen rooms is the south east). I got trapped in that section, not the queen rooms but in that area twice. First time I went to the queen rooms I couldn't get north because I hadn't done a room up that way that needed to be done. The second time I got trapped in the tar room directly west of those rooms because I handn't done the orb room to the west of it and you can't got north from the tar room.
I removed a door in Once South Twice East that did not really have to be there. Now you wont get stuck north of the queen rooms. The tar to the west has also been opened by removing the green door.

I tried to be both restrictive and open (does that make sense?) with this hold, and though I was careful with the possible traps, I missed a few. Sorry about that guys...

Aside from that, are you guys enjoying the hold? I really thought Twice South Once East, Thrice North Twice East, Quince West and Once South Quince West were pretty cool.

DiMono
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1181
Registered: 09-13-2003
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I actually stopped playing it and turned off DROD when I realized how big the level was.

I haven't gotten to 2S1E yet, but it looks fun

1S5W sticks in my head as the best room I've played, because of how careful you must be at the beginning. I spent a good ten minutes just figuring out what I needed to do. 5W was like a practice version for it. I wouldn't change either of them except to make the scroll in 1S5W readable

I haven't played 3N2E yet, but it looks nice and challenging. I don't understand the scroll in 3N3E though, since you can solve the room in a very straight-forward manner

It looks like if you leave 2E to 3E that there is no way back. I haven't tackled anything directly south of 3N3E yet though, so time will tell.

One thing I've noticed is that many of your blue doors are redundant. The entire maze in the north-east is accessible from 3N2W, and I've found ways around most of the other blue doors I've come across as well.

I just discovered you can enter 3S from the east, which trivializes the entire room.

All that said, I've enjoyed what I've played so far, it's just too big for one level.


Edit: The green door in Quarce South negates the scroll, and all the orbs

I'd remove the last part of the scroll in 4S1E, as it sort of gives away the solution explicitly.

[Edited by DiMono on 03-02-2004 at 07:16 AM GMT]

____________________________
Deploy the... I think it's a yellow button... it's usually flashing... it makes the engines go... WHOOSH!

zzyzx
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 74
Registered: 02-02-2004
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DiMono <-- You're great. Thanks for all the comments and help with the hold.

I actually stopped playing it and turned off DROD when I realized how big the level was.
Is it a faux-pas making a level so large? Just curious.

1S5W sticks in my head as the best room...make the scroll in 1S5W readable
Thanks How do you mean unreadable?

I haven't played 3N2E yet, but it looks nice and challenging. I don't understand the scroll in 3N3E though, since you can solve the room in a very straight-forward manner.
I took out the second scroll. It is kind of obvious which portions of the maze help/hinder you once you get going.

It looks like if you leave 2E to 3E that there is no way back. I haven't tackled anything directly south of 3N3E yet though, so time will tell.

One thing I've noticed is that many of your blue doors are redundant. The entire maze in the north-east is accessible from 3N2W, and I've found ways around most of the other blue doors I've come across as well.
I agree. I put them in to quickly get through the maze in the case you finish the last creature off in the north-west quadrant of the level. I took them back out, because they were redundant, and replaced one door with a one way which should work just as well.

I just discovered you can enter 3S from the east, which trivializes the entire room.
Fixed

Edit: The green door in Quarce South negates the scroll, and all the orbs
I agree, but only after you kill all the brains. After that you can move freely without the aggravation of doing the orb maze. I modified the scroll; after rereading it, it pretty much tells you what to do.

I'd remove the last part of the scroll in 4S1E, as it sort of gives away the solution explicitly.
Yup. I agree with that too.

Thanks again for all your help.

Zaratustra
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 55
Registered: 01-29-2004
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DROD is shooting SDL parachutes in all directions. I defeat the half-room with the snakes and mimic, it faults. I press ESC, it faults.

DiMono
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1181
Registered: 09-13-2003
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You're welcome. At some point though, a level does in fact become too big. Someone once asked in a thread what an appropriate max size would be, and we sort of all agreed that 7x7 would be reasonable. When a level is this big, it starts getting tedious solving it, as you cannot tell how much progress you have made.

For 1S5W, I mean it is physically impossible to step on the square with the scroll, due to the arrows.

Remember what I said about trivializing 3S? It's not so trivial. Taking out the brain first means you need to circle counter-clockwise to enter the Roach Queen area, and it's a bit of fancy footwork to get in, and then some more to get around to a position where you can start killing things. I also noticed one of the force arrows points South, is this intentional?

Now, for those of us who've invested a lot of time in this hold and don't want to have to replay it all, could you supply us with an anyone edit version so we can import the changes and go straight to the rooms we haven't done yet?

____________________________
Deploy the... I think it's a yellow button... it's usually flashing... it makes the engines go... WHOOSH!

zzyzx
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 74
Registered: 02-02-2004
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Sure, I can set the editing privledges, but I won't be able to upload the file for a few hours (at work). Btw, every time a bug was found I fixed and uploaded a new file, replacing the one in my original post. Is this the correct way to do it?

Would it be a good idea then to break the hold up into multiple levels? It will lose the "vast" feeling, but for the sake of knowing what you have completed, it might be a good idea. Unfortunately, that means that some of the rooms would get killed because they are based more on how you get to them as upposed to how you solve them, and the solutions are pretty trivial. The reason I ask, is that it would be a bit of work to get it set up correctly, and I am not sure if you can copy a whole room and paste it into a different level. That would definitely help...

One last question: What is the ultimate goal of creating these holds aside from knowing people are enjoying playing them. Are they chosen and pushed into the "hold" forum?

Thanks again
z

DiMono
Level: Smitemaster

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You promote them to the holds forum if you want to, and then you get the pleasure of knowing that people are playing your hold, and hopefully enjoying it.

If you highlight a room in the main build screen, so it has a blue outline around it, you can press Ctrl-C to copy it to the clipboard. Then you can press Ctrl-V on another room and it will paste the room there, overwriting whatever started there. This means you can copy rooms from one place to another.

It will be a lot of work to change your hold in this way, I'm sure, but in the long run I think people will enjoy it even more, which would make it worth it. I'd suggest isolating the rooms that don't rely on the path-to-get-there puzzle, and grouping them together in to common themes, and then splitting the hold between 3-7 levels accordingly.

Of course these are just my ideas, you can do what you want to with your hold.

____________________________
Deploy the... I think it's a yellow button... it's usually flashing... it makes the engines go... WHOOSH!

Scott
Level: Smitemaster
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I wonder if the size of the level has some impact on drod. I imagine that it loads the entire level into memory. I have noticed with this hold that the longer I play the slower drod seems to become. Breaking it up into a few levels may help that I don't know. An example is when I beat the last monster in a room normally green doors just vanish and I go on. With this having beaten around 60% of the rooms theres around a 1-2 second pause from killing the last monster.

zzyzx
Level: Delver
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Registered: 02-02-2004
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Interesting. I hadn't noticed that. What do you think so far? Anything you like?

Scott
Level: Smitemaster
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Don't misunderstand I am not saying I don't like it. Its quite good. Can't remember any specific rooms right now been over 12 hours since I played drod, you know sleep and all that.

zzyzx
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 74
Registered: 02-02-2004
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No misunderstanding... Just want to get a feel for what people like and don't like. I want to create fun holds, with a little bit of everything, that aren't so tough that it makes you want to pull your hair out. (not that anyone makes holds like that...) I like mimics, so a good portion of the levels use them. I am also thinking of my next hold ideas...

zex20913
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1723
Registered: 02-04-2003
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Yeah, there is some major slowing going on, especially in rooms with tar when you make babies after everything else is gone.

I do like this hold so far. I found myself celebrating after I refound the entrance, but I do think it is a bit large. It may be difficult to tell which rooms need to be done towards the end of it.

I can't remember any specific room numbers, but the ones with the 5 mimics and border trapdoors are excellent.

____________________________

Scott
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I just remembered something. Your orb maze isn't. You can hit as many orbs as you want and still leave the room after killing the brains.

joker5
Level: Smitemaster
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I noticed that too... you just leave east and then come back!

~joker5

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Scott
Level: Smitemaster
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Just played a bit more and found the definate slow downs. Its a room state change from incomplete to complete or the other way around. Clear a room big pause, create a tar baby big pause, kill that baby another big pause.

eytanz
Level: Smitemaster

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I'm playing the hold and enjoying it very much so far - I like that it's big an varied, though I sort of dread the point where I will have done most of the rooms and I'll need to find the ones I've missed.

In quarce north thrice east, it's possible to kill the snakes in the upper passageway without ever stepping on a trap door (or drinking the potion, for that matter).

Edit:

Also, I couldn't figure out what the scroll is 3N3E is talking about, the room seems very easy.

It's possible to enter 2N2E from the north, which places you on the red door.

[Edited by eytanz on 03-03-2004 at 03:29 AM GMT]

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Scott
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I'm at that point now. Hardest to find the path is the north section. I have cleared most of them out only 1 or 2 still causing some problems.

zzyzx
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 74
Registered: 02-02-2004
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I see what you mean about the orb maze. Whoops. My thinking was just to ease the path once you clear the room. I will shrink the green door on the next edit, along with the other fixes. I meant to upload the "anyone can edit" version earlier this afternoon, but got sidetracked. If you download the current version (first post), you can edit the rooms and play as you like.

Will try to fix the bugs by tomorrow. I'm going to bed for the night

bandit1200
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 290
Registered: 10-29-2003
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DiMono wrote:Now, for those of us who've invested a lot of time in this hold and don't want to have to replay it all, could you supply us with an anyone edit version so we can import the changes and go straight to the rooms we haven't done yet?

How do you do that?

Atch
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 81
Registered: 08-29-2003
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I finished Loony Labyrinth this morning and what a hold, 100 rooms on one level!

I enjoyed it very much but did wonder on several occasions if it would ever end. That being said a huge level has a validity in DROD but would anyone have bothered to look for all the rooms if it hadn’t been 10 x 10?

I encountered a few minor problems, all of which have already been reported:

1) Trapped in the SE corner, first when coming from the north then from the west, so had to do it 3 times.

2) DROD playing slowly on the final move in a room.

3) Lack of checkpoints? Not really although I would replace some of the green gates in 4S, 1W’s trapdoor maze with checkpoints.

Favourite Rooms The mimic rim rooms 5W and 1S, 5W: 1W and the SE quartet. The area round the entrance with all the secret passages was particularly well constructed.

Least Favourite The brain mazes in the north: unless you pay attention you can feel as though you are just going round in circles much of the time.

Ending I think that I got the point but is it correct?
So well done Rob, your months (?) of work have created something well worth playing and I shall look forward to doing so again once it reaches the Holds Forum

eytanz
Level: Smitemaster

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One south quarce west still has a trivial solution; remember that scrolls make you immune to serpents.

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zzyzx
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 74
Registered: 02-02-2004
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Thanks Atch! I'll look into your suggestions, and I'm glad you enjoyed it. You got the final puzzle correct, and i'll look into the missing orb and the numbering.

your months (?) of work
Actually, I only downloaded the Architect version last month, and some of that time was spent on the Speaking Grounds hold as well. It was basically come home from work and work on Loony Labyrinth for an hour or two.

Eytanz: I was unaware of the scroll/serpent deal. Can I assume he is immune to all critters while on a scroll then?

zzyzx
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 74
Registered: 02-02-2004
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Zaratustra
Sorry, I missed your post earlier. Not sure why that would happen. I haven't seen it...