brian_s
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 587
Registered: 05-27-2004
IP: Logged

File: Brians_Basement_v1.hold (52.4 KB)
Downloaded 95 times.
License: Public Domain

This is a JTRH hold with rooms arranged in 5 levels. It consists mainly of stuff I was planning for different holds, but never got finished.

Dischorran
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 3407
Registered: 09-10-2005
IP: Logged

Comments on the Garden:

Decent level; not horribly hard, which is good, and I didn't really break anything, which is also good. Some of the rooms were boring, but some were well done also.

1E: Not very interesting - I just went top to bottom and cleared out the rows one at a time.
1W: Three snakes die just by waiting in the entrance, and it's easy to kill the two remaining ones with a couple wubbas.
1S1W: Nice basic roach room.
2S: Old-school efficiency. Not original, but nothing necessarily wrong with it for nostalgia purposes.
1S: Is there a way to do this without entering on arrows? It needs more checkpoints. Great room otherwise.
1S2W: <yawn>. This would be mildly amusing if I didn't have to actually sit there holding down W the whole time. This is the first and last time that I'll be in agreement with Cheney about anything.
2S1W: Nice, but you could probably do more with it if you're inclined to make it harder.
2S2W: Really great room!
1S1E: Clever idea, but needs an explanation of how it works. Also, there's no penalty for waking eyes up going forward because you can just trigger another one to reverse it. I assume I'm supposed to leave at least one eye in each section to reopen the doors on the way back.

EDIT: And on the cellar. I'm afraid I'm less impressed by this level. 1W and 2E are decent, and the time limits are entirely appropriate. Once the tar fills up 1E (and this is pretty quick), it's just an exercise in clearing tar with nothing to make it special; would you consider intermixed tar and mud instead?. 1S, and especially 1S1E, are the sort of tedious rooms that might make me stop playing a hold (to be fair, I didn't attempt them, so maybe they're not as bad as they look). 1S1E would be an OK room if you reduced the number of trapdoors by a factor of ten.

____________________________

---

[Last edited by Dischorran at 10-15-2008 07:55 AM]

CuriousShyRabbit
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 3170
Registered: 10-14-2006
IP: Logged

I've been playing this some too, and hope to find time to write comments later this week.

Just a quick note: the stairs at the end of The Cellar end the hold... and the stairs at the end of The Freezer end the hold.

And The Bunker 3N cannot be traversed a second time. The yellow door to the queens area stays closed if I try to walk through a second time, after conquering it.

---

[Last edited by CuriousShyRabbit at 10-15-2008 02:32 PM]

talund
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 95
Registered: 05-17-2005
IP: Logged

I've started exploring this one. Started with the Cavern.

Your use of the wraithwing creates backtracking problems. For example, I solved 2N, 1W before proceeding to 2N, exiting to the South and could not return to 2N. Similarly, once 1N, 1W is solved, you cannot return to 2N, 1W.

It does not appear that you can get through 2N, 1E coming from 2N - perhaps I am missing something? The wraithwing (and your helpful note) is useless because it is trapped in the lower left corner.

Am also having trouble with 1N, 1E. Can get three of four snakes using wraithwing and doors but the lower right one appears unreachable.

---

[Last edited by talund at 10-15-2008 06:56 PM]

CuriousShyRabbit
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 3170
Registered: 10-14-2006
IP: Logged

I've gotten as far as I can go now. In most cases, I agree with what Dischorran and talund have already posted.

The Garden
Entrance - It would be nice to block off the non-exit to the north, so the player doesn't waste time bumping that square.
1W - The conveniently placed scroll makes it very easy to kill snakes just by waiting in the entrance. Perhaps that's not a good location for it.
1S1W - Nothing special about this room, a lot of hacking and slashing.
2S1W - If a player isn't familiar with monsters' vertical movement preference, they certainly will be after playing this room. This is a good room for practicing skills.
2S2W - Very nice. It took quite a bit of planning ahead to get roaches to kill all the snakes.
2S - A pretty easy horde room.
1S - Good room, lots of practice with backswiping and vertical movement preference. Needs another checkpoint closer to the entrance.
1E - Repetitive hack and slash.
1S1E - I was confused about the scripting in my first few attempts at this room. I didn't realize it was checking Beethro's location rather than the eyes' location in the room when activating orbs.
1S2W - I realize this is a joke room, but meh, been there, done that. I could do without this room.

The Cellar
1E - I already know how to clear all tar and drop all trapdoors, so there wasn't much to think about here.
1W - I'm not good at efficiency rooms, but fortunately, I managed this one without starting over too many times.
1S - This room may be easier than you intended. I just needed to get the mimics 3 squares ahead of Beethro, then I could easily get them to their orbs, and kill the queens. Dropping the rest of the trapdoors was an afterthought after all that was done.
1S1E - The SW corner of this room looked interesting, but dropping all the trapdoors in the rest of the room just to get there was mind numbing.
2E - I like this room. A nice set of mini-manipulation puzzles without too much of anything.
Entrance - There are a lot of trapdoors in here.
1S2E - Trying to maximize the number of diagonal steps was pretty cool.
1N - Long room. I chose to use dead golems to block the northern tar blobs' growth so that I could kill the mother before clearing them. But this is not necessary. I could kill the golems anywhere, and clear the northern tar while the mother was alive too.
* The end of level stairs end the hold.

The Freezer - a pretty challenging horde level
Entrance - Manipulating the golems and goblins in one of the four enclosures was interesting, but doing almost the same thing in the three others got a bit repetitive.
1S - My strategy was to keep pushing the mimic as far ahead of Beethro as possible.
1N1E - I am not good at this kind of room, and only very slowly picked off one mud baby generator at a time. I didn't find much opportunity to hide behind mud growth and clear a lot at once.
2N1E - I plugged all the holes with golems and generated a single tar baby to kill the snake. I like puzzles where I have to figure out the purpose of each element.
1N - I may have done this room wrong. I killed one of the goblins as the beginning, and used just a single goblin to kill the snake at the west end of the room.
1S1E - The two passes through this room are quite similar, in that I removed all (or almost all) the mud each time. Not particularly difficult, but it takes a long time to get through.
1E - Yikes! 11 roach queens that spawn 33 roaches every 30 turns. For the longest time, I thought this was impossible... until I saw how you could enter from the south and move things around a little.
1W - I guess this is another joke room. This one was quick and painless.
1N1W - Very cool room. Using a looping snake to prevent queens from spawning has been done before, but I really like the nice clean implementation of that idea in this room.
1S1W - I'm glad you gave me the option to open the traps every time a roach got stuck in one.
2N - I skipped this room, because I really don't feel like solving a lights out puzzle right now.
* The end of level stairs end the hold.

The Bunker
Entrance - Easy hack and slash.
1N - I ran around and killed everything without too much trouble.
2N - And in here too.
3N - A lot of trial and error on this one. For much of the time, I had a rattlesnake stuck blocking one of the queens. I'm not sure whether this helped or hurt me in the long run. This room needs another green door, or a tunnel behind green doors, so I can traverse it later when coming back from the secret room.
2N1W - I don't quite understand the scripting of the guard or Halph characters, or why some movements explode the bombs (even though I can't see anyone's sword hitting them). But I did work out that the mimic needed to go ahead of Halph through the bomb maze.
1N1W - A nice clean guard manipulation room.
1W - Very Neather-esque. There's a lot going on in this room. Thanks for all the checkpoints. They're very helpful in rooms like this with complicated scripting.
2N2W - Yup, this room is indeed harder than the Directions of the Compass room, but not that much harder.
1N1E - I like this room a lot. It took me a long time to figure out what I had to do with the decoys... and when. Good puzzle.
* I wasn't able to test the end of level stairs, because I got stuck in 3N when I was coming back from 1N1E.

The Cavern - I really like the idea of a series of rooms that I must run through without conquering until I reach the "center" of the level... like Sewers in Dr. E. Will.
Entrance - It wasn't too hard to figure out the wraithwing scripting.
1N - I spent ages on this room until I finally realized I wasn't supposed to conquer it. I guess I'll have to on the return trip through the level. Haven't tried that yet...
1N1W - Meh. Beethro ran back and forth between the orbs until the snake was out.
2N1W - It looks like you gave me just enough time to hit the orb, but not kill all the snakes. Very clever. Except that talund seems to have managed to conquer it anyway! Are you sure you've put the fuse end for the return path in a good place?
2N - Very tricky. I used the wraithwing to help grow the northern tar, so I could get a baby to kill the snake and exit to the east.
2N1E - ... and stuck. Like talund, I can't get through coming from the west. Did you mean to have the wraithwing totally inaccessible?

talund
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 95
Registered: 05-17-2005
IP: Logged

File: BB The Cavern 2N1W Victory.demo (1 KB)
Downloaded 38 times.
License: Public Domain

More comments on Cavern. CSR's point about the Sewers made me remember that I enjoyed that trick when I did Dr. E Will's.


1N Like CSR, I spent a great deal of time trying to conquer this room until I figured out that you are meant to pass through it. Conquered it easily entering from the West as you no longer have the roaches being released by the ww.

1N, 1W same as CSR and easily conquered when entering from the Northwest.

2N, 1W I was able to conquer this entering from the South by keeping one of the outside ring snakes alive until after I'd disposed of the inner two snakes and then driving the ww south until I trapped it on the green door. There is enough time to do this. Demo attached.

After determining that I needed the ww to get through to the East, I shortened the snakes so that I could get through to the orb before the door closed, then used the ww to hit the other orb.

Later, using the editor because I can't get past 2N, 1E and 1N, 1E, I entered from the East and was able to conquer it by bringing the wubba up to the snakes and kept moving the wubba around with the snakes getting caught behind it as I moved. There was ample time to make it back to the green gate before the yellow gate closed. The first time I tried it, I failed but saw that I could exit out the other way (south east) but the ww appeared making the room unconquered. I decided that was intentional because otherwise the room would be too easy to conquer on the way back through.

2N - Got through it the same was as CSR. Easy to conquer coming back from the East if conquered 2N, 1E

2N, 1E - Couldn't pass through. But conquerable if enter from southwest as intended.

1N, 1E - As earlier stated couldn't conquer this

---

[Last edited by talund at 10-16-2008 07:43 PM]

talund
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 95
Registered: 05-17-2005
IP: Logged

I have now worked my way through everything that I could do. I still have problems with the Cavern as noted above. Otherwise I agree with the comments posted by Shy Rabbit so will not repeat them here except to note the back tracking problem in the Bunker. Once you get beyond 3N, you cannot return to solve the secret room. I enjoyed the challenge presented by many of the rooms. I encourage you to clean this up and finish it because it will be a nice compact and challenging hold.

CuriousShyRabbit
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 3170
Registered: 10-14-2006
IP: Logged

*Bump!*

What's happening with this project? There are some problems that need to be fixed, but it's definitely worth finishing.