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Caravel Forum : DROD Boards : Holds : Reflections (Symmetry and Mirrors)
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8.5/10 (15 votes)
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Author Name:Jacob
Submitted By:Jacob
Hold Name:Reflections
Theme:Symmetry and Mirrors
Author's Difficulty:
Number of Levels:6
Number of Rooms:23
Number of Monsters:137
Version:DROD: The City Beneath (3.2)
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Hold Karma:10 (+10 / -0)
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File: Reflections.hold (13.9 KB)
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License: Other
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icon Reflections  
Beethro helps return an ancient artifact to its rightful place.

You are advised to play this hold with Alpha Blending ON for the full effect.

Playtesting by CuriousShyRabbit, Blondbeard, mxvladi and TFMurphy.

Enjoy.
01-11-2009 at 01:30 AM
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CuriousShyRabbit
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icon Re: Reflections (+1)  
Here's an interesting new collection of puzzles from Jacob. It features some tricky mirror manipulation exercises and some very nice sets of Jacob's trademark "theme and variations" puzzles.

The level that I keep thinking about is actually the easiest one. The Reflections level shows pairs of rooms where simply reflecting everything about an axis gives a very different solution. (I think this would be a great idea for an architecture contest too, to see who can make a flipped pair of rooms with the most different solutions. I don't think Jacob has nearly exhausted the possibilities for this type of room.)
01-11-2009 at 02:01 AM
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mxvladi
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icon Re: Reflections (+1)  
I found this to be a little easier than, say, "Choose Your Adventure" hold. And that makes the hold more enjoyable for me. I highly recomment this hold to everyone.

A start room is a little and quite tricky puzzle which I liked.

The next puzzle level is Reflections. I liked this one. It's not hard but has a nice design and isn't tedious.

Puzzles after Reflections level are harder and more tricky. Still, the room design is exellent(especially Prism and The Light: entrance design - those lights look really great) and puzzles are fun.

Oh, and the "Darkness" level was unfortunately quite annoying. :~(

I give this hold 7 brains and 9 fun.

[Last edited by mxvladi at 01-11-2009 02:43 PM]
01-11-2009 at 01:20 PM
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Rheb
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icon Re: Reflections (0)  
mxvladi wrote:
Oh, and the "Darkness" level was unfortunately quite annoying. :~(
Go to settings and turn the alpha blending of to play DROD without darkness.

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01-11-2009 at 06:10 PM
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Jacob
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icon Re: Reflections (0)  
But that would defeat the purpose of that (optional) level.

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01-11-2009 at 10:24 PM
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Briareos
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icon Re: Reflections (0)  
Another option would be to increase the gamma...

np: New Order - Broken Promise (Brotherhood)

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01-11-2009 at 11:20 PM
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CuriousShyRabbit
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icon Re: Reflections (+1)  
I'd agree, the Darkness level takes some getting used to. But after I forced myself to play a few "rooms" in the intended way (no right clicking, alpha blending on) they started to grow on me.

You have to think of them like logic puzzles, where every move gives you a clue about what is in each of the 25 squares. For example, you can swing Beethro's sword around while looking at the expression on his face. He gets the striking expression when his sword is next to the roach. Swinging also locates orbs. You can try to move him in different directions to find walls, closed doors, and sometimes force arrows. Waiting a turn can locate hot tiles... I used these clues to draw my own maps of the rooms on graph paper as I played.

I can see how people might find this level annoying, like playing a tar covered maze with no transparency mod. In that case your only clues are shadows and the ability to use the backspace key. I think the clues in Darkness are much richer in comparison, and make it more interesting. However, since there's no reward for doing it right, I'm not sure how many people will take the the time to really try it.
01-12-2009 at 01:01 AM
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Rheb
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icon Re: Reflections (0)  
Jacob wrote:
But that would defeat the purpose of that (optional) level.
Actually, I haven't reached that level yet, so I shouldn't make any assumptions about it. But in general I think you've used just a bit to much darkness in this hold. I really like the puzzles, but especially the Distorted Images level I had to play without alpha blending. It's not that I don't see what's in the rooms, but I don't like the thought that there might be important details that I miss because the rooms are dark.

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[Last edited by Rheb at 01-12-2009 08:22 PM]
01-12-2009 at 08:18 PM
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Tahnan
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icon Re: Reflections (+1)  
Myself, I enjoyed the Darkness challenges. (I think getting the highscoreability out of the way at the start was nice, too, so that optimizers can feel free to bump into walls or swing wildly.)

Then again, I enjoyed the entire hold. The theme-and-variations led to some infuriating points, where I had to quit and come back; but that's not a bad thing, especially since I'd often have the "aha!" on returning. And they tended to be very logical ("let's see, ultimately I need to hit that orb, which means the only place I can put the mimic is...").

There's a whole lot to like here, IMHO, and very little I'd change. (OK, sure, Distorted Images could have been a shade lighter. But I had no complaints while playing it. Other than hating the result of clicking an orthosquare on a pressure plate, but that's not Jacob's fault. Anyway.)
01-14-2009 at 11:19 AM
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Rheb
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icon Re: Reflections (0)  
Hmm, I haven't gotten very far in this hold, and I don't think there is a big chance I will get much further. But what I did play I enjoyed, much more than what appears from my grumpy posts above. Although easy, I liked the Reflections level, and I really enjoyed spotting the holes in the Distorted Images. My only mayor complain is, as said, the darkness.

I think the hold deserves 8-9 overall, haven't decided yet :)

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01-18-2009 at 01:35 PM
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larrymurk
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icon Re: Reflections (0)  
Great hold Jacob! (of course we expect nothing less)

I especially liked distorted images and symmetry.
01-20-2009 at 01:51 PM
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Neather2
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What a good hold! There are a lot of interesting and fun puzzles. I give 8 fun and 6 brains! :thumbsup

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02-06-2009 at 05:13 AM
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