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Rheb
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icon Re: Gigantic Jewel lost (+1)  
Zch wrote:
Another update:

I tried to change the stairs destinations in molten core, but it is hard to do anything about them, as the editor says everything is fine.
I think deleting the staircase and creating a new one set to the same entrance should fix the problem. This has happened to me too when I copied some levels around, for some reason minor buggs sometimes appear when you do that :(

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04-15-2009 at 11:38 PM
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Dischorran
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icon Re: Gigantic Jewel lost (+1)  
Truckin' along...

General comments on the Indoors sections (but also see the room comments):
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Individual comments. Lots of them, since I hit an easy stretch, and I'm hopping around between the different Indoors sections -
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04-16-2009 at 07:30 AM
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Zch
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icon Re: Gigantic Jewel lost (+2)  
Rheb wrote:
It seems unintended that the pressure plate at 35,20 does nothing in UL: 1N. The room becomes pretty trivial if it doesn't close the entrance door.

Yes, that is a bug. We'll fix that on next update.

I'm through the stalwart rooms now. In general I can say that you have some really cool ideas for stalwart based puzzles. But you still won't get around the fact that stalwarts are a random and pretty crappy puzzle element from the start. In some of the less messy parts I enjoyed guiding the stalwart, trying to improve my tactics, but not as much as I enjoyed some of the better puzzles in the first level.

As I've said before, I'd like a few rooms to be a bit easier. (IMO) There are too much trial and error parts in all of these rooms (plus the fact that they're linear) to make them any fun if they are hard. In some points I almost put the hold aside, but then I remembered the awesome first level, and decided that I should continue struggling, or ask for help. If this had been the first level of the hold, I would probably not have played this far :(

Underground Lake is the weakest level in this hold I think. (Not saying this in a way that UL is bad, but in a way that every other level is better. :) ) But as this holds plot is so much about four stalwart brothers, it would be weird if there were not at least a few stalwart puzzles also.

Making Stalwart puzzles was indeed challenging. I would have wanted to make the puzzles slightly more about the stalwart being helpful than him being a nuisance. Alas, stalwart is an idiot, so making him useful is tough.

If I were to build this level again from scratch, I'd put the linear part to the center 8 rooms or so, and miscellancelous other puzzles to the border 16 rooms. That way there would be less stalwart puzzles and more other stuff, which would probably be good. Oh well... not going to make such dramatic changes now.

Good news is that, if I remember correctly, there will be no more stalwart puzzles in this hold after this level.

Here's the room specific comments:

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Sorry if I sound too negative. I really admire that you've managed to create several fun puzzles using stalwart!

Don't worry about sounding negative. It is great to get feedback.

About some of your comments on individual rooms.
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04-16-2009 at 10:50 AM
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Zch
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icon Re: Gigantic Jewel lost (+1)  
Dischorran wrote:
Truckin' along...

General comments on the Indoors sections (but also see the room comments):
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Most of the rooms on Indoors are quite easy, and on many parts this level is more about drawing pretty pictures and showcasing ideas than creating difficult puzzles. But we tried to make at least one or two challenging rooms on each section.

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Individual comments. Lots of them, since I hit an easy stretch, and I'm hopping around between the different Indoors sections -
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Few comments about the individual rooms:
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04-16-2009 at 12:17 PM
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Zch
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icon Re: Gigantic Jewel lost (+1)  
Update:

Made three hard rooms in Underground lake easier.
Fixed some typos and bugs.
Removed and added stairs to Molten Core. Hopefully they now work.
04-18-2009 at 12:07 AM
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Dischorran
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icon Re: Gigantic Jewel lost (+1)  
I'm sure you'll be happy to hear that both sets of stairs now work.

More comments on the city follow. There's one last guard room that's giving me trouble, I'm not making any headway on the first pool room, and Slayer and programming rooms are falling slowly but steadily, putting them in line with the rest of the hold in difficulty. I think a lot of people just aren't going to get the programming, though; you should probably consider a ridiculously easy room to separate the puzzle of how the programming system works from the puzzles to be solved by programming. I should also mention that, fairly or not, puzzles that involve having to push Slayers with my sword tend to make me quit holds, although the one you have here isn't too bad as such rooms go.
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04-18-2009 at 05:07 AM
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CuriousShyRabbit
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icon Re: Gigantic Jewel lost (0)  
I seem to be a little late to this party, but I'd like to comment on this hold too. I've nearly completed the required parts of Goblin Woods... except 5N2E.

I see everyone here is talking about fast ways to get rid of the adder in 5N2E, but I can't even clear the gel. Has this room changed since Rheb and Dischorran played it? I see the mimic that could be used for cooperative cutting, but I can't get to it without creating uncuttable gel. Could someone help me out with the first few cuts please?
04-18-2009 at 06:54 PM
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Dischorran
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CuriousShyRabbit wrote:
I seem to be a little late to this party, but I'd like to comment on this hold too. I've nearly completed the required parts of Goblin Woods... except 5N2E.

I see everyone here is talking about fast ways to get rid of the adder in 5N2E, but I can't even clear the gel. Has this room changed since Rheb and Dischorran played it? I see the mimic that could be used for cooperative cutting, but I can't get to it without creating uncuttable gel. Could someone help me out with the first few cuts please?
My demo still works, and I just go in along the bottom. Don't forget that you have access to oremites.

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04-18-2009 at 07:01 PM
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Kallor
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icon Re: Gigantic Jewel lost (+1)  
Welcome to the party CuriousShyRabbit!

The other guys, could you please retest the difficult rooms in Underground Lake, if you're not totally allergic to them by now. I think they are more or less fair now. If you stop to think for a while, the most difficult room doesn't have the drawback of stalwart randomness anymore. Please try and give feedback, we appreciate it :)

-Kallor

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[Last edited by Kallor at 04-18-2009 08:37 PM]
04-18-2009 at 08:36 PM
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Dischorran
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icon Re: Gigantic Jewel lost (+1)  
More comments. I've tried the revised Underground Lake room that I complained about, and it's now in line with the rest of the hold in terms of difficulty. I also have a batch of 4 USes.

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04-19-2009 at 12:21 AM
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CuriousShyRabbit
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I've finally completed the first level, Goblin Woods, which appears to be a beautiful 7x7 piece of hold art in the minimap. (Except I'm just theorizing that 6N1E exists. I haven't visited that room yet, and I'm guessing someone in Happy Worker Town might open the door for me if I help them out down the stairs in 6N.) You've definitely got a green theme going, with the goblins, adders, gel, briar, oremites, grass and bushes. A drawback of all the beautiful green is that it's very hard to count squares with a grassy floor, especially in the more mathematical secret rooms. The one-tile bushes are green scenery that's easiest for me to count. Some architects have started using light to superpose checkerboard patterns on the ground to help in such situations.

I like the way secret rooms are hidden behind challenges. So much more interesting that hunting for cracks in dungeon walls. I'm not so happy about having to restore to get back to secret rooms - I really prefer being able to admire the whole minimap and being able to walk in and out of secret rooms as solving inspiration strikes me. However I understand that's the price to pay for hiding them behind challenges. Given the fact that I'm going to have to restore, you need to place some checkpoints for this purpose, out in the open, not buried within the machinery of puzzles, so I can easily return to where I was before restoring. Checkpoints in the middle of entrance rooms, and just before every staircase would be great!

I'm also enjoying the story so far, it looks like Beethro's got quite an adventure in store. As Dischorran has mentioned, there are a lot of typos here. You'll want to clean those up in the finishing stages of this hold.

Comments on individual puzzles in Goblin Woods
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I see my next choices are the stairs in 3N, the stairs in 6N, or the stairs in 6N3E (each of which needs a checkpoint). I'll pick whatever's downstairs in 3N for my next level.
04-19-2009 at 02:45 AM
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Dischorran
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icon Re: Gigantic Jewel lost (+1)  
Have some more comments, including a particularly amusingly broken room. It's a very nice touch to have entire levels hidden away in odd corners, rather than just the occasional room - really makes one want to explore everywhere.

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04-19-2009 at 08:47 AM
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Kallor
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I would like to see demos of some rooms of Goblin Woods by CuriousShyRabbit. Your descriptions don't always match the original idea of a room, so if there are ways to prevent some unintended solutions, we could return to the Woods once more. It would be splendid if you uploaded (all?) your demos like Dischorran did.
And of course also the issues Dischorran pointed out later in the hold need to be taken care of, we'll investigate them tomorrow.

-Kallor

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04-19-2009 at 06:58 PM
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CuriousShyRabbit
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Here are all my demos in the Goblin Woods level for your viewing pleasure. :)

[Last edited by CuriousShyRabbit at 07-10-2009 01:26 AM : demos removed]
04-20-2009 at 02:44 AM
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Dischorran
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icon Re: Gigantic Jewel lost (+1)  
I'll post a few more comments, but there's not much of interest in this batch. The trapdoor-dropping Robolab rooms, a few Slayer rooms, and that first Pool room are still giving me trouble.

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[Last edited by Dischorran at 04-20-2009 08:50 AM : Closed out Robolab.]
04-20-2009 at 06:22 AM
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Zch
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icon Re: Gigantic Jewel lost (+1)  
Big update:

Fixed unintended solutions:

GW 5N2W: There was not supposed to be backdoor there.
GW 2N1W: No opening door to secret place with an adder.
GW 2N1E: Enlarged one door to prevent US.

TN 1E: Changed the orb from toggle to close to prevent US.

FTAF 1W,2W,3W,4W: Added golems.
FTAF 1N3W,2N3W,1N4W,2N4W: Removed mirrors to prevent US and added door so the mirrors are no longer needed.
FTAF 3N1W,4N1W,3N2W,4N2W: Added arrows to preven US.

Added savepoints to some rooms.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that we used copy-pasting in FTAF 1-4W so if you had already solved the you need to solve them again. Sorry about that.

Also Dischorran, you said that you solved Indoors 3N2W without the speed potions. Could we have a demo of that.

[Last edited by Zch at 04-20-2009 08:49 PM]
04-20-2009 at 08:46 PM
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Dischorran
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icon Re: Gigantic Jewel lost (+1)  
It's probably about time for another big export anyway. Some of these are doubtless out of date, but you'll figure out which ones easily enough.

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[Last edited by Dischorran at 07-10-2009 01:24 AM : No, you can't have my demos. Not yours.]
04-20-2009 at 09:06 PM
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Dischorran
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I've cleared Slayer's, and am still no closer to a solution for the first pool room.

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04-21-2009 at 03:41 AM
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Zch
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File: GJL Indoors 5N6E Victory.demo (4.4 KB)
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icon Re: Gigantic Jewel lost (+1)  
Dischorran wrote:
I've cleared Slayer's, and am still no closer to a solution for the first pool room.

Some hints for the first Pool room(5N6E). I'll attach the demo also.

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04-21-2009 at 09:47 AM
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CuriousShyRabbit
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I've been slowly working around the big loop in Underground Lake, but have run into a showstopping scripting bug in 2N1W.

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04-22-2009 at 12:48 AM
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deftriver
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icon Re: Gigantic Jewel lost (0)  
Is Long Path 7S solvable? I just can't figure it ou.
04-22-2009 at 03:38 AM
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Dischorran
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icon Re: Gigantic Jewel lost (+1)  
:hooray

So yeah, that's one gigantic jewel back in its rightful place. The cutscene at the end seems awfully short, but I don't really know what else to add to it. I still have four vaults to open, some secret rooms to solve (aside from the vaults, I've at least seen all the secret rooms), and the post-mastery area to check out eventually, and I should probably take another look at the fixed rooms at some point.

Overall, this is a really fantastic hold. It's quite difficult, and I don't think you'll get all that many people to see it through to the end, but the difficulty is largely consistent. The visual design is excellent. I suspect that I'll probably give this 10 fun / 7.5-8 brains once it's on the Holds board. Only a few rooms had such a high effort : fun ratio as to make me not want to solve them, and most of them were secret rooms which is fine. Of the required rooms falling into that category, you've changed one of them, but I'd strongly suggest taking another look at Indoors:2W.

There are some minor things that you might want to fix up:

*Typos, of course.
*The Stalwart series remains problematic since it's difficult, Stalwarts are finicky, and once you start you're committed. Are you sure you can't build in more exit points?
*I still don't really get why the rest of the evil eye rooms can't have vision tokens.
*Every exit stairway needs a checkpoint.
*You already know about making the city more lively.

Since I just uploaded a batch of demos, I'll probably wait to master the hold before posting more.

Final comments on the Pool area:

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04-22-2009 at 05:27 AM
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CuriousShyRabbit
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icon Re: Gigantic Jewel lost (+1)  
Since I'm stuck, I went back and redid the changed rooms in Goblin Woods.

Zch wrote:
Fixed unintended solutions:
GW 5N2W: There was not supposed to be backdoor there.
This time, I used the adder to pin the mimic on the orb just long enough to get in and out of the top goblin box. Four goblins came out with me, and I used their movement order to kill all but one at the tunnel. I did the bottom goblin box the same as before.
GW 2N1W: No opening door to secret place with an adder.
Did it with a goblin this time. That meant I had to be careful about which snake I fed the other goblins to.
GW 2N1E: Enlarged one door to prevent US.
Used Beethro and the mimic together to kill the adder just as it bit the gel off the correct pressure plate. Why isn't the vision token accessible at the beginning of the room? You've hidden it behind a force arrow.
Added savepoints to some rooms.
Thanks! :)
04-22-2009 at 07:47 AM
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Zch
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icon Re: Gigantic Jewel lost (+1)  
I feel a bit stupid now. In Underground Lake 2N1W you can just walk to the stalwarts tunnel and back to switch the entrances... All this time we thought that the switching of entrances had to be done in previous room, and that it would be extremely difficult...

Oh well, everyone seems to like this room better this way, so I'll think we just let it be this way. But it can be solved without a sword, which was the original intended solution.

So I uploaded an update to fix the bug with the scripts, so it can again be solved with sword also :)
04-22-2009 at 10:03 AM
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Zch
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Dischorran wrote:
:hooray

So yeah, that's one gigantic jewel back in its rightful place.

Have to do something else now, so I'll comment rest of your post a bit later, for now: Congratulations! :thumbsup
04-22-2009 at 10:14 AM
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Zch
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File: GJL Long Path 7S Victory.demo (1.9 KB)
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License: Public Domain
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deftriver wrote:
Is Long Path 7S solvable? I just can't figure it ou.

It is. You'll need to use the broken wall tunnel starting at (16,5)... I'll attach a demo.
04-22-2009 at 10:18 AM
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Dischorran
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Zch wrote:
I feel a bit stupid now. In Underground Lake 2N1W you can just walk to the stalwarts tunnel and back to switch the entrances... All this time we thought that the switching of entrances had to be done in previous room, and that it would be extremely difficult...

Oh well, everyone seems to like this room better this way, so I'll think we just let it be this way. But it can be solved without a sword, which was the original intended solution.

So I uploaded an update to fix the bug with the scripts, so it can again be solved with sword also :)
There's nothing wrong with optional challenges, either posted to the Challenges board or listed on scrolls somewhere in the postmastery area. :)

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04-23-2009 at 12:33 AM
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Dischorran
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icon Re: Gigantic Jewel lost (+1)  
Going back and filling in a few places:

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04-24-2009 at 06:21 AM
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Neather2
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icon Re: Gigantic Jewel lost (0)  
Zch wrote:
Edit: version 14 (hmm, the version 13 disappeared...)

Finally, after two years(!) of mad puzzle designing this hold
is ready to be published.

NOTE: This hold uses two custom room styles, that are quite essential part of our vision. I'll upload them on this thread.
Please download them also.

Give it a shot. Enjoy :)

- Zch and Kallor

You're a good team, people! I really liked the first hold and this sequel is all what i need for a relaxing day on DROD. The puzzles were easy and medium, with some hard. Nice job, it's one of the better hold i saw.
I think that DROD holds must be like this. Not too hard but enjoyable.
I give it 6+ brains and 9 for fun. :thumbsup :thumbsup

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Conspiracy, my new hold, has just been released.

[Last edited by Neather2 at 04-24-2009 06:32 AM]
04-24-2009 at 06:31 AM
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Kallor
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icon Re: Gigantic Jewel lost (+1)  
Hi,

welcome along, new guys :)
We'll upload a new version in a few minutes.
Question: how could you solve a pool room with only two mirrors? Not intentional...

- Kallor

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04-24-2009 at 03:56 PM
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