Ah, thanks for the help. It had been so long since I started this level, I totally forgot what happened at the beginning!
Anyway, I've completed the whole Underground Lake level now. As with Goblin Woods, the minimap is absolutley lovely with its whimsical sea creatures and the occasional submarine! The cool blue style fits the theme well. I especially like the walls and the statues. I'll repeat what's been said before about trapdoors and bridges though. I had to look twice to distinguish them by texture, as they have similar colors and similar brightness on my computer screen.
as we call it in the in-game chat, is well done. The stalwart is the DROD game element that I am least comfortable with, and I learned a lot from solving these puzzles. Especially the series of rooms that involved simultaneously killing pairs of waterskippers - there were enough of those that I could feel my skills gradually improving. The room with guiding the stalwart through a bomb maze, not so much. Very frustrating, as it's a tough example of a tough puzzle type that I don't have much experience with. Since I couldn't just back out of the room and go somewhere else, I took a break from this hold. I'm not sure if I learned anything in that room or finally just got lucky when I came back to it. But then, a few rooms later, I suddenly found
That was so unexpected and fun, I forgave you for the stalwart bomb maze. Just this once. The puzzles in the secret rooms were a nice contrast to the rest of the level - not too difficult with their own unique flavor.
×1W - Trivial solution. Shake the decoys off the rafts.
1N1W - A very nice, deceptively simple-looking decoy puzzle. I like how the decoys are used differently to access a secret area.
1N - You didn't want me to move platforms simultaneously in this room, did you? I moved one, back through tunnel, moved another, back through tunnel, and so on. A "
meh"
sort of room.
1N1E - The hardest thing about this room was figuring out what the puzzle was, amongst all the snakes and doors and pressure plates. I stupidly didn't read the scroll until after solving it. The puzzle itself is a nice little morsel.
1E - The green sister door made this room a challenge. I trapped one skipper between three rafts and a wall.
1S1W - Thank you for the lighting in this room. I would not have tried for that platform arrangement without it.
1S - It's possible to get a gel baby on each pressure plate after only one cut. I was pleased with my "
elegant"
solution to that part of the room. However, manipulating the mimics to kill both sets of goblins was not elegant at all. I had to clear more gel. In my first pass through the room, the additional gel I happened to clear didn't lead me to the secret.
1S1E - Finally got here... haven't I seen this guy before?
The Stalwart Run
1S2E - A nice easy introduction. No special manipulation is needed, except to get into the secret area. I liked the simple trick to the more challenging solution, and wish I had tried that in my first trip around the ring.
2S2E - Not really a stalwart puzzle, this one's more about bombs and force arrows. Please note that bomb-force arrow behavior is going to change in the next official patch to TCB, and that might break this room. Please see
here.
2S1E - More gentle introduction to stalwart behavior. I had to leave the brain alive long enough such that the stalwart was lured to the pressure plate that let him get the final skipper.
2S - I solved both the original version of this room, and the new version with added walls and doors. I did pretty much the same thing both times, and didn't see what the walls and doors did for me. Substantially more challenging than the previous puzzle. But do-able, since I only had to make the stalwart cut the tar once.
2S1W - Easier again, but with a bit of trial and error. My strategy was to try to keep the stalwart away from the adders as much as possible.
2S2W - I positioned the stalwart to save me from gel babies. A nice logical puzzle.
1S2W - I got rid of as many skippers as possible before releasing the stalwart. Started to get a feel for working side by side with him.
2W - I didn't get the stalwart touch a single goblin. Focissed on killing them in single square passageways instead.
1N2W - I was proud of my solution to this room - felt like I had learned something... until the stalwart stepped on a pressure plate that blocked his exit from the room, and I had to start over. Was that the purpose of these pressure plates - to constrain the orber in which the skippers are attacked? To reach the secret area, I stepped backwards from 2N2W on my second trip around the stalwart loop, after all the rooms were already solved.
2N2W - Argh! Too hard for Rabbits. I would have appreciated seeing a simpler room with stalwarts and bombs before this one. I started trying to solve the original version of this room, couldn't make progress, and watched your demo. After rewatching it several times, I felt like you guys just got lucky in your own room, using a particular movement order of the babies. I'm glad you took out some bombs. It's still frustrating, but indeed more doable now.
2N1W - I tried for a long time to solve this room with Beethro swordless, and kept getting stuck in a position such that two skippers arrived on opposite sides of the raft at the same time. Again, I would have appreciated a simpler swordless room before this one. However, with a sword, I can apply the tricks I practiced in earlier rooms on the level, and solve the room without too much trouble.
2N - I liked this room. Not too many goblins at once, and plenty of tar to cut if a monster is needed. It was cool finding ways to juggle goblins with the stalwart.
2N1E - I liked coming up with a clever strategy to solve this room. Actually getting it to work took a lot of starting over and over and over again though.
2N2E - Cooperative tar cutting with mimics is straightforward for Rabbits as I've done it so many times before.
1N2E - Nice puzzle involving side by side teamwork and a maze at the same time. Thanks for the arrows pointing out the crumbly walls.
2E - Finally dropped off the stalwart behind the arrows.
Rooms around the Outside
2N3E - Nice fish!
1N3E - A paper and pencil kind of room - I copied it down and solved it while my students were taking an exam. Either this one is easier than the trapdoor path mazes in Dr. E. Will's, or my technique is getting better.
3N2W - I'm assuming the raft in the NE corner cannot be reached by Beethro.
3N3W - Ooooh! Player role goblin. Wasn't expecting this at all!
2N3W - I started with the bottom section.
1N3W - While figuring out which sections needed to be cleared first was interesting, this ended up being a long room and somewhat tedious.
3W - Fun. Did the brain path dance around an obstacle.
3N - The fun part of this room - figuring out how long each path needed to be and planning where to put the paths took just a few minutes. Actually implementing the solution by moving the raft around and dropping trapdoors was tedious and took forever.
3N2E - After some experimentation, I recognized this puzzle. There's a web version on Yahoo. Not too difficult once I understood what to do.
3N1E - I'm embarrassed to say how many times I started over before realizing that the snake in the southern part of the room is a timer.
3N3E - Clever combination of DROD and numbers.
3S - Trivial solution. Kill the goblins with a mimic. Kill the adders with sword. Leave.
3S2E - I've put these stairs on my list of places to investigate later.
1S3W - Similar to 1N1E, the hardest part of this room was figuring out what the puzzle was. Fun to figure out, once I finally knew what the rules were.
3S3W (and 3S2W, 3S1W) - I'll keep this in mind for later.
2S3W - See comments for 1S3W.
1S3E - I've also put these stairs on my list of places to go later.
2S3E - Manipulating the platforms in this room took forever.
3E - It was clear what to do in this room, and it has a nice logical solution. (I had initially been apprehensive due to a frustrating struggle with a harder rotation puzzle in Under the Mountains.)
On to the next level! I think I'll try going down the stairs after the blue door in the Entrance.
But this was another quite easy room, so I don't really mind it.
