I think it would be best to do a public beta test for this hold; I don't think many people would want to take on a project like this privately. I played the hold that's on the beta board, so you can see my demos on CaravelNet, but I'm going to comment here.
Hold description: "
strange"
"
tunnels"
The Remira Tunnells: (I think you mean "
Tunnels"
.)
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×Level Description: "
As Beethro is going back to the surface, he comes across a strange set of tunnels. They are wrecked, and it seems like an army of slayers blew through here. Oh wait, all the slayers are dead. Right?"
The Entrance - This is a fine way to start the hold. This room certainly looks wrecked. You don't need the speed potion to solve the room, but it's okay to leave it there for players who'd like to try it. Did you mean, "
And I thought going back up would be easy."
1N - I'm curious why Beethro says "
Wrong way"
in here? Did he already know these stairs were blocked?
1S - Overall this is pretty nice room. I like how you need to use the mirrors for protection and then to prop the doors open.
I'm not a fan of the scripted mimic timer for Beethro's first step on the pressure plate. The time limit is very easy to beat. Why does there need to be a time limit on that part - what unintended behavior are you trying to prevent? In my opinion (which is not everyone's opinion) if a player must do a task within a time limit, he should be able to see the timer.
1S1W - What is the intended solution for this room? I came in, killed all the monsters, and exited east. Then I came back in to drop all the trapdoors (with no monsters around) to exit north.
It would be a nice challenge to try killing these monsters and dropping the trapdoors in a single pass through the room. Then you'd have to be careful where you killed the golems. Perhaps you'd like to make a secret version of this room where the player has to do that?
1W - This is a nice room. I like how you have to use the oremites to reorient Beethro's sword at least once. Why use scripted mimics behind the doors? I could still solve the room if they were real mimics.
1S1E - I am not a fan of "
guess the scripting"
games. I would like this room better if scripted behavior were not part of the puzzle. As it is, I killed two goblins on the arrows before even entering the green boxed "
arena"
, killed the roach queen on my way to the tunnel, and killed the last goblin after exiting the tunnel. I did not use the mirrors.
1E - I am curious what the intended solution is in this room? I did not use the decoy potion. Even so, this is a nice puzzle, where the player must choose which of the many given tools will work best.
2S - Killing a horde of goblins and roaches with a speed potion is an okay thing to do once in a hold. I'd be annoyed if I had to do it lots of times, but doing it once is fun. The no sword turning restriction makes it more interesting.
About the part hidden in darkness: whenever I see something like this, I go to the Settings screen, turn off alpha blending, then come back and play the room without any lighting effects whatsoever. This annoys me, and holds that use darkness to cover up important parts of rooms earn lower ratings from me.
3S - Now this room is fixed, and it is possible to conquer it. Not sure why it's here though. What is the function of this room in the hold?
2S1W - Ugh. Looks like the architect ran out of ideas for secrets. Killing a horde of goblins and roaches with a speed potion in 2S was fun. Doing it all over again with a larger horde in this secret room... not so much. It's okay not to have a lot of secret rooms in your hold. Or if you want to make secrets but can't think of puzzles, you could add extra bonus story details or hold art in the secrets.
4S - In this room, I wait in the entrance before entering the hot tile area, so everything except the goblins in the central box fries to death. Did you mean to let me do that?
Speech on the way out of the level:
"
friend"
"
slaughter"
"
banished"
"
he killed many"
"
where"
"
reaction"
"
destroyed"
"
too much"
The cutscene continues long after the speech part is over.
And I'm curious: what is an "
artiminy"
?
Overall, this level is a good start. You've got a bunch of interesting ideas here, which could be polished into something great.
The Lunacy Chamber:
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×Level Description: "
You descend the stairs into a strange giant chamber."
speech: "
strange"
I'm sorry, but I don't like this level. You have 25 wide open rooms, each with a scattering of aumtlich. Doing essentially the same thing 25 times is boring, boring, boring.
To improve the level, you might try making it smaller. Maybe 4 rooms instead of 25 rooms.
Or you could try varying the puzzles in each room. Have you played Erik's hold,
Down the Grimmish Hole? That might give you some ideas for what to do with aumtlich besides walking up to them and killing them.
Deep Lunacy Chambers
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×Level Description: "Wow... These places are crowded. Strange symbols, 39th slayer is alive. Weird, you know, I wonder why there were aumtlich back up there." (the plural of aumtlich is aumtlich)
This level is better than the previous level. 5 somewhat similar rooms is not too much. And with the exception of 3W and 4W (which have nearly identical solutions - maybe one could be tweaked) there is a different challenge in each room. My favorite is 1W, because of the dangerous race to get the speed potion at the beginning.
In 3W and 4W, you use scripting to enforce the condition that I kill the brains last. I always prefer nonscripted methods for this kind of thing. For example, you could have one brain in a force arrow trap that could only be escaped if a green door opened when I killed that brain.
3,000,000 feet under the ground: (note: if you leave that period in your level name, it will look really weird in the H&S forum search)
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×Level Description: "You descend the stairs... and descend... and descend... But finally you reach the bottom of a really deep pit."
The darkness and excessive fog make it really hard to see the floors and monsters. This really detracts from an otherwise good level. I had to go back to the Settings screen and turn alpha blending off again.
1S1E - Another horde room with a speed potion. I'll forgive this one since it's the first that's had wraithwings in it, which makes it a little different from the previous speed potion horde rooms.
1S2E - This is a very nice idea. Using the mimic to deal with the brains early makes managing the roach queens much easier.
2S2E - Also a nice idea. I like how one of the eyes on the east side can only be removed by an adder.
3S3E - Just a note about scripting. When you have a working set of stairs, a "go to level entrance" script is completely unnecessary.
The ascent: (note: if you leave that period in your level name, it will look really weird in the H&S forum search)
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×This level really woke me up. The story is getting interesting here. Nice job!
Entrance - The scripting in this room is exactly how I like scripting used in a hold. It enhances the story (really funny, prepares the player for upcoming swordless puzzles) but doesn't mess with any one particular puzzle. Well done.
Why is darkness needed in this room?
speech: "there's an old rusty keyhole" "my sword's stuck" "there is no point going back"
1N - I like this simple kill-the-golem-with-slayer puzzle. It's a good introductory puzzle for a swordless level.
level entrance text: "further up"
speech: "pretty sure"
scripting: why not set the stairs to the correct destination and lose the "go to level entrance" script?
2N - The clone in the northeast makes it possible to skip the second set of stairs and skip the wubba section of this room. The clone potions make it possible to skip the room and go on to 3N.
It's not too hard to kill everything in the east side either with mimic swords or hot tiles.
3N - This room is good practice using an inactive clone as an obstacle for killing serpents. However, it is also possible to use that clone to create a backtracking problem. Place it by the northern stairs and exit without solving the room. The green door will prevent the player from coming back and solving it later. To fix the backtracking problem, fill in the green door so it covers (31,12) as well, so the clone cannot be placed there. (Yes, you can put a level entrance on top of a closed green door.)
Why is there a fegundo in this room? I didn't use it.
And what's this about a speed potion factory? I didn't see it mentioned again in the hold. Is that a teaser for the next hold in the series?
4N - Some very simple serpent manipulation. (Simple is good, because the type of person who will enjoy your hold most is also the type of person who hates difficult serpent manipulation.) However... challenge! For the snake pros: kill the serpents without ever stepping on the "road" floor.
4N1E - Hmmm... I wonder, what's the Terra Vista?
4N1W - It was fun getting an adder to bite the roach off my tail. In this room, the snake pros won't need the hot tiles.
5N - Wow, all of a sudden we have a lot of people here.
The Chosen One Test
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×Eeeee-yuck! This level should have been entered in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly Contest, as it is certainly a contender. There is nothing anyone can possibly say that would make me remotely enjoy bumping around between light blue floors and light blue walls and light blue pits trying to find where I'm supposed to go. There are probably a few people in the forum who do enjoy this, but I don't think the average response to the aesthetics of this level will be positive.
The story in this level is okay. At the end of the hold, I'm still wondering why Beethro walked into a "
test"
. This is like everyone's favorite school nightmare: stroll into class and suddenly... omg! it's a test! Was it a trap for Beethro, or just his dumb luck? The invisible skimmies are much less offensive than the image walls and floor and pit, and I think they would make enough of a "
test"
for Beethro. Finding a stalwart buddy to help out with the test is also a nice touch.
Entrance - This room is the worst offender on the level. You can sorta see from the shadows where the image walls are. But not the image pits. Clicking every square or bumping every square to find a path is just plain annoying.
The citizen in this room is confusing. He says, "
I'll meet you in the western room,"
but there is no room to the west. Beethro must exit north and then work his way to the eastern part of the level.
2N - I was relieved right along with Beethro when he got his sword back. But I didn't really see the point of the skimmy part of the room. This is the only room on the level where they don't move, so it's not really representative of their behavior.
speech: "
It's not my sword but it will do."
1N1E - This skimmy room is a much better representation of what's to come in the later skimmy rooms.
1N2E - I like the idea in this room, using skimmies to survive a horde of monsters. Not sure why you chose golems, though. That group of golems could be defeated safely without the help of the skimmies.
2E - As advertised by the scroll, this room does adequately illustrate that skimmies are based on wraithwings.
3E - This is an interesting room, as the player may use the skimmies to make it harder (kill them all before going for the queens) or easier (rush straight to the queens using the skimmies as a shield).
1E - Ugh, image pits again. At least it has monsters which help show what's what, so I don't have to guess so much. I didn't mind this room nearly as much as the Entrance.
1S1E - This is an okay tarstuff cutting and baby horde room. Note that the player does not need to remove all the tarstuff when conquering the room, as they can exit back north. The skimmies were annoying here.
Not sure why you have a script to activate the orb at (27,14). The player can strike that orb himself at any time.
1S2E - Not much of a puzzle here, but a nice story development.
speech: "
I'm Areano the smitemaster."
2S2E - I like the idea of some teamwork between Beethro and the stalwart, but this puzzle is not very original. It's just like
The City Beneath : Frozen Depths : 1 North, 2 West
3S2E - This room is okay, but again, kind of like
The City Beneath : Frozen Depths : 2 North, 3 West. I'd really like to see what kind of teamwork puzzle you'd make on your own. The force arrows and yellow door to the baby generator area are unnecessary. The one SW arrow and the black door are sufficient to force Beethro to enter the stalwart area last.
4S2E
scroll: "
subject"
"
never got past"
Epologue: (I think you mean Epilogue)
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×Entrance - I didn't realize until looking in the editor that it's 106th slayer who makes an appearance here.
Did you mean "Tueno" and "Glorthorred"?
speech: "I've gotta warn the stalwarts about the slayers." "then he bred and cloned"
Did you mean "want smitemasters and stalwarts" or "warn smitemasters and stalwarts"?
Well aright. Attached to this post is an editable version.
Because it all depended on where you entered the room.
I still have the original lunacy chamber.
/dy