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File: No-monster hold compilation.hold (449.5 KB)
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The compilation of no-monster contest i hosted a while ago, with a few extra puzzles by mxvladi. This took us so long because we were waiting for permission of contest participants (sorry if i'm offending)

CuriousShyRabbit
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 3170
Registered: 10-14-2006
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Here is a very interesting compilation of two monsterless holds that could have been oh so much better with some beta testing. Most definitely worth a look, but you'll have to suffer through a lack of checkpoints, some cheap unintended solutions, and some broken scripting.

Within, you'll find:
* Computer-generated voice acting.
* A hold by skell, where you puzzle your way through... a pizza! Medium difficulty.
* A hold by lopsidation based on wubba, fegundo, and mimic manipulation. A deep understanding of vertical preference and movement order is needed to solve these difficult puzzles. By design though, most of them are skippable, so you can experience the story without banging your head against the wall too much.
* A secret room by mxvladi.

mxvladi
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 2505
Registered: 02-11-2008
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I enjoyed both level made by skell and level made by lopsidation. While skell's level was easy, fun and nice relaxing from lopsidation's tough puzzles(or preparation to them), lopsidation's level was fairly tough, but still very enjoyable(in particular fegundo puzzles in the second level! ).

As CSR said, this hold indeed suffers from a couple of USes and lack of checkpoints. Too bad 13th submitted hold too early, without waiting for anybody to test it in Architecture board.

6 brains, 7 for fun.

Dischorran
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 3414
Registered: 09-10-2005
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Based on what I could see of this hold's history in Architecture, I was expecting relatively little from it. Certainly, it doesn't start well what with the "voice acting" and all.

The two entries, however, are very much worth playing. Lopsidation's is quite hard, but has some very neat puzzles and is well laid out to allow players to choose the rooms that are either easiest or most enjoyable to complete the hold (or, in at least one case, unintentionally easy). skell's is less notable for puzzle quality, but is nonetheless quite enjoyable and more tractable for a general audience.

So yeah, this hold is worth a look, if not a listen. As karma goes I'd probably recommend hunting down a post of lopsidation's or skell's before boosting this hold directly. But hey, better published than not.

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larrymurk
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1917
Registered: 12-09-2004
IP: Logged

Good hold. Kudos to Lopsidation who I feel made just as enjoyable puzzles as any without using monsters.

jbluestein
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1670
Registered: 12-23-2005
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So I played through much of this hold last night. Mostly pretty decent, overall a mixed bag.

skell's Pizza-themed levels were fairly fun and neither too difficult nor tedious (although I thought that the platform manipulation on the Dough level was excessive).

The rooms in lopsidation's entry were overall pretty good and fairly tough. I played a decent portion of the first level the way it was intended, but I found major USes in two rooms and skipped over another three because, well...there's only so much of any one type of puzzle I feel like playing at any given time.

I took a shot at the first room on the second level and resolved to come back to it later. It's tough stuff, and it requires some fairly exacting movement.

Overall? Well, I'm going to round it up to 7 brains because of lopsidation's stuff (possibly should be higher), and I give it a 7 for fun as well.

I feel like this could have been a lot more interesting, though. Monsterless holds have a huge amount of potential (see The Goblin) and I think there's still room to explore. While this hold was enjoyable, I don't think it broke as much new ground as I would have preferred.

Josh

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"Rings and knots of joy and grief, all interlaced and locking." --William Buck