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File: Penwielders Palace.hold (40.3 KB)
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This is the Architect's Edition hold I made a while ago before I bought The City Beneath. It contains six progressively difficult levels plus a small seventh one. Each is themed loosely around a different game element and has a dominant architectural style or layout. The puzzles themselves range from simply skewering bunches of roaches to maneuvering roaches to maneuver mimics to kill the brain which made it possible in the first place.

Enjoy!

CuriousShyRabbit
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 3170
Registered: 10-14-2006
IP: Logged

Introducing Penwielder!

Even though Architect's Edition has a limited set of game elements, this hold demonstrates again that there are plenty of new puzzles left to be made with them. As described above, it contains a wide range of puzzle types and difficulty levels. There's something for everyone in here.

The final two levels were my favorites, and my favorite puzzles include: Palace of Ice 3N2E, Chambers of Goo 3S2W, The Green Sea 1S, the pair of rooms The Green Sea 1S1E & 1S2E, The Green Sea 1S1E, The Green Sea 3S1E, and Halls of Silence 1W.

jbluestein
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1670
Registered: 12-23-2005
IP: Logged

OK, so...I was one of the HAs reviewing this hold, and I have to admit that when I started it I was seriously unimpressed.

The first level is extremely easy and not very interesting, and I was afraid that I would have to slog through a whole set of levels of about the same level of difficulty and value.

I am very pleased to say that I was absolutely wrong in my first impression of the hold. The rooms and levels become more complex and interesting, and the difficulty level picks up nicely as well.

My favorite levels were not quite the last ones -- I liked the Palace of Ice and Green Sea the best. Chambers of Goo was not bad but I didn't feel like it really lived up to the promise of some of the other, better levels.

Overall, though, a really nice first offering! I give this hold a 7 for fun and 5 brains of difficulty.

And I would request that a sysadmin remove the annoying '1' vote from this hold, as it's pretty clearly undeserved (and I'm pretty sure that none of the three people who have actually posted high scores for this hold are responsible for that vote).

(Hey, here's an idea: Maybe you should only be able to rate a hold that you've posted high scores for some percentage of? It wouldn't stop the obnoxious bogus votes, perhaps, but it would make them work harder for it...)

Josh

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

Jatopian
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1842
Registered: 07-31-2005
IP: Logged

That idea would take voting away from people without CaravelNet or scoring.

____________________________
DROD has some really great music.
Make your pressure plates 3.0 style!
DROD architecture idea generator

Rheb
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1211
Registered: 08-04-2006
IP: Logged

What about automatically removing all votes (good and bad) that are too far away from the average hold rating? Say 5-6 points.

Sorry for posting off topic. I'll download the hold now

Edit: Answering the post bellow:
2nd Edit: Actually, I'm ok with jbluestein's idea as an alternative too. Maybe someone should create a poll about this.

____________________________
Voligner is my very own DROD-like game. Please check it out!

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[Last edited by Rheb at 11-15-2009 12:09 PM]

Jatopian
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1842
Registered: 07-31-2005
IP: Logged

Also bad, because it would give the first voter too much power to set things too high or too low.

You can propose fixes for that too, but it's always going to come back to manually fixing things, so one might as well not change the system in the first place. No technological solution to this social problem.

____________________________
DROD has some really great music.
Make your pressure plates 3.0 style!
DROD architecture idea generator

Penwielder
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 628
Registered: 09-12-2009
IP: Logged

I'm not too worried about it, honestly; it'll balance out over time. But wait a moment... now it says there are 3 votes and the mean is 7.3. Unless CSR or the prank guy changed h(is/er) vote, that's not possible. Better yet (and more likely), maybe the 1-vote was eliminated.

jbluestein wrote:
The first level is extremely easy and not very interesting, and I was afraid that I would have to slog through a whole set of levels of about the same level of difficulty and value.

I am very pleased to say that I was absolutely wrong in my first impression of the hold. The rooms and levels become more complex and interesting, and the difficulty level picks up nicely as well.
Josh

One other thing I could mention about this hold is that I think it depicts quite nicely my journey from being 'yet another ( ) architect' to being a halfway descent one.

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Penwielder's Palace, Detention Complex, Archipelago, Cube of Memories

TheGreenPhantom
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 39
Registered: 09-11-2009
IP: Logged

I love this hold - There are many different puzzles, sure, they're all hard for me.. but they all have one thing in common (other than being hard and nice) : They're fun. That's what makes this hold so good. It's also a hold from a very old version of the game, with very little elements, and this shows the creativity you put into it.

OT: Why not a voting voting system? (Sounds very crazy, but it may work) where many people will vote if a vote is reasonable or not. However, that may result in voting voting voting, and then voting voting voting voting and so on.

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I am not made of matter.. does it matter if you are made of matter? Or does it not matter if you are made of matter?

noma
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1594
Registered: 11-22-2006
IP: Logged

And conquered! This was a very sneaky hold. It lures you in with seemingly easy, though enjoyable, puzzles. You're just innocently playing along, thinking how nice it is to play something "simple" and straightforward, and then once you're sucked in, the difficulty level ramps up and you're reminded that tricky, fun, and yes, new puzzles are possible using just the elements from 'back in the day.' Sure, there are some just-okay rooms, but nothing is really tedious. (Well, there were a couple of rooms in Chambers of Goo I could've done without.) But overall the rooms and levels are nicely designed and well laid out, and there are some real gems to be found. I'd say the puzzle difficulty ranges from 2-5, with a few rooms edging up into the 7 range. I only needed a nudge--well, more of a shove--on one room. (What would we do without CSR?)

There were also more than a few rooms that when I first them, I thought, "Ugh, too many orbs", or "...too much goo" or too much something. But surprisingly--and I think this is a sign of a good architect--even after hundreds of moves, or dozens of restarts, I would find myself totally intrigued and engaged. I look forward to seeing more from Penwielder.

Warning: there are two rooms that start with force arrows: HoS 1N & TGS 1S, 1E. If you're an optimiser, make sure you've hit a checkpoint in a completed nearby room before entering, in case you need to adjust sword direction. (Request to architects: if you're going to do this, please, please, put a line of checkpoints at the edge of the room from where the player enters. Since I hadn't hit a checkpoint in the last room I completed, I had to re-do a 400+ move room to fix my sword orientation.) Speaking of optimisers... There is loads of opportunity waiting for you, though you'll find that the checkpoints were not placed with the optimiser in mind. *sigh* I did feel that overall the checkpoints could have been better placed, but that's what I get for not getting involved at the architecture stage.

Fun: 8
Brains: 4.5

fratropea
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 87
Registered: 11-05-2005
IP: Logged

As Noma says, to the beginning it lures you for simplicity,
but then the difficulty increases...(I still haven't resolved the last level).
In any case, every room is pleasant and a lot of these are
very tricky!
I appreciate so much these holds with elements of the "old Drod"
This hold shows that with few elements can be done a great hold!

brains:6
fun: 8

coasterbear
Level: Roachling
Rank Points: 13
Registered: 06-22-2009
IP: Logged

I really loved this hold...one of the best I've downloaded!

Dischorran
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 3414
Registered: 09-10-2005
IP: Logged

This is a good hold, remarkable for two reasons.

First, it's a well-executed AE hold, with a nice variety of rooms, which tend to look much more annoying than they actually are. It could probably use more checkpoints, but it's hardly unique in that respect. The clever level layouts with interlocking paths, especially in the Palace of Ice, are a particularly nice feature.

Second, as already noted, it's a first hold. It's neat to watch the author's progression from plunking down some roach hordes and calling it a wrap to designing interesting mimic puzzles and tar horde management rooms.

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OneMoreNameless
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 131
Registered: 07-31-2010
IP: Logged

This probably isn't the best hold to solve as an experienced player, since the earlier levels are simple and some of the tar rooms in the middle can get a bit tedious. In my case as someone returning to DROD after several years, it was very enjoyable for the same reasons: Starting with simple roach killing and smoothly progressing from unremarkable mimic stuff to tricky enemy manipulation and genuinely challenging puzzles, all the while honing basic smiting skills.

There were a few anomalies along the way - eg. I had to spoil Palace of Ice 6N 1W for relying on an enemy quirk - but for the most part the rooms were well designed and fun. The last level in particular was very pretty while still including solid puzzles in most rooms.

This hold isn't for everyone, but for those it is, it's definitely worthwhile playing.