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File: Cycles.hold (17.6 KB)
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This is a minimalistic hold starring persistently-moving citizens, with no build markers.

You're either going to love it, or hate it. Or think it's just sort of okay.

mxvladi
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 2505
Registered: 02-11-2008
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A new hold by Boyblue, this time feauturing citizens(and relay stations). Each room has persistent-movement token.

Even though this hold is about citizens, its is not random at all. BoyBlue explains all tricks you need to solve the puzzles in scrolls, and persistently-moving citizens are quite predictable.

This is one of BoyBlue's easiest holds, too, I think. Very enjoyable anyway.

You should try it, even if you hate citizens.

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[Last edited by mxvladi at 03-31-2010 03:14 PM]

jbluestein
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1670
Registered: 12-23-2005
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Well, this is an unusual hold. But given that it's a BoyBlue production, that may not be terribly surprising.

As the description says, every room in the hold involves persistently-moving citizens. As you may know, a persistently-moving citizen never changes targets unless
a) they reach their target, or
b) the target they were moving towards disappears.

This gives the citizens in these rooms something you don't see very often, which is a set of relatively predictable movement patterns. All of the puzzles in this hold revolve around some sort of interaction with persistent citizens -- whether it's making sure they choose the right targets, or forcing them to move in a particular way...it's possible there's a trick involving persistent citizens that BoyBlue missed, but so far I haven't been able to think of one.

The puzzles vary in difficulty -- a few are extremely easy, most are middling-to-hard. A few are pretty tough. Many require experimentation (at least, they did for me) as they rely on a not entirely obvious detail of citizen movement. That said, all of the puzzles are entirely logical.

I didn't actually love every puzzle in this hold -- a few just didn't do it for me, but that was maybe three out of 35-ish rooms. Overall, the puzzles are well considered, interesting, and just plain fun.

I give this hold 6.5 brains for difficulty and a 9 for fun.

Josh

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

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[Last edited by jbluestein at 03-31-2010 03:19 PM]

Chaco
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 3624
Registered: 10-06-2005
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I played this hold on the Architecture board, and I think this hold is better than it sounds. There's some interesting and unique situations in here, and most of these puzzles fall to logic. I think it would be worth it to at least try out some of the puzzles on the first level.

I would second BoyBlue's opinion in that I liked it, but everyone else's mileage may vary.

____________________________
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Someone Else
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1300
Registered: 06-14-2005
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I'm really liking this. Quite inventive and fun!

BoyBlue
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 547
Registered: 03-25-2006
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By the way, after you reach a new level, you can go back and talk to the security guard. (Though that's not useful for anything.)

Tahnan
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2459
Registered: 11-14-2005
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This is a lovely hold, and really opened my eyes to the potential of the persistence token (which I don't think I've ever really seen used; it's thrown into a couple of JtRH TCB rooms, but that's about it). A few of the rooms felt tedious and guessworky--on Level 2, 2N comes to mind; and a few of them, like L2:1S and L3:2N, felt like flat-out trial-and-error rooms, where I suppose it's possible to take a printout of the room and plan your attack very carefully, but it seems much easier to just dive in, break walls, and see where it gets you.

But in the vast majority of the rooms, I thought it was pretty clear what needed to happen, which left me staring to figure out how to do it. ("I need three citizens on these three spots simultaneously. That means...moving that one off its path to the north, and this other one needs to be slowed down for a few...hm, let's see...") And that staring might have taken some time, but it always worked out through patient, logical thought.

Play this hold. Ask for hints if you get stuck; it's an easy hold to give hints for, because the goals are well-defined. Try it; you'll like it.

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[Last edited by Tahnan at 04-07-2010 06:45 AM]

Briareos
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 3516
Registered: 08-07-2005
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By the way - I think Cyriak Harris made a real-life(ish) interpretation of this hold here...

____________________________
"I'm not anti-anything, I'm anti-everything, it fits better." - Sole
R.I.P. Robert Feldhoff (1962-2009)

OneMoreNameless
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 131
Registered: 07-31-2010
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Eeeeeeeeh. I didn't enjoy this hold so much (currently stopped midway through the 2nd level). The puzzles are almost all simple, clever tricks in and of themselves ... but since they do all focus purely on manipulating the same behavior, often with a degree of trial and error, the hold as a whole becomes rather tedious. The simple room design and non-linearity of the levels actually makes this worse, since you need to solve quite a few puzzles before being rewarded - other than the satisfaction of having solved yet another similar puzzle, which didn't really do it for me here.

It is well put together though. So if you're patient and enjoy these kinds of puzzles, have it at it. Otherwise I'd give it a miss.