I just finished and rated all the entries.
My commentary
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Basement of Le Trec by Zch
I liked this one, both in terms of the puzzles involved (which were all clever and involved some interesting manipulation of snakes and other monsters) and in terms of the level design. I liked the contrast of the nice open ring design in the NW square and the "going around the ring" design of the SE square.
Overall, this was well put-together, with plenty of high-quality rooms, and at my ideal level of difficulty. The stinger at the end was a real "oh, why didn't I think of that earlier" bit. Well done!
Score: 10/10
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Blorx1's entry
The Entrance and 1E were a pair of interesting guard puzzles with small space. However, I was wondering what the point of the three-mimic chamber with the brain and two eyes was, since that didn't enter into either solution beyond just killing everything once the orb was hit (which opened the conquer token door anyway)
2N and 2N1E were an interesting puzzle, but once I solved one I solved the other in essentially the same manner. I don't see how they were meant to be different.
1N1W and 1N2W were an interesting case study in exploiting room geometry, which had very different solutions brought about by the two room states.
1S and 1S1E were both interesting puzzles revolving around keeping one monster alive. I thought 1S was easier since it just involved keeping the goblin around. 1S1E required comparatively more trial and error.
There are two main criticisms I have about this hold. The first, more important, is that there aren't any checkpoints in the entire hold, which would have been very helpful in many rooms, particularly 1S1E. The second is that I saw three reuses of the same room element (brained preferences of going West versus East when there's a choice) in order to change the room, through pressure plates pressed by monsters - this made the rooms play more like Constant Room Templates than true Reflectorations.
This was a pretty good effort, though. I just think it could have done with some polish.
Score: 8/10
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Mirrorland by Jacob
1E and 1W were interesting, but 1E seemed unsatisfyingly easy since all I had to do for that room was drop all the trapdoors and wait for everything to kill itself. 1W was harder since there was a lynchpin involved that made the room more complicated. 1S1W was unexpectedly a third (and presumably 1S1E, truly, a fourth) example, which was also interesting with timing. 1S1E used the final set of choices, and was easier with the experience of the other rooms.
All four room were a good example of one room reflected about X, Y, and both axes and behaving differently each time. It reminded me of a Master Lock. My only concern is that 1E was a little too easy (probably by necessity) and that the Entrance (and 1S) aren't symmetrical about the horizontal center of the room. Minor quibbles.
Score: 9/10
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RC Reflecto-what by Noma
The Entrance actually took me a while, but once I realized that the primary goal was just to keep everything on the pressure plates, and the mirrors would be helpful, the room fell apart. I killed the goblins at the start and just used roaches spawned from the queen to hold everything down.
2S was also tricky, as I had to figure out the correct sequence of moves that would let me get a lot of golems out of the rock giants to hold down pressure plates. Wasn't too hard though.
Sassy Entrance didn't seem different at all, even though it was rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise. Neither did 2E. In fact, in neither 2 room did the rattlesnake or mud babies ever become useful - they were just an obstruction.
Overall, these were 4 OK puzzle rooms, but I'm going to have to heavily penalize this entry for not really changing the puzzles through reflectoration.
Score: 3/10
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Reflectorations by BoyBlue
1N wasn't too hard - I just shuffled back and forth with my sword North to hold the Aumtlich at bay while I killed off the roaches. Then I lit the fuse and killed the Aumtlich and goblins. 1N1E was a bit trickier, but fell apart once I hit the cracked (non-broken) orb with my sword and broke some of the lower orbs, making two walls of broken orbs. Running around the goblins was made easier by that innovation.
1S1E was easy since I just blew up the bombs, hit the eastern pressure plate, and then used the tar/gel token multiple times to clear the 6x6 tarstuff blob. 1S was similarly easy. It's worth noting that since this room is symmetrical about the horizontal center, reflecting this room horizontally does nothing to change the monster properties except change the direction of the arrow rotator tokens (which wasn't part of the rules). So in both rooms we have to hit the eastern bomb and head East if we want the tar baby movement order to sort itself out and let us kill both of them.
This was OK, but surprisingly lacking in content and in difficulty.
Score: 7/10
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Reflectorations by Penwielder
2S1W and 2S1E were a pair of masterfully-done path puzzles that really showcased a good application of a little-known DROD property. Specifically, on-off pressure plates have a "movement order" of operations - all plates released in the same turn act from left to right, then top to bottom. So in both rooms, an even number of red pressure plates must be to the right of each green pressure plate (since each green pressure plate opens their respective door). Flipping the room changes the pressure plate layout and forces a new path to be constructed. The small size of grid (5x5) made it fun to logic out how the path would need to be laid out without necessitating using Photoshop or drawing.
I had less fun solving 3S1W and 3S1E. I did my best to try and optimize my Aumtlich-turning, trying to get Aumtlich fried as soon as possible (i.e. when facing so that they were "looking over" at least one empty cell) and turning multiple Aumtlich at once, but I wasn't able to plan it out very well and I think I solved both rooms mostly by luck. As such, I found 3S1E easier than 3S1W because it gave me more turns (I solved that one with one "move" left), and found 3S1W harder, even though the Explanation Scroll says the difficulty should have been the reverse.
Points for originality and high quality of puzzles of the type I like, points off for offputting and complicated difficulty of the type I and other people don't like.
Score: 8/10
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Techant's Reflectorations
1N1W wasn't hard since I just had to get the serpent to press the plate (cutting the fuse), get the Aumtlich to light it (didn't even have to keep it on the pressure plate), then put the Slayer back *on* the plate and leave. 1N1E was even easier since the Aumtlich did the hard work of blowing up the serpent and brain for me, leaving me to kill the Aumtlich and leave as before. 1S1E was only a bit harder than 1N1W, since I had to actually coax the serpent down towards the bomb so it could be blown up. 1S1W was interesting in that it actually gave me a timer to get the serpent into the explosion area, but it wasn't much harder. All four rooms acted differently, but all were rather easy to complete. Not a bad thing, but the Slayer never really played any part in the room other than holding down the plate for me when I was done - and the three mirrors on pillars out in the pits never were relevant either.
1W and 1E were initially intimidating until I figured out I could just use the fegundos to blow up one or both roots and then blow up or kill everything else on the map more or less at my leisure. I was disappointed in all cases that the hot tiles on the north and south borders didn't lead to the corner rooms due to walls in those rooms (and therefore there was a border mismatch).
Overall, this was a fun, short hold with one quartet and one pair. However, both rooms relied on the same phenomenon, noted earlier (clockwise and counterclockwise change with respect to a reflected room). I merely enjoy more difficult puzzles or hack-and-slashing that at least makes me stop and strategize, and this hold didn't do that for me. The butterfly idea was nice, "cute" even, if I may venture to apply that word to blocky hold-art, but it didn't strike me as particularly high-quality or polished with effort.
Not bad, just not my preference.
Score: 7/10
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The Western Desert by Tahnan
1E was a relatively simple manipulation puzzle dependent upon the roach's vertical preference. 1N was a 90 degree counterclockwise rotation of the same room, which due to the vertical preference rule swapped the two enclaves I had to put the roach and goblin into. Simple, but effective.
1N1E, obviously, was the stinger - a 45-degree rotation! I was secretly wondering if anyone would try something like that when the contest started, but kept the thought to myself.
The literary(?) reference went over my head until the architect explained it to me, and the commentary mirrored my thoughts.
Overall, this was a good inspiration. What I would like to have seen would have been a second triplet further exploring the same idea, or a lynchpin based upon vertical preference. Still, not a bad try for this contest from someone who says he's a bad architect.
Score: 7/10
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