Whew! That was a lot of replaying needed to get those secrets. Thanks for the help. I've now postmastered this hold.
Regarding the use of Caravel's media, you should always ask, even if you're pretty sure the answer will be "
yes"
. I've been gone for a while, but it looks like I still have the "
power"
to hand out permissions. Please see this
post.
Tahnan's a good writer. You might consider accepting his offer of proofreading help. To export the all the text from your hold, set "
ExportText=1"
in your drod.ini, restart DROD, and re-export your hold.
Finally, here are some more specific comments on the puzzles.
Carlos Level 1
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×This is an appropriately easy level. The citizen puzzles show show helpless Carlos is at the beginning of this story.
1N - This room shows how the player will expect power tokens to work, as the behavior is unscripted here, and this is how they act in other holds. Later in the hold, you activate them by scripting, which is confusing. It would be better if you placed power tokens on the room entrance squares when you want them activated immediately.
When I conquer this room, I exit south, as that takes fewer moves. Then, when I re-enter, the speech "Now how am I going to open that door" repeats.
2N - The scripted behavior in this room could be reproduced using only pressure plates, that pop up when the evil eyes wake. When there's choice, I personally prefer unscripted behavior, that the player can predict by just looking at the room.
3N - A scroll that explains the scripted behavior, as you have in this room, works too.
4N - Hehehe! The story in this room sets up the following "boss" room perfectly.
5N - To me, this chase felt long. I know how to move such that a guard will stand still and wave his sword around, and I know how to like up a guard 4 squares away from the player such that I can run around him. I felt like I kept doing the same things again and again. I was glad when this chase was over.
6N - By contrast, this room is quick and fun. The guard was gone before the adder crossed the second force arrow.
Bill Level 1
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×These goblin puzzles are also appropriately easy. They show that Bill is not a "rookie". He's pretty good at beating up his enemies.
Power tokens on all room entrance squares would be less confusing than activating them by scripting.
1N, 2N, and 3N - These rooms work fine. Yup, Bill is pretty good at beating up roaches.
3N1E - This room felt unnecessarily long to me. Bill beats up 11 spawns of roaches in exactly the same way before he can move to the other side. After that's finally done, the puzzle is decent.
3N2E - This room also felt unnecessarily long to me. After running around to kill the two queens, Bill steps back and forth between the same two squares for 200 turns to hold the guards in place while Carlos finishes building.
Carlos Level 2
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×With immediate power token activation in each room, these aren't really stalwart puzzles, they're Beethro puzzles in disguise. Anyway, Carlos seems a lot more competent with a sword.
1S1E - I didn't understand why there are two stalwarts in this part of the story?
1S2E - But it's too bad there's no way to save him in this room.
1S3E - Very easy. I suppose the purpose of this room is just to ensure that I approach 1S1E from the north.
2E - Very nice room! A mirror maze where the two sides aren't exactly mirror images is quite interesting to solve. In Rabscuttle's hold,
The Wrong Way, he also uses "
reverse mimics"
in the hub level, and they don't have problems with waiting or bumping. Maybe you'd be interested in looking at how he did it? (Not quite the same as mirror mimics though.)
2N3E - Seeing the pressure plates depress at the beginning of the room made me look around for spiders. Is there another way to achieve the same effect? Otherwise, this is a straightforward room, with a nice little gel cutting problem in the SW.
2N2E - Using briar to clear inaccessible mud is a neat little trick.
2N1E - I redid this room to save the tar technician. That's a lot of tar cutting! Some Spanish has crept into the English version of this room.
5N2E - So is this clone cooperating with the king who wants to start the war, or is he a separate enemy?
1N5E - Quick and fun for players who know the snake movement rules. My best time is 81 moves, and I'm sure it can be done faster than that.
Bill Level 2
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×1E - The scroll makes me think there's supposed to be an invisibility potion in the SE box. There isn't.
2E - I still don't know who that other stalwart is, but it's fun to see this room from both Bill and Carlos' perspective.
1S2E - Similar to a briar race I remember from TCB, where I had to open up pit to slow the briar down just enough.
1S3E - That clue earlier in the level was quite helpful here.
1S4E - Bill is pretty good at beating up guards, with the help of potions. I tried to do this room without the invisibility potion, but failed. Has anyone done it?
2S3E - I wonder if orthosquares, as in Bill Level 1 3N2E, would fix the unintended solution?
Carlos Level 3
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×The four huge empty rooms at the beginning of this level gave me the impression that this level is not finished.
1S3E - A simple puzzle based on a green sister door. There are more than enough golems for the job here.
4E - A clever tar mother trick is used here. I had fun figuring this one out.
5E - It took a lot of trial and error to find the correct opening moves.
1N3E - The many pressure plates and the limited number of mirrors makes this a tricky puzzle. It took me a while.
1N4E - The tunnel adds a twist to the classic trapdoor puzzle.
1N5E - Messing with the orbs at the bottom gave the waterskipper horde some time to grow.
1N6E - Another nice puzzle based on a green sister door. No extra monsters in this one.
7E - This is my favorite of the long "boss" rooms. The behavior is predictable, except for Bill's appearance at the end, which I enjoyed. And there's plenty of opportunity for optimization. For example, the player can time the appearance of new roach queens against the spawn cycle. Very nice job.
8E - Quick and easy slayer manipulation.
Bill Level 3
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×I like the cameras as a custom puzzle element in this level. 1N provides ample description of what they do. This is my favorite Bill level.
1N1E - Good idea to practice avoiding cameras without monsters before reaching rooms with both.
1E - Very nice puzzle involving brained and unbrained monster movement. A brained wraithwing and an unbrained roach can avoid the cameras.
1N2E - The idea of feeding an adder until it's long enough is fine. The brain characters used as the adder's food were confusing. I expected the adder to follow brained snake movement rules, when it actually acted unbrained.
2E - Another decent camera avoiding puzzle. The spiders didn't add much to this room.
2N2E - I didn't like this "boss" puzzle much. Basically, I ran around the same loop again and again for 200 turns.
After that, the race through 2N3E, 3N3E, and 2N4E was fun.
2N5E - Thanks for the tip about the scroll. I finally noticed that the number on the scroll is changing. I don't understand what reward the player gets by having a smaller number on the scroll. Every player who wants a highscore for this room will use the trivial 40-move "solution", and then redo the room in order to reach the secret.
secret - Only two guards to beat up in here? I was expecting something more.
Epilogue
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×Entrance - Beating up guards is a good way to start the final chapter of the story.
1N - Bill and Carlos are now a much better team than they were in Bill Level 1.
2N - This room made me laugh. There was a room in TCB where Beethro released monsters for a stalwart to kill. It's so much easier here where the player has control of the stalwart!
Tar technician secret - The speech here makes it obvious that the player is supposed to kill the slayer. Getting the mirror out for that is a good puzzle.
6N - Killing that one "boss" monster took forever, but there's plenty of room for improvement in my score. I was using two of those eggs(?) per cycle, and there must be a way to use another. The gradual appearance of aumtlich prevented me from doing the same thing over and over every cycle. Killing "Beethro" at the end was rather amusing.
The subsequent 700-turn race to the end of the level reminded me of The Second Realm in Val Unrich.
6N1E - What's with the giant empty room? This looks unfinished.
6N1E - Nice pressure plate trick. I haven't used this one in a while.
5N2E and 4N2E worked fine.
Good ending secret - Interesting. I'm not sure what it means though. Is a sequel in the works?
Boss Fights
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×I'm sorry, but I really didn't like this level. If I wanted to solve the boss rooms without checkpoints, I could turn them off in my Settings screen. Solving the boss rooms without checkpoints is not harder, because I can just copy my previous demos. It's just annoying.
An exception is 4E. The ending of this fight is quite different without Bill. IMHO, this is what you should be doing with all the rooms on this level. Have alternate or more challenging versions of all the boss rooms, with checkpoints added back in, of course.
While there are a few really good puzzles in this holds, and a lot of other okay puzzles, the sum is definitely greater than its parts. The puzzles work together with the words to tell a very good story. I really enjoyed this hold.
ok, I'll fix that too
