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Here's a new hold for you to enjoy.

We've already met Beethro's Great Uncle Yurgess. Well, this hold was made by Uncle Arable.

It's a collection of rooms that contain only a few elements, do not involve complex manipulation or combat skills and which can generally be solved quite easily, once you've worked out the lynchpin.

It's sort of similar to holds like Think Outside the Box, Way Forward, Veere's Dungeon or Madness in the Spring (or other boyblue holds with lynchpins).

Are the rooms UncleArable? Well, Uncle Arable says he can complete each one in under 200 moves.

Thanks to Dischorran, Blondbeard, CuriousShyRabbit and mxvladi for testing.

CuriousShyRabbit
Level: Smitemaster
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Registered: 10-14-2006
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I spent a very pleasant evening with this hold. These rooms are like candy (M&Ms to be specific): not too hard, not too soft, and no way can you stop after playing just one.

There are a few examples of Jacob's specialty, pairs of rooms that look similar but have key variations that force very different solutions. These include 2N and 2S, the two puzzles in 2S1W, and the eastern and western secret rooms, which were my favorites. Other highlights for me included the briar puzzle in 2W, and the aumtlich maze in 1N1E. Oh, and I hope you like fish too, as some of these rooms (not saying which) are full of red herrings!

mxvladi
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 2505
Registered: 02-11-2008
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Fun, medium-sized hold by Jacob, with a bunch of interesting lynchpins. Some tricky rooms and some very interesting tricks here. A couple of rooms are very tricky without using any obscure techniques(they are my favourites). And a few rooms are not really lynchpin-based - it's clear what to do, however careful manipulation of monsters or elements is required.

Definetily worth playing!

PMIT
Level: Master Delver

Rank Points: 159
Registered: 02-08-2010
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This was a very enjoyable hold. There were lots of clever rooms here that force you to utilize tricks involving un-obscure behavior that I knew about, but had rarely seen used in rooms before. And yet, while some rooms were tricky, they were never frustratingly so (and there's plenty of other rooms to turn to if you get stuck on one early on). Amusingly, the room I was probably most stumped on involved a lynchpin concept I had thought of earlier that week! In case that wasn't telling, there's also some devious red herrings.

Overall I didn't find it terribly difficult, and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a relatively short, but enjoyable set of puzzles.

Edit: Also, since it hasn't been mentioned yet, this hold uses the BlueBricks style, which can be downloaded here

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aka VioletPumpkin

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[Last edited by PMIT at 09-22-2010 04:37 PM]

Tim
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1979
Registered: 08-07-2004
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It's a really nice hold, and, no, I haven't finished it yet, but I also just realised that


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Dischorran
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Tim wrote:
It's a really nice hold, and, no, I haven't finished it yet, but I also just realised that

Click here to view the secret text

×after completing 2W, I can't reach the next room anymore.

Wait, 2W's passage to 3W doesn't even connect to the main puzzle in 2W. If you mean 2E, you can (this probably doesn't need to be in secret tags, but anyway)

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Tim
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Dischorran wrote:
If you mean 2E, you can (this probably doesn't need to be in secret tags, but anyway)[...]

Thanks for the attempt, but I didn't mean 2E. 2E was a lot easier and I figured it out pretty quickly.
EDIT: Note that it isn't a real backtracking problem because it's not required, but I was a bit disappointed because I just spend some time to complete that previous room.

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The best way to lose customers is to let little kids running loose on a forum with too many mod points.

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[Last edited by Tim at 09-22-2010 11:57 AM]

Dischorran
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Registered: 09-10-2005
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OK, now I see the issue - I didn't check the tunnels in 1W carefully. Never mind, not accessible.

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Ivcha Pivcha
Level: Delver

Rank Points: 80
Registered: 08-02-2010
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Must admit that Uncle Arable's Rooms is Jacob's finest hold I ever played. Although it is small, rooms are variable and simple looking, lynchpin puzzles are great and some of them are really fiendish. Congratulations Jacob, you gave me some nightmares! Certainly for the DROD veterans it will be easy, but for the rest of the bunch it will be tough. I can guarantee you. It took me a while too beat it, but once I managed, I was extraordinary satisfied.10/10

____________________________
Never read books you aren't sure about . . . even supposing that these bad books are very well written from a literary point of view. Let me ask you this: Would you drink something you knew was poisoned just because it was offered to you in a golden cup? ~ St. John Bosco

Tahnan
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2460
Registered: 11-14-2005
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There's naturally a lot to like in this hold, but I'd like to single out the way that, in a few pairs of rooms, Jacob demonstrates how a minor change can lead to a radically different solution. (Probably my favorite of them is the 2N/2S pairing that differ only by swapping an open green gate with a closed one. 1W/1E, though not minimally different, also illustrate two very different ways to achieve the same goal, i.e. getting a mimic to stop following you quite so exactly.)

Play this hold! I mean, you'll suffer, because it's hard, but it's a good suffering.

da rogu3
Level: Smiter

Rank Points: 491
Registered: 04-06-2011
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This is a wonderful, medium sized, and not too difficult hold from Jacob.

There were some very nice tricks here, my personal favourites were 1W and 1N1W, two rooms, which, at first glance look logically impossible, but after closer inspection you work out the lynchpin.

There were a few puzzles which relied on monster movement knowledge. 2N/2S were both very nice serpent timing puzzles, 2N1E was a nice little Aumtlich room, and 1S1W was a nice Wraithwing room. The West and East secret rooms were excellent, it's amazing how such a small puzzle can still be fairly difficult to solve.

There were a few rooms which contain tricks I've seen in other holds, namely, 2W/1N2W/1S. However, they were put together in a very elegant way, and still were quite fiendish to solve.

The difficulty of the hold varied quite a bit. At first, I thought it was very tough, certainly tougher than 6.5 brains, but looking at the rooms again, I only ever needed help for 3. Overall after finishing the hold I'd give it an average of 6 brains. There were a few rooms which seemed unusually easy compared to the rest - 1E, 1S1E, 1S2E, 1S2W, and especially 1N2E (not too sure what the puzzle was in that last one)

Downsides? Not many. At first I didn't really like the custom style much, and a result of this was that 1N took too long, since I couldn't see the platform. And there was a room I didn't like, 1N1E, because it relied on strange Stalwart behaviour. (contrast this to 2E, a room I found trivial just because I knew about fegundo behaviour). But these are all very minor complaints and don't detract from the overall fun.

To summarise, this is a fantastic hold, and anyone familiar with TCB elements should definitely play this.

OneMoreNameless
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 131
Registered: 07-31-2010
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Out of all the user holds that I played during my first foray into DROD a few years back, this is the one that I still remembered as being exceptionally excellent. Today I finished off a few lingering rooms I was stuck on the last time around, and I can safely say that if anything my memory wasn't nostalgic enough.

Every single puzzle in this hold is enjoyably clever, with a surprising amount trickiness fit into such small rooms. The solutions are simple but the difficulty is far from it; fortunately you can navigate the rooms freely and what seems impossible at first may just satisfyingly click into place by the next time you come back it. There's no story, no aesthetic pieces, no frustration or tedium, just some of the best bite-sized puzzles that DROD has to offer.

If you've never played this hold, I highly recommend you do so!