Jatopian
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da rogu3 wrote:
Indeed, me too. I never want to see another room with gel again

Abyssian Fortress says hi.

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da rogu3
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Jatopian wrote:
Abyssian Fortress says hi.

None of the rooms had black doors so they weren't that bad (just unnecessarily tedious, in 1 or 2 cases). And I started to miss AF after I reached Upper Lowest

Briareos
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Someone Else wrote:
But how do you eat tau on tau day? That is my only concern.

Well, Tau means "dew" in German so a gulp of water should suffice...

np: Electric President - Snow On Dead Neighborhoods (Electric President)

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TFMurphy
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da rogu3 wrote:
None of the rooms had black doors so they weren't that bad (just unnecessarily tedious, in 1 or 2 cases). And I started to miss AF after I reached Upper Lowest :P

Considered saying something like that, but it's not actually true: there are two rooms with Black Gates in Abyssian Fortress, and one of them even has required Gel. But at least the Gel isn't growing out of control, so it's a self-contained cutting puzzle, not a great big mess.

Strongly recommend playing Museum of Ooze though. (EDIT: Though to be fair, there's only a couple of rooms in there that involve cutting gel, and nothing really all that involved. Advanced Concepts 2 has some nifty rooms on that subject though. EDIT 2: Oh, and how can I forget Gigantic Jewel Lost, whose entire first level is a shrine to all things green?)

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[Last edited by TFMurphy at 06-26-2011 08:22 PM]

da rogu3
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TFMurphy wrote:

da rogu3 wrote:
None of the rooms had black doors so they weren't that bad (just unnecessarily tedious, in 1 or 2 cases). And I started to miss AF after I reached Upper Lowest

Considered saying something like that, but it's not actually true: there are two rooms with Black Gates in Abyssian Fortress, and one of them even has required Gel. But at least the Gel isn't growing out of control, so it's a self-contained cutting puzzle, not a great big mess.

Strongly recommend playing Museum of Ooze though.

Er.. sure, I meant exactly what you said, there aren't rooms which contain a big mass of Gel growing uncontrollably, a mother, and a black door. And the whole 'never want to see gel again' bit was meant in a jokey manner, really, it's I never want to play a room containing tedious and boring tarstuff cutting. (I'm halfway through MOO, btw, don't mind the gel rooms there)

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[Last edited by da rogu3 at 06-30-2011 11:05 PM : typo]

da rogu3
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Trickster wrote:
For me, tarstuff-cutting is very relaxing and Zen, in a perverse sort of way. It doesn't seem like a chore. Maybe I just haven't played enough to become gel-jaded yet, but it has no tedium for me...there is constant thought involved (where to hit first, where to stand to block growth, avoiding babies, and so on).

I guess it's just a matter of taste then. Personally, I dislike rooms where you know what needs to be done, but can't be bothered because it takes too long and feels depressing.

west.logan
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Trickster wrote:
Impedance is more naturally done on a scale where the period is τ than a scale where the period is 2π, I would think. It will simplify more expressions than complicate them, even in electrical engineering.

I'd have to go back and see I suppose. I'm just thinking of lots of equations with π that then becomes π/2 and lots with π/2 that now become π/4. I mean really, a factor of two isn't going to make all that much of a difference anyway so why change? (My M.S. was in wireless communication so lots of DSP and electromagnetics and thus, lots of π so I'm loathe to change now)

If we're going to change anything, why not change the sign of the charge on an electron? (I'm lookin' at you, Mr Franklin. You had a 50/50 chance and messed up.)

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Tahnan
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da rogu3 wrote:
Also can I request demos for Trickster's entry (as it isn't anyone-edit )Bleh, secret walls are cheap.

I assumed da rogu3 meant the secret wall in the very first room, which took me a little time to notice, and left me in the dark on how to exit. If on the other hand you mean a later room in the hold, I only just learned that it even had secret walls. Perfectly doable without them. Not necessarily easy, but doable.

Tahnan
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OK, voted. First, some general thoughts:

This was really hard to judge for me, because of my relation to the source material. I ended up having a hard time deciding what I wanted in an "adaptation": how faithful should it be? How much should it be pure "storytelling"--bear in mind that I won an architecture contest based entirely on storytelling, so naturally my interests are somewhat skewed.

In the end, I decided that I didn't mind puzzles, but regardless of their difficulty I preferred them to follow organically from the story. I mean, the story has some pretty specific stories of cleaning out rooms, after all. To take techant's entry as an example, I appreciated the puzzles that riffed off the idea of "cleaning out a bar", like the square dance, even if they weren't part of what I wrote; but on the other hand, the aumtlich-bomb-maze room, while I thought it was pretty cool, didn't feel like they were part of the story I wrote.

Well, OK, and it's not quite "regardless of their difficulty". This is a story, after all. If I have to spend two hours per room, it breaks the narrative flow.

Some specific hold comments:


BoyBlue:



da rogu3:



Penwielder:



Techant:



Trickster:

DiMono
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Wow, someone actually voted 2 on a hold? On the off-chance that the 2-vote was inspired by the presence of the 10-vote, I'd like to remind everyone to please vote so that your vote represents the score you feel it deserves; don't try to balance out what you feel is bad voting by someone else. They stated their opinion, you state yours, and it'll all come out in the end.

On the other hand, if you voted it 2 because you feel it deserves a 2, hopefully you will comment on why you voted that way in the thread, so that the author has some comments to take into consideration for future holds and/or revising this hold.

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west.logan
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Ouch. Going by your rubric (1-5 for story, 1-5 for puzzle fun), I can't see any of these holds dropping below a 7 myself.

I hope it's not intentional sabotage either to eliminate a competitor or because someone just doesn't like someone else. That's not sporting. Edit: By the way, I don't think it is purposefully offsetting, unless someone has multiple accounts. You can't see the results until you've voted.

I can't see which hold received the 2 yet but I'll try to finish up Trickster's hold tonight and then submit my vote and comments.

____________________________
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[Last edited by west.logan at 06-28-2011 02:45 PM]

west.logan
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I'm still working through Trickter's hold. Very little time this week. I may have to vote without finishing.

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larrymurk
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Here are my comments.

Please do NOT view until you have voted!

PMIT
Level: Master Delver

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All right, completed (and post-mastered) all of them. Great job to everybody who submitted; I enjoyed seeing your varied interpretations of the story, from

Now for specific comments:



____________________________
aka VioletPumpkin

Jatopian
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There's going to be a compilation, right?

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west.logan
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All right. I've finished almost everything *gulp* but I'm running out of time (busy the next few days) so I'm going to have to vote now.


Boy Blue. Really thought this was a clever take on the whole story. The non-linearity was helpful to me for the most part (being able to go to other rooms to relax my brain for a while). Stuck to the story really well and the puzzles were deviously clever in some cases (at least to me). Really enjoyed it. Got stuck on the entrance and had to come back to it. I've never dealt with brained roach movement in this sort of way before. Looks like I need to play Advanced Concepts...

Techant. Stuck to the story very well. I actually had to go look up the story after the first little dialog with the Halph guy because I couldn't figure out where to go (back to the bar of course!). I liked the puzzles. The aumtlich room was fun. Probably hard to optimize but I wasn't concerned with that

da rogue. Okay. I admit it. I had to peek at two demos (thanks for posting those by the way). I don't think I would have figured out the last room without a demo at this point. It used a lot of careful timing of various creatures (spawning roaches at the precise moment etc.). Very clever though. I felt that you focused more on puzzles than on the story, which is what I think you said you were going to do so that's fine. Very enjoyable hold and nice puzzles with a polished feel to them.

Penwielder. I think he obviously takes the cake on pure "stick-to-story-ness". The story was well told, the scripting was well done, and it was really a pleasure to play.

Trickster. Some wickedly clever features in these rooms, lots of which exploit little things I didn't know about. Admittedly I did not finish this hold. I'm sorry but I just don't have any time left. I only saw about half of it. The first room inside the bar stumped me until I saw the demo and found there was a breakable wall. Didn't even see it. Once I saw that there was a breakable wall, I was able to finish without the demo. The tar room was very tedious in my opinion. Especially not knowing where the breakable walls were. Perhaps a vision token would have defeated part of the puzzle but if ever a room needed it, this did. Too much trial and error trying to get through it. The very first room of the hold I was impressed with because of the clever ways to get from one spot to another. Well done!


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Dischorran
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Comments, yo.


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Dischorran
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Trickster wrote:
Personally, I found:

Click here to view the secret text

×the gel mother in the required room

...tougher to beat than:

Click here to view the secret text

×all three in the secret room.

At least in the latter, you can

Click here to view the secret text

×attack the gel until it's surrounded on all sides by tar and mud, and so make progress.

Yeah, but in the former,

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DiMono
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Jatopian wrote:
There's going to be a compilation, right?

I wasn't planning on making one, because it would basically be putting the player through the same storyline 5 times in a row in a single hold, but if someone else disagrees they are more than welcome to create a compilation hold on their own.

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west.logan
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Even if it's not released as a compilation, is there any objection to each being released individually? A good number of people would have their solutions already.

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Tahnan
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Trickster wrote:
Interesting. If it's possible that you can beat the room that way, then I missed it completely.

Oh. Really? I thought that was the way you were supposed to do it. Which is to say, I also did what Dischorran did.

da rogu3
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I found both ways <.< (unfortunately I did the long, difficult method first)

Rat Man
Level: Master Delver
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I've now been through about half the content of all the holds collectively.

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Trickster
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This is a difficult beast to grade. Everyone did such a wonderful job, and I truly enjoyed playing other people's holds. I also enjoyed the challenge of playing against others who beat two of my rooms in unexpected ways!

Without further ado, here is my collective feedback for each of the architects, except me, because that would be stupid.

Also, please note that I was very impressed with each of your holds. As such, my "pickyness" below is attempt at honest feedback, not intended to be read as strong criticism.

EDIT: As an aside, since nobody lost points for failing to meet the restrictions, and since I felt that each of the architects told the story well in their own fashion, my rubric is pretty-much self-imposed based on what I feel makes the hold enjoyable. Many of my comments were not things I considered directly when producing the final score. The most important things to me were how much fun the puzzles were, how well things fit together, how "big" the hold was for a 14-room hold (were there 8 empty rooms?), and how much attention was paid to artistic detail.

techant

Your hold is clearly the most artistic of the four. You make good use of space, with no "wasted" rooms. You have some nice cutscenes. You follow the flow of the story well without getting bogged down by it. You easily had more puzzles than the other three architects (the paucity of puzzles in their holds rather surprised me).

Unfortunately for my preference, the puzzles were all very simple (with two exceptions, which I enjoyed much: aumtliches and the disarmed with hot tiles). There were some continuity flaws: a staircase exists with which you can beat the game trivially, and there are places you can get trapped if you go the wrong way (with no indication which way you should be going). I have a mild peeve about dead-end walls, and there were a few of those. Also, the division of levels was a little odd; it seemed unnatural to put the inside of the bar on the same level as the village. Also, the green door around the treasure chest led me to believe that there would be a cutscene or something there for me when I beat it. Putting a scroll there at least would have provided a payoff for opening that door. It seemed like you started something you forgot to finish.

Total score: 7. I feel bad about the score being this low, but the combination of minor errors in design and simplistic puzzles made it less interesting for me to complete than the other holds. Overall, however, it was enjoyable and a pleasurable hold to play for a change of pace from the uber-difficult holds; I hope to see more like it in the future.

BoyBlue

You had two puzzles that absolutely thrilled me (first room, and wraithwings). Your approach touched on little elements of the story in a way that I liked, and this approach clearly left you freer to design. You made good use of space, for the most part, had more puzzles than two of the other three architects, and most of your puzzles were challenging. You chose an interesting circular motif that made the rooms fit together pleasantly. There were no major errors or oversights in your work, and you are the only architect to whom I give this distinction. I learned a great deal from this hold.

Although I liked the circular motif, I thought much of the room design was lacking in artistic flavor, and even boring. The division into three levels was arbitrary and completely non-sequitur, adding nothing to the story; if the contest entry hadn't specified three levels they would have been much better replaced with a simple exit North in both cases (and I suspect they would have been).

Total score: 8. The only significant flaw for me was attention to artistic detail.

Penwielder

You also had two puzzles that absolutely thrilled me (aumtlich-go-South and goblins/rattlers). Your design was highly artistic, something you clearly spent time on. You had the least number of trivial puzzles of any architect. The cutscenes were great, if a bit literal, and the voicing was incredible.

I can't fairly give you points for the voicing, since the submission is yours and not west.logan's. I have the same peeve about open walls with your submission as I do with techant's (worse here, actually). Although I loved the goblins/rattlers puzzle, having arbitrary timing which happens midway through a puzzle affect the possibility of success, which can only be discovered much later, is very annoying (to me) and could have been avoided. You also had fewer puzzles in general than any other architect, which was disappointing given that there were a total of 14 rooms available to build with. It's fortunate that those puzzles were of such high quality and that you made good use of the other rooms in adding to the overall story and artistic quality.

Total score: 9 (despite not counting the voicing). Great work with very few hindrances to enjoyment.


da Rogu3

You had the hardest and best puzzles of the entire lot. I loved the challenge of killing the goblin king. I loved the last room (though it took me too long because I made a ridiculous error). I absolutely adored the Halph puzzle--brilliant. Your puzzles are truly remarkable. I learned a great deal from this hold. I cannot wait to play more of your work. I am a true fan.

It is regrettable that you had so few puzzles in general. You would have beaten Penwielder for the least puzzles if you hadn't contained multiple puzzles in the same rooms. You had a lot of empty space as filler, and yet your hold was the least artistic of the four. Although you put in quite a few details and cutscenes, the artistic component seemed like an afterthought. If you had put more work into the appearance of your hold to make use of the space, I would have easily given it the highest score of the four. Also, I don't think a room should be "secret" if you are required to beat it in order to reach the exit stairs.

Total score: 9 (reluctantly). This is quite honestly one of the best short holds I have played in a long time, and if I had to choose one of the four to play again, it would be this one. I was sorely tempted to 10 it, but I stand by my decision.

Congratulations to all. Splendid work.

EDIT: As should be obvious, yes, I did play and master them all. (Just in case it needed mentioning.)

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[Last edited by Trickster at 07-01-2011 07:10 PM : to cover my ass]

west.logan
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Trickster wrote:
I just want to claim bragging rights for being the only architect in the forum to receive a 2.

Yeah, I'm still upset about that. I really hope it's not one of those people who go "Grr, serpents. I hate serpent manipulation so this hold gets a 2".

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DiMono
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Trickster wrote:

west.logan wrote:

Trickster wrote:
I just want to claim bragging rights for being the only architect in the forum to receive a 2.

Yeah, I'm still upset about that. I really hope it's not one of those people who go "Grr, serpents. I hate serpent manipulation so this hold gets a 2".

It might even be a, "How dare you post in old threads! 2! 2, I say!"

Or it could be an error. Last time I was in a contest someone accidentally gave me someone else's score, which may have changed things enough to have affected the outcome. I don't exactly play these for the prizes, though, I just want feedback (I don't even know what the prize is).

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[Last edited by DiMono at 07-01-2011 03:49 PM]

Tahnan
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For those who love statistics, if that "2" were anything from a "5" to a "10", it would (a) push Trickster from fourth to third, but no higher, and (b) still leave her with the highest standard deviation (techant's is 1.73; Trickster's would be at best 1.75). In other words, it wouldn't be affecting who places first; and Trickster's entry would still be the one people would feel most divided. about Which is not to say that a 2 given in spite or in error is per se acceptable; just that it may not be worth anyone's energy to be angry about, especially if Trickster herself isn't.

(EDIT: DiMono posted the above while I was in the middle of writing this. Just to clarify his statement a little: yes, the 2 is "relevant", but at the moment, not really that much.)

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[Last edited by Tahnan at 07-01-2011 03:47 PM]

Dischorran
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...or maybe someone (not me) just didn't like the hold? While of course nobody wants their entry to be disliked, and for personal reasons it's always nice to get feedback on anything, I find the far greater sin to be to argue that a vote is *wrong*. Getting worked up about it pretty much requires one to assume that one's own take on the hold is the only reasonable one - and that's maybe a sign of a slightly inflated ego, no?

So yeah, some of y'all, notably not Trickster, are annoying me right now. But then, I'm cranky.

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west.logan
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Ordinarily, yes. In this case, a rubric was given. Someone must have awfully low opinions of the fun or story-telling in that case...

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DiMono
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I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm assuming the vote was intentional, for whatever reason. If, after the deadline has passed, it's revealed in hidden comments that the vote was accidental, or made based on something other than the quality of the hold, I might see about recalculating it. Otherwise, I'm taking it at face value, and it is what it is.

And obviously it doesn't bug Trickster at all either. I just wish there were closer to 50 votes than 20, so that stray votes like the 2 wouldn't have as much impact; that's the only part of this I actually find irritating.

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