×No, really, play the holds and vote before opening. Go do it now. This'll still be here when you get back, and the holds are worth playing.

×My holds: Beethro's Brain, Entropy, Further Up and Further In, Washed Ashore, Hinterlands, Hypercube, jfflpnk, Lavender Levels.
Collaborations: Way Forward, Advanced Concepts 2

×1E: Good room, there's much you can do with aumtlichs and eyes. And they are arranged so they allow for many different room setups.
1W: Stalwarts, guards and snakes are messy. If you look at the contest entries these are probably the weakest rooms.
1S: Again, different tar stuffs and a slayer doesn't easily make for a pleasant room. Not that it can't be done, but an architect should probably have a pretty clear vision of the room before he/she starts building around these monsters. And the fact that you cant place the monsters wherever you like doesn't make it easier.
1S1W: Felt much like a filler room in most of the entries, but it should have potential to make for a good room.
1S1E: This room was fun to work with. I would probably have used fewer wraithwings though. Of course the architect doesn't have to use all of them, but they still creates a messier atmosphere.

I'm definitely not saying I didn't like the contest, I think it was great! But I think Brian made creating the template hold a little easy for himself. With some more effort there the quality of the entries might have been higher.

I might be completely wrong though. I think all the holds that came out of this contest have good quality, and I really love Tricksters hold.

×I don't think we should be voting on this one. I liked the contest, but this isn't a place to vote on the contest itself against its entries...those are two different things. Brian_S also submitted a completed entry, which means two submissions to his own contest, and he didn't even come up with the idea of submitting the template unmodified in the first place.

It was somewhat interesting to play, but I have to give it a 2 on principle.

×This was the hardest of the lot for me. It was also the best of the entries in terms of story and theme interpretation (the "do not disturb" interpretation was just brilliant and led to some fascinating puzzles). All in all it oozed Dischorran's "easy to see the answer but hard to get there" mojo. (It also revealed Dischorran's biology geekiness in disturbing, overt fashion.)

West was extremely challenging and the solution to taking out the lower serpent was non-obvious to me. I only found it because I eliminated all other possible answers. Excellent puzzle, nonetheless, and the best of the West room puzzles.

Entrance wasn't a puzzle, yet I died here an awful lot...

East was also very difficult to figure out because one early (and common) misstep would make the entire room impossible to beat, but a great puzzle.

Southwest was a fun and entertaining roach battle. It took a few tries to find the sweet spot, but then it was just some fun roach grinding.

South was a great incorporation of slayer and 'stuff into a challenging puzzle. Simple, direct, and tricky.

Southeast was much easier than it first appeared, almost a let-down after how hard it appeared to be. If you had to use the wubbas to hold down the platforms, it would have been much, much harder. Still, it was a fun and interesting puzzle built from the underlying framework.

All in all I was very impressed and had a lot of fun. It could have been decorated a bit more than it was, though, so the lack of artistic flair hits it just a bit. 8/10.

×It's hard to believe Rheb made this hold in two hours, since it certainly took me longer than this to beat it! Some rooms were uninteresting, but others were wonderful.

West was pretty easy, and not too inspired. It seemed a bit rushed in its creation.

Entrance was great! I loved this little maze. It really made me think and it was much more than mere trial and error. A splendid example of what a room should be, and the best Entrance room of all the holds.

East was also pretty easy. The solution was very straightforward and required little skill.

Southwest was very tricky, but still a typical brained roach battle. TFMurphy said you could limit the roach spawning by waiting but I didn't have any trouble getting to the platform ASAP and then starting huge roach battle. Others seemed to find this more challenging than I did.

South was great fun. The solution was straightforward, hard to do, and taught me something new about slayers. That's the definition of a good room right there. This was the best of the South rooms.

Southeast was also excellent. This was the hardest room in this hold and the best of the Southeast rooms. It took me three start-overs to get this right and took a lot of finagling with wubbas and wraithwings. I was very impressed by the solution. Loved it.

Fun and tricky entry with a couple of very impressive rooms. Even though three of the rooms were the best puzzle among their version, overall it's not quite as good as Dischorran's thematic approach. Artistic quality was also lacking. 7/10.

×West wasn't too bad. The bottom part was challenging, and the top part was more annoying than difficult. The stalwart at the bottom kept drawing the guard at the top, which could make this harder to optimize but while playing it was just a distraction.

Entrance wasn't a puzzle, but at least it made you feel like you were in a building with extended walls and hallways.

East was amazing, and was easily the best of the East rooms. I spent more time here, for fun, than in any other room in the contest. I would have liked it if you included two or three fewer mirrors to make it harder (I'm nearly certain it can be beaten with four fewer mirrors).

Southwest was challenging, though not too tough. It might have been nicer if you could have added obstacles that allowed you to beat it without reliance on the speed potion, but the potion definitely helped in the endgame. I would prefer this one if the challenge I proposed were the normal version (where you have to load all roaches before you can exit through the tunnel, as this requires trickery; making the tunnel one-way and ending on an invisibility potion would be enough to do this).

South was fun, and not too tough. There were multiple ways to approach this so the slayer wasn't normally a big challenge, but making him turn around was sometimes tricky.

Southeast was broken...enter the room, kill the monsters, leave. What's all that crap down there for? It could have been a very challenging puzzle (I suggested an alternate approach that I enjoyed.)

All in all, this was a fun hold and I really enjoyed East even if there were too many mirrors. I played it again and again to try to maximize my mirror-saving. The haste of the submission led to some errors which were corrected, and others that weren't. Southeast was notably disappointing. This wasn't as enjoyable as Dischorran's or Rheb's hold, but the East room was great and there was some attention to art (though not much). 7/10.

×It's too bad this entry was late because it was a lot of fun.

West was okay. This was a pretty simple orb puzzle, but it had a couple of cute and interesting things. I liked how you had to let an adder out to kill the guard, specifically.

Entrance was actually a lot of fun, and harder than it looked. For a bomb maze this was quite well put-together, and I hit dead-ends a few times. It's nice to know someone besides Rheb and me can see an empty room as a blank canvas for monsterless puzzles, as I thought this was the "most exploitable" of the base rooms (though the other participants were at least artistic here).

East was iffy. It wasn't much different from a "enter, kill, leave" puzzle. Cleanup on the trap doors was mostly busy work (though I enjoy it, in a zen-like way). Optimizing might be interesting because you want to avoid stepping on the platforms, though. Also, you can exit the room by going West, which defeats the purpose of having those green doors accompany the red ones.

Southwest was not too challenging, but optimizing it would be a definite fun challenge. This was one of the best rooms in the entry. It seemed like it might be harder than it was, and efficient clearing required critical timing and planning in spots. The false exit to the West was annoying (I *really* don't like those).

South was the hardest of the lot, but I don't think all those orbs and doors added anything. The hardest part was clearing the mud from the two-wide area without being trapped by the slayer. I had fun here. I don't like the false exit to the West.

Southeast was a little easy for my tastes, but more artistic in design than any of the others I reviewed. I don't like the false exit to the North.

All in all there were some good points, and I enjoyed playing through it. Even the simple bomb maze was fun. This had the simplest puzzles of the lot, but it was also the most artistic of all the entries I looked at. Nice work!

×Beethro and the Secret Society: Postmastered
Beethro's Teacher: In Progress
Complex Complex: In Progress
Devilishly Dangerous Dungeons of Doom: In Progress
Finding the First Truth: Postmastered
Gunthro and the Epic Blunder: In Progress
Halph Has a Bad Day: Mastered (no door)
Journey to Rooted Hold: Postmastered
King Dugan's Dungeon 2.0: Postmastered
Master Locks: Mastered (no door)
Master Locks Expert: Mastered (no door)
Perfect: In Progress (Perfect 8)
Smitemastery 101: Postmastered
Suit Pursuit: In Progress
Tendry's Tale: Mastered (RPG)
The Choice: Postmastered
The City Beneath: Postmastered

×A Quiet Place: Mastered (no door)
Advanced Concepts: In Progress
Archipelago: In Progress (Island 12)
Break Out Of Jail: Conquered (86%)
Dr. E. Will's Mega Complex: In Progress
Hold Anonymous: In Progress
Paycheck: Conquered (75%)
The Test of Mind: Mastered (RPG)
Unfriendly Islands: In Progress
Val Unrich: In Progress
war10: Mastered (no door)
war15: Mastered (no door)
war: the truth within: Mastered (no door)
Washed Ashore: Mastered (RPG)

×The Plague Within (RPG) (alpha)
Tinytall Tower (Smitemaster) (beta)
Do Not Disturb Compilation (level contributions) (in review)
Riddle of the Bar (compilation)