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File: Trial Tower.drh (13.6 KB)
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This hold is short so if you want to play an epic adventure do not play this, however if you want to play a hold for a couple hours and be done this is for you.

Chaco
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 3665
Registered: 10-06-2005
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This is a pretty good example of the kind of RPG holds we could use more of - holds that focus on a few challenging goals, like retrieving a sword from a locked vault, figuring out what order to access needed doors and keys, and deciding when the best time is to take on the boss monster guarding the way to the next level.

The hold is a set of 5 small 9-room levels, each populated with more powerful monsters and trickier layouts than the last. But each level also has a bit of an overall puzzle to be discovered, as well. The hold is relatively non-linear, since there are more blue keys than you need - so figure out when and where to spend them! I would say this hold is about as difficult as Tendry's Tale - the monsters and bosses are pretty tough, and it might take several tries to get a run that you're satisfied with. There's also a hidden super-boss for the RPG optimizers to face.

There are hot tiles and Aumtlich in this hold, but they're included from the beginning and for the most part you won't get surprised or forced to cross them - you can start considering them from the beginning.

So, overall I think this is a great first step into RPG architecture. My only concerns are that the hold's aesthetics and decoration are kind of bare - the hold just has checkerboard floor, and the same room style for all 5 floors. There's also the occasional room that feels cluttered with a ton of pressure plates and doors - after examining them for a while, it's possible to figure out what's going on, but I think some labelling (with floor, lighting or colors) or explanatory scrolls might help out, or in some cases splitting up some choices into several separate rooms.

Good job! I'm looking forward to the sequel.

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Red-XIII
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 652
Registered: 08-05-2012
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Conquered!

This was a really enjoying hold, I started playing it this morning to explore everything but I didn't optimize a lot, infact I couldn't beat the drake and had no keys. Then I began a new game this afternoon but after the first playthrough I already knew most of the choices so I easily defeated the final boss but I couldn't try the dragon because I had to use the first portable orb for a normal door (I really need to improve my keys skill ^^).

I will definitely play this again next week or when I find some time because as you said, you need only two-three hours and it's really relaxing!

I'm looking forward for another RPG hold like this.

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There's not some other world out there where everything's gonna be okay.
There's just this one, just this rock.
-33th Skywatcher

Blondbeard
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1486
Registered: 03-31-2005
IP: Logged

Thanks for building this hold. It has many optimization places. However there was a serious lack of yellow keys in relation to every other sort of key. I also find hot tiles and aumtlich extremly tedious. They hinder exploration. I may sound as if I'm just complaining. I guess that sometimes it's just easier to pinpoint what you don't like, even though you really do like something, as a whole.

Gordius
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 95
Registered: 12-16-2008
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This was mentioned in the Architecture thread, but as far as I can tell, not fixed. The black door in 5:1N2E that blocks access to the tunnel cannot be opened. Unless this is a place you intend to have players use the portable orb, the bottom half of that room is inescapable.

Zaratustra00
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 108
Registered: 11-12-2004
IP: Logged

I ran out of yellow keys in level 3 and only noticed there were no new ones to take much later.

kieranmillar
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 2929
Registered: 07-11-2014
IP: Logged

Having finally beat this hold I wanted to say that I think it is excellent. The small size greatly benefits it, normally I find hot tiles and aumtlich beams to be an immense pain but with this hold being so small backtracking is minimal and trying to work around them and cross areas when my health was low ended up being fun rather than frustrating. Also while I did have to restart the entire hold more than once, the small size made it very quick to get back up to speed.

The use of custom monsters was very cool and they were well balanced for the hold. It's a shame the lucky greckle early on trivialised greckle gains throughout the entire hold because the first level handled greckle gates well, and the custom monsters that only served to provide greckles were a very cool way to handle greckle gains.

I'm not sure why there is a second score checkpoint for beating the hold immediately after the regular final boss as from an optimising perspective you will want to trigger both checkpoints at the same time with the same score.

I heartily recommend playing this hold! If you're looking to get into optimising in RPG holds I also recommend trying to optimise this one, the size makes it very manageable to do so and it is a lot of fun. There's added fun with the hand bomb and invisibility potion, as you're free to use them wherever you like when optimising the checkpoints at the end of the third and fourth floors.

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[Last edited by kieranmillar at 03-01-2015 08:45 PM]