Atch wrote:
A preponderance of rooms with specific solutions?
Well, if there are, I didn’t notice and will happily replay most rooms in this hold many times in the future – didn’t eytanz say that he constantly replays Dugan’s three tar mother room as a form of therapy?
I'm not saying that the rooms are not re-playable, but I would think that once a specific room has been completed, its challenge also goes with it, since it's not too difficult to memorise a short 20-50 move sequence once you've already done it.
My favourite room had possibly the most specific solution: Level 4: 1S, 2W. You could rest indefinitely with the invisibility potion in the middle and I took a slight detour to take in the southernmost checkpoint but how many solvers did it in my recorded 182 moves? I left directly with no triumphal sword twirling at the exit.
I guess you obviously like specific solution rooms. When I look at a room for the first 2 or 3 times, I don't see the room's exact dynamics in a small location; I don't see the exact way a particular monster will move, or can predict far enough ahead to see which monster will do what in the next 10 moves. The approach I take is to look at the monsters present and from there make a general decision about in which order to tackle a group of monsters, but not the exact sequence. This is why I'm bad at specific rooms, since I understand monsters well in a general context, but when they are put into a highly constrained one, I don't have the brain capacity to work out what will happen in a particular sequence of moves.
In reference to your comment about specifity, I didn't think this room was particularly specific, because although there were sections in which you needed to make some particular moves, in others, like the goblin section, you had some freedom to manipulate them how you wanted. I myself finished with a few moves to spare, so I had to wait for the serpent to finish killing itself.
The inspiration for this room was I imagine Dugan’s infamous snake timer but might I suggest on agaricus’s behalf – he would be too modest to say anything himself – that its development owes a debt to Bavato’s Level 5: 2S, 2E or is this just a coincidence?
Not speaking in any way for the hold designer, but from my point of view, I would guess that it is probably coincidental. If it were based on anything in Bavato's Dungeon, then L13 1S 5E most closely resembles it in the style of timer used. The usage of a serpent as a timer with orbs is perhaps more like L7 1N 2W in the last Alpha testing edition, but as a concept, it appears to be rather unique, since it requires a movement handicap mechanism to work.
The mostly impossible rooms in Not the first Level and Limbo were a delight with the second transit of Limbo’s: 1N, 2E being particularly exacting and enjoyable. For a classic of this genre see Moria’s: Bridge of Khazzaddum in Architecture.
The chase rooms in L6/8 were a lot of fun, I agree, but again, they did rely on specific solutions to be able to pass them, just like the (final?) room in "
Moria"
.
I didn't, however, like L8 2N 2E, since it is solvable, but after all the effort put into it, its exit is...
Click here to view the secret text
×...a dead end.
It did, however, make L8 1N 1E trivial when I visited it afterwards.
Without giving anything away, jdyer was crafty in not making Level 5’s: 2N, 1E the full orb puzzle it might have been in which case there are dozens of solutions available on the Net.
I would say that it was made a bit harder with some of the puzzle removed, since some positions had limited approaches and exits, so making sure you had to enter those at particular times, or else you would end up with unreachable areas. Like in "
The Palace of Puzzles"
, it was a refreshing break from the other rooms, since although the order in which you did things in the room was specific, you were not move-restricted, like in some previous rooms.
jdyer wrote:
When I do a different hold, it will have a different theme, or themes.
I can't wait - let's hope it's soon!
I can't believe I forgot to say that in my last analysis post, so thanks for reminding me, Atch.
My sentiments exactly. I'm looking forward to seeing more of your holds in the future!
____________________________
Resident Medic/Mycologist
), I did play it through a couple times in it's earlier stages. I must say, it's an excellent hold. 
(Although some rooms you picked as having specific solutions do have multiple ones.) It is linked to the plot, although I tried not to make the connection too explicit.
