jokokoe
Level: Delver

Rank Points: 71
Registered: 02-19-2010
IP: Logged

New level added, Colorful Cavern. 7 conquerable rooms that are all talking about gentryiis. There are two challenges also.

I've also added two challenges on the level tiny rooms and made some little general improvement thanks to the " Hold Submission Topic " written by insoluble.



____________________________
My Holds :

Architecture Salon
Do it Again

jokokoe
Level: Delver

Rank Points: 71
Registered: 02-19-2010
IP: Logged

New level named Unprotected. 10 conquerable rooms with one challenge (I like this one).
Also a bonus room where the player can place soldiers to fight against guards. This is an idea I'd like to develop so I'll try for the next level to focus on builder , engineer and all _Myscript variables.

____________________________
My Holds :

Architecture Salon
Do it Again

jokokoe
Level: Delver

Rank Points: 71
Registered: 02-19-2010
IP: Logged

Hello guys !

My last edit was approximately 2 years ago and it is really a shame that I didn't worked on this hold anymore. I just saw drod in the steam shop few days ago and told myself I definitely need to finish it.

So I'm on board again ! There is still a big work to do but many levels are almost done (If i remember well every rooms are conquerable in a "normal" way, but their might be some issues). If anyone would like to test them feel free to do it.

For now I'll focus on the main level which will regroup every other level entrance.

I'm happy to play drod again !

____________________________
My Holds :

Architecture Salon
Do it Again

jokokoe
Level: Delver

Rank Points: 71
Registered: 02-19-2010
IP: Logged

Hello guys !

Let's talk first about what I've changed so far :

The eye 1N2W : room is a bit modified and it is now clear what the player have to do.

Beethro learns painting 2N1W : Changed the script, the room should be always conquerable now.

River Crossing 2N2E : The room is now a bit easier.

Colorful Cavern 1E : Added a tunnel so the player won't be block when he conquer the room.



I have added 2 new levels :

- The Summer Garden : 6 rooms with no monsters, puzzles are using trapdoors, mimics , bombs etc.

- Imprisoned : You start every room at the center, surounded by monsters.

Also, the main level, soberly called "The Salon", is ready. From it, you can access every other levels. I've designed every level so it is possible to come back in The Salon any time you want to try any other level.

I have also added a new bonus arena (placed behind master walls) where you have to place soldiers using the special key to conquer the different rooms. The goal is to use as less soldiers as you can.

I'm planning to add one final level if the player master the hold but also beat a high score for every arena.

Finally, the two first arenas will only be accessible when the player will have conquered a certain number of levels. For now there is a total of 13 levels so those numbers are 6 and 12.

Hope you will enjoy it, any feedback is welcome !

____________________________
My Holds :

Architecture Salon
Do it Again

Insoluble
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1639
Registered: 09-04-2014
IP: Logged

File: Architecture Salon.demo (20.7 KB)
Downloaded 52 times.
License: Public Domain

Looks like the first few levels have been pretty well tested at this point, but I'll go ahead and post some more in case it is helpful. I know you are probably more interested in feedback on the latter levels, so I'll try to push through to them soon! Demos are posted in case you need them.

I won't give room by room feedback since you've probably gotten enough of that at this point, but I will mention a few things you may want to consider.

The Labyrinth While I like the aesthetics of using mosaic floors, most of these rooms depend on manipulating aumtlich in a way that involves paying close attention to diagonal lines. Although the player can always just hit F3 for puzzle view, it would be a bit more user friendly to use a floor type with a checkerboard pattern. I solved 2N in an image editor, though others will no doubt do it without using one. I found the second secret but was ready for a change in theme by the time I got to it. I'll try to go back to it soon.

Rocky Archipelago I appreciate the shorter rooms here. It's a welcome break after the much longer rooms of the first level. The secret room is mostly dependent on jiggling the constructs around to get them in a good arrangement. I expect this won't be the most popular room, but I thought it was okay. Probably best kept as a secret room though. I found 2N1E much easier to do with the challenge. I the door surrounding the room is maybe supposed to start off closed because the currently function-less pressure plate at (11,23) would then serve a purpose. There are a few rooms in which you have force arrows on top of tokens. That can be a bit hard to read and it's generally nicer to do the arrow-token-arrow setup you have in 2N.

At any rate. Having fun so far. I'll try to push ahead and get to some of the newer levels soon.

____________________________
Links to neat forum tools that I always have trouble finding:

Bent
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 92
Registered: 12-11-2015
IP: Logged

Jokokoe, did you actually upload the new version of the hold? I just downloaded the version attached to the first post of this thread, and neither ”The Salon”, ”The Summer Garden” or ”Imprisoned” are present in the hold...

jokokoe
Level: Delver

Rank Points: 71
Registered: 02-19-2010
IP: Logged

I think I uploaded an older version ! It should be fixed now ...

The Salon is complete.
I also added the two last levels , Sokoban Island and The Swampy Lake.

Insoluble : The Floor was already changed in the new version of the Labyrinth ! I also changed the place of the tokens that were on force arrows on the level Rocky Archipelago, hopefully It will be more lisible for the player now.

Edit : Challenge was also fixed in the new version !

____________________________
My Holds :

Architecture Salon
Do it Again

---

[Last edited by jokokoe at 03-13-2018 03:50 PM]

Bent
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 92
Registered: 12-11-2015
IP: Logged

File: eye.png (749.6 KB)
Downloaded 65 times.
License: Public Domain

I've actually considered trying this hold out for a while, even before Insoluble suggested so, because I had a great time playing ”Do it again”.

So far I've only beaten a few rooms, and they've been all right. I've also looked around a lot, both in-game and in the editor, and this hold has some incredible aesthetics, among the best I've ever seen!

I only have a couple of quick suggestions right off the bat:
First off: If you add some white reflections to the pupil of the eye in ”The Eye”, it will look more lively on the mini-map. I've attached an image to this post demonstrating a possible way to do this.
Secondly, why not make it a challenge to finish the optional room in ”Sokoban Island”?

Lastly: Are you still interested in guest levels made by other architects? (Or even guest rooms if they are made to suit existing architecture?) I may have a few levels laying around that would fit this hold nicely...

jokokoe
Level: Delver

Rank Points: 71
Registered: 02-19-2010
IP: Logged

Hey Bent,

I'm not a very good architect so I've tried at least to make nice aesthetics ! Anyway, thank you for the feedback

Indeed, the map design of The Eye looks more realistic the way you made it.
The challenge for the central room of Sokoban Island is also a good idea, both are implemented !

It would be a pleasure to add levels / rooms made by other players. Any idea how you would like them to be implemented ? In existing levels, in a separated level ?

____________________________
My Holds :

Architecture Salon
Do it Again

Bent
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 92
Registered: 12-11-2015
IP: Logged

Great! I have three levels that I'd prefer to be accessible from the salon, just like any other level. I also have three rooms that I think would fit nicely into the right side of the level ”Unprotected”.

I'm mostly done with the levels and rooms, but have a bit of polishing left to do, and need to add a couple of rooms to one of the levels as well. I'll post them here when I am done, and then you can see for yourself if you'd like to include them.

---

[Last edited by Bent at 03-13-2018 05:50 PM]

Bent
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 92
Registered: 12-11-2015
IP: Logged

I noticed while playing the hold that it has quite a lot of grammatical errors and places where the language feels a little unnatural. So I spent a few hours proofreading all of the text in the hold, and below are my suggestions on how to improve it. Please note that I'm not a native English speaker, but I have read and written a lot of English over the years.

Here we go:

Edit: I made a mistake when correcting the Soldier War description, the correction is now corrected.

---

[Last edited by Bent at 03-13-2018 09:46 PM]

jokokoe
Level: Delver

Rank Points: 71
Registered: 02-19-2010
IP: Logged

Thank you for this massive grammatical work ! As you may have understood, english isn't my native tongue at all and I was wondering how good / bad my writing was in this hold.
I agree with all your corrections and everything has been implemented. I have to make an effort and stop puting spaces after ponctuations !

There is a new level with only 3 rooms, that is still in construction ...

Edit : The Salon 3S3E is now only conquerable with the stick.

____________________________
My Holds :

Architecture Salon
Do it Again

---

[Last edited by jokokoe at 03-14-2018 01:18 PM]

Bent
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 92
Registered: 12-11-2015
IP: Logged

File: demos.zip (13.3 KB)
Downloaded 51 times.
License: Public Domain

I've beaten two of the levels so far, and here are some comments:

Imprisoned:
I really like this level. The concept could have worked even in Architect's Edition, but still felt fresh and interesting. One thing though: The scroll in the entrance still says "if you are block", I recommend replacing it with "if you are stuck".

Ice and Fire:
I think this level would have benefited from having a few more rooms, as it simply felt too short. Other than that:

Secret rooms:
These were okay water skipper horde rooms, but nothing we haven't seen before. Beating the fire version was a bit harder, but felt basically like playing the ice version a second time. They don't fit very well thematically with the rest of the level: All the other rooms are based on how having different weapons affects difficulty, but these two rooms just differed in amount of enemies.

Suggestion: Make the fire version have the same amount of waterskipper nests as the ice version, but force the player to use a different weapon to kill them, for example a spear (I just tried it: it's bit difficult, but completely doable). This will both make the rooms more varied, and make them fit thematically with the rest of the level.

3E:
Both versions of 3E are very easy, and the fire version might actually be easier than the ice version. There's some things you can do to improve them:
First off: In the fire version you can kill the two front rock golems with your sword before grabbing the staff, making the rest of the room extremely simple.
Secondly: I suggest removing the floor spikes from this room. In the ice version they serve no purpose, and in the fire version you can keep the soldier alive and let him kill the golems for you.
Thirdly, I think it could benefit from adding another pressure plate in the last section of the room, forcing you to keep the wubba alive as well.

Attached to this post is a zip file containing victory demos from both stages.

Bent
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 92
Registered: 12-11-2015
IP: Logged

File: demos.zip (34.6 KB)
Downloaded 51 times.
License: Public Domain

I've completed a few more levels, and here are some feedback on them, as well as victory demos.

River Crossing:
Fantastic level! It looks awesome, the puzzles were great, and it all fits very nicely together. I also liked the secret. A couple of rooms were a bit on the tedious side, but not so much that I'd prefer it if they weren't there.

Tiny rooms:
In most rooms it is pretty clear from the beginning what you have to do, and the challenge only lies in the execution. I solved the level without much trouble, and enjoyed doing it. In 2E there's one more powder keg than is needed.

Fegundo Training Area:
I like the setting of this level. The two rooms at the start where you simply watch people learn how to control fegundo make it feel like a real place. The room I liked the most was 2W, it wasn't very hard, but the strategy for solving it surprised me. I also liked 1S. The room I liked the least was 1S2W, as I thought it was somewhat annoying. The other rooms were okay, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Roaches of Death:
It was interesting playing a DROD-room with no clear victory condition. My high score is 171 roaches.

jokokoe
Level: Delver

Rank Points: 71
Registered: 02-19-2010
IP: Logged

Once again, thank you Bent for your precious feedback

I think River Crossing as been now correctly tested and no more changes will be done until someone find a way to break a room. 1S3E is basically the same room as 1S1E but I enjoyed the way you have to manage the Gentryii.

I just watched your demo for 2E in Tiny Rooms, and I must say that the room is more interesting with 5 kegs ! Idea implemented ...

The 1S room of Fegundo Training Area was the one I liked the least actually ! I might try to modify it to add more difficulty or make it more complex.
I have one or two more ideas with the fegundos that might comes in a future release.

Ice and Fire is actually the level I like the least but as the rooms are already designed I won't put it out of the hold The Idea of using the spear for the Fire secret room is great. I must say i needed a lot of time to figure out how to finish the room with the spear but I finally managed. It is suppose to be the "Hard" way , with another weapon as you mention so it is definitely better like that, thank you ! I've also modify 1N3E. The ice version is still the same. But the fire version as now been changed in regards to your ideas. First, the PP for the "soldier parts" have been moved. The wubba part also changed, you now have to keep the soldier alive. Finally, I removed the spikes so the soldier will have to kill the rock golems. two pps have been added so you have to keep the soldier and the wubba alive until the end.
I will try to add at least one room in both ice and fire ways when I'll be done with de design of the new level Anticipation.



____________________________
My Holds :

Architecture Salon
Do it Again

Bent
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 92
Registered: 12-11-2015
IP: Logged

File: Bents Architecture Salon Contributions v1.hold (10.1 KB)
Downloaded 47 times.
License: Other

Here are the levels and rooms I would like to contribute to the hold. I know I said there would be three levels, but I changed my mind about one of them and decided to leave it out.

I've made sure that the levels are beatable, but they probably need some playtesting. I would appreciate victory demos if anyone gets any.

If anyone needs hints or demos for any of the rooms, I'm here to help.

I've tried to make the Unprotected rooms fit with the rest of the level, but feel free to move the paths around if they're not to your liking Joko. If you do so there's two things to keep in mind: The middle room only works if the rock golem moves before the aumtlich, so if you copy and paste things around, be sure that this doesn't change. Also: It is preferable if the northern room can only be played after you've solved the middle one.

I plan to playtest the rest of Architecture Salon, but there's a lot of other things going on in my life right now, so it might take some time for me to do so.

jokokoe
Level: Delver

Rank Points: 71
Registered: 02-19-2010
IP: Logged

File: Unprotected_Bent.demo (1.9 KB)
Downloaded 50 times.
License: Public Domain

I haven't played the two levels yet but I think they will definitely suit well in Architecture Salon ! The graphics of Adders and Brains are truly beautiful.

I have implemented the 3 rooms inside Unprotected (They are at the east side of the level). I didn't change anything expect the path to access the rooms from the east. I've also tested them and I must say I had a real good/challenging time finishing them. The demos are in the attached file.

1S2E :



2E :



1N2E :



I will update The Architecture Salon file once I'll have implemented the entrance of your levels inside The Salon and also tested them !

Edit : You won't be able to watch the demos if I do not upload the new file, so I'll do it now anyway ...

____________________________
My Holds :

Architecture Salon
Do it Again

---

[Last edited by jokokoe at 03-22-2018 09:33 AM]

Bent
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 92
Registered: 12-11-2015
IP: Logged

File: 2E.hold (1 KB)
Downloaded 46 times.
License: Other

Your solution for 2E was a bit different from what I had in mind, bit I like your solution better! As a result I've changed to room a little, and the new version of the room is attached to this post.

When importing your demo file I only got the one for 1N2E, are you sure you had all three demos selected when clicking export?

Bent
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 92
Registered: 12-11-2015
IP: Logged

File: demos.zip (27.2 KB)
Downloaded 54 times.
License: Public Domain

Some more feedback:

Colorful Cavern:
I liked this level overall, even though I am not generally fond of gentryii manipulation, which is is what this level is all about. I thought the difficulty was pretty spot-on in most of the rooms, with them neither being trivial or overly frustrating. 1S was my favorite room.

1E: This room is very dark around the puzzle area, and it felt distracting to me. None of the other rooms had this problem.

1N1E: Consider replacing the citizen with an engineer. Citizen and gentryii interactions are weird, and that is noticeable in this room: Citizens don't regard gentryii chains as obstacles (which is probably not a bug). But there is a bug that causes citizens to be able to walk across diagonal gentryii chains, and if that ever gets fixed it could invalidate some demos in this room.

1S1E: This is the room I liked the least. It is very clear what to do from the start, but it felt like a chore to get there. Fortunately it's one of the easiest rooms in the level.

2S1E: This was by far the most challenging room in the level for me, but I liked it once I figured it out.

Swampy Lake:
One of the more challenging levels so far. It was a bit finicky at times, but nothing too unreasonable. The level was a bit too dark in general though, I'd suggest lowering the darkness slider a notch or two.

1E: This is my favorite room in the level – nice efficiency puzzle!

1S: I don't know why the mirror is there. I can attest that the room is perfectly solvable without it. I thought this was by far the easiest room in the level, so maybe I found an unintended solution?

2S: This room looked like it was going to be awfully hard, but I managed to complete it on the second try. Once I found a general strategy and used some common sense it was pretty reasonable. Good room.

Other stuff:
I've just started playing Beethro Learns Painting, but so far I'm not having a good time with it. I'm stuck on 1N1W, and simply have no idea what to do next. No matter what I do I can't get the scripted character to open the door. In the zip file there's a demo of me playing this room and failing to solve it, I will be thankful if you can explain what I'm doing wrong.

Lastly I have a general suggestion for the Salon level. Currently the scrolls only describe the theme of the levels, like so: I think it would be better if the scrolls gave a little bit more information: There's a couple of reasons why I think this is a good idea: If you want to return to a level you've previously been to, it can sometimes be easier to remember its name than its theme, and having both there makes it easier to orient yourself. Level names also tend to sound more exciting than just a description of its theme. If you decide to do it this way, I think it would be best to remove the line "(This is a guest level made by Bent.)" from the description of my levels, and add them into their scrolls instead:

jokokoe
Level: Delver

Rank Points: 71
Registered: 02-19-2010
IP: Logged

Minor changes have been added in regards to your feedback.

Colorful Cavern : The lights of 1E have been changed, the puzzle area should be more visible now. I've kept the citizen in 1N1E because I don't want the player to be able to use the engineer as a "wall", that could grant him help for the challenge. Instead, when the player will activate the orb to release the gentryii, it will turn on a force arrow that won't allow the citizen to move anymore.

Swampy Lake : The entire level is now brighter. The room in 1S was not actually finished but I don't like this puzzle actually. I'll build another one in a future release.

Beethro Learns Painting : The way you solve 1N1E is correct, there was just a small bug in the way I've scripted the caracter, it is now ok and you'll be able to finish the room. Normally every other rooms work fine.

I've also changed the scrolls in The Salon. I'm a bit busy these days so I haven't any new rooms. I've tried Adders And Brains and Small Sands. The overall difficulty seems a bit higher than the levels I've created but who doesn't like challenge ? The theme are very well respected, it's a pleasure to have these two levels in the Hold

The puzzles in Small Sands are truly interesting and require good techniques ! I'll upload some demos for you later.



____________________________
My Holds :

Architecture Salon
Do it Again

Bent
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 92
Registered: 12-11-2015
IP: Logged

File: demos.zip (424.5 KB)
Downloaded 54 times.
License: Public Domain

I am glad that you like my levels enough to include them! Most people imagine their own puzzles to be much easier than they actually are, I know I do, so you may be right that my levels are among the hardest in the hold. I've completed a few more of your levels, so here are even more feedback and demos:

Rocky Archipelago:
Enjoyable and awesome looking level! Comments on specific rooms:
2N1W: Fun room! After I completed the challenge it kept saying "challenge complete" once every turn until I killed the remaining rock gigant.
1N1E: Fun but very easy room, solved it on the first try in under a minute.
1E: I mostly solved this room by trial and error, and can't really see a better way to do it.

Beethro learns painting:
This may be the level I like the least so far. This has less to do with the puzzles themselves, and has more to do with the design of the level: In most rooms there is no indication in the playing area on where the tarstuff is supposed to be, forcing you to look back and forth between the playing area and the "reference picture", counting tiles, and hoping you've not counted wrong. In some of the rooms that's the only challenge there is, and that is not fun at all in my opinion. I ended up using the screen drawing software "Epic Pen" in most of the rooms, painstakingly marking out every tile that were supposed to have tarstuff in them before even attempting the rooms. If I didn't have this software I would have found the level almost unplayable.

My main suggestion for this level is to indicate directly on the playing area where the tarstuff is supposed to be in every room, either by using colored lights, by using a different floor type or similar. The only rooms where I didn't think this was an issue was 1N1E, 1N2E and 2E. If you do this, you may also want to include a scroll telling players that it is recommended to turn on alpha blending and tarstuff transparency for the level.

As for the rooms themselves:
Entrance: This room is easy, but does a good job demonstrating how the scripting in this level works.
1N: I didn't enjoy this room. The difficulty only lies in counting tiles; if the tiles were marked in the way I suggested above, solving it would be trivial. Having to solve the room again when moving from one part of the level to the next is tedious. I suggest removing this room altogether.
1N1E and 2E: Enjoyable and interesting rooms.
1N2E: Very easy room, but a bit tedious. I think the concept has potential though.
1N1W: Again this room's difficulty only lies in counting tiles, and it is otherwise trivial to solve. I think the level would be better off without it.
1N2W: Completing the challenge in this room was an enjoyable puzzle.
2N1W: Very good room, has a nice lynchpin solution!
2N: This was probably the most difficult room in the hold for me so far. The thing that makes it hard is that if you are not clever enough in the beginning, you can get the gel into a state where it seems you've almost got a solution – and it may take 800 turns before you finally give up and restart the room. When I finally did restart though, and was more observant and methodical from the beginning, I found a solution pretty fast, and I ended up really liking the room.
3N: Another tricky room, but easier for me than 2N. I solved it mostly by instinct and a bit of trial and error, but I think it's a perfectly all right room.

The Eye:
I have been looking forward to playing this level, and it didn't disappoint! Lovely but tricky puzzles, and awesome mini-map art. I suggest adding checkpoints under every split point token, as that's where you generally want to restart from when playing time clone puzzles.
2W: Probably the weakest of the four rooms, I'd hate playing this one without unlimited undo…
1N1W: I managed to solve this room using only 2 temporal split point tokens. Maybe you should make that a challenge?

Bent
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 92
Registered: 12-11-2015
IP: Logged

File: demos.zip (19 KB)
Downloaded 51 times.
License: Public Domain

I haven't had much time for DROD lately, but have finally gotten around to finish playing another of your levels, plus the second arena.

Unproteted:
All right level. None of the rooms felt trivial or overly frustrating. Generally it was more focused on execution than on careful planning, and I solved about half of the rooms purely by improvisation and trial and error.

1N2W:There's a disarm token in this room (probably left from testing in the editor). Stepping on it has no effect.

1E: Interesting use of mimics and goblins. Nice room!

1N1E:I think you should add a challenge to this room to give the player an incentive to complete it. I managed to solve it generating only one soldier. It felt very easy to me, but it may be that I was just lucky with my soldier placement.

1S2W and 1S (with challenge): Nice rooms that rewards you for planning ahead.

Hungry Adder:
Very nice arena room! I think it's better than Roaches of Death. This is because Hungry Adder is very dynamic, with every playthrough turning out different. I think there are a lot of tricks and strategies to discover for getting a higher score.
In comparison Roaches of Death feels more static: How you solve one round doesn't much affect your chances at surviving the next round. It is also much more affected by movement order in the later rounds.

Currently my high score for this room is very low, only 24 roaches, but I am sure I can get it a lot higher if I spend more time on it.

There is a bug in this room: When pressing the action key after having stepped on the oremites, it will not display your final score, but it will instead display "The adder ate X roaches", with X being the total amount of slain roaches, including the ones you have stabbed with your sword.

Insoluble
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1639
Registered: 09-04-2014
IP: Logged

File: Architecture Salon.demo (20.7 KB)
Downloaded 52 times.
License: Public Domain

I've been meaning to get back to this one for a while. It looks to be pretty huge! I took a look at two levels that I hadn't played yet and that are marked as "need testing" in the first post. I have attached demos of the two levels I played.

The Eye Please make sure to put checkpoints under each time token. It is standard practice and makes it much easier to go back to the beginning of the recording or end of the previous one.

1W: In addition to putting a checkpoint under each time token, I would suggest moving the vision token to be south east of the first time token so that players can naturally hit it on the way to the time token. Putting it at (23,18) or (24,18) would make it so that I did not have to go out of my way to get to it. Also:

C h a l l e n g e !

Only use one time token.

You could easily make this a scripted challenge if you want to (I recorded a demo). It is probably not worth it to change the room to prevent this though since it is a pretty convoluted solution.

2W: This room felt much easier than others on this level. It was maybe a bit too straightforward. Please put checkpoints on the time tokens.

1N2W: This was probably the trickiest room in the level. The manipulation is and timing together took a while to get right. The briar releasing upon clearing the room was an unexpected trick! Please put checkpoints on the time tokens.

1N1W: This room was very fun. Nothing too difficult, but still interesting to coordinate everything.

Fegundo Training Area I enjoyed this level. Most of it was fairly straightforward, but still enjoyable. Some rooms were a bit on the long side. There are also some rooms that have disarm tokens on top of force arrows. This can be hard to read and it may be better to put thin ice instead of the force arrow, or possibly a row of arrow-token-arrow.

1W: Fairly standard type of fegundo room. Not much to say.

2W: This room felt a bit too long. It was not difficult, and mostly felt like busy work. But it is very time consuming to wait for the fegundo to plow through the briar. I would suggest making the area with the wraith wings smaller. The disarm token on the force arrow is hard to read. Possibly have the token between to arrows instead since there is room for this.

1N2W: This was a very tricky room. I'm glad it was a secret! It needs some checkpoints throughout the maze though. Disarm token on the force arrow is hard to read. you could replace the arrow with thin ice.

1S2W: This was an enjoyable room. The amount of skippers is enough to keep things interesting without feeling like a real hassle. Nice room.

1S1W: This was a neat room. I don't think I've seen a room use quite this trick of having a fegundo manipulate the puffs to form stable fluff. Having some experience with manipulating puffs into stable blobs helped a lot. It is nice that you gave more puffs than are needed, it makes it much more forgiving and enjoyable. Disarm token on the force arrow is hard to read. you could replace the arrow with thin ice.

1S: Setting up the fegundos to kill the roaches was interesting here, but I mostly relied on trial and error.

____________________________
Links to neat forum tools that I always have trouble finding:

---

[Last edited by Insoluble at 05-04-2018 04:34 AM]

jokokoe
Level: Delver

Rank Points: 71
Registered: 02-19-2010
IP: Logged

File: Small_Sands.rar (6 KB)
Downloaded 47 times.
License: Public Domain

Hello guys !

First of all, I would like to say sorry for this very late reply. I've been really busy this past months in my life. Moving to another country, getting started with my new, time consuming job ... Anyway, I've been working for so long on this hold, I really want to finish it !

I'll first reply to Bent:

I've been playing through some rooms of Small Sands, I really enjoyed this level. Some puzzles looks simple but the tricks are hard to figure (like the rooms on corners). More specifically :
1E: My Favorite. It reminds me a room in Shattered Mine in TSS ... It is also a good introduction for 2E. I would have recommended to put the sword token at another place (if you are ok with that tell me, I'll place it a few squares to the right).
1S1E: It took me a long time to realize that what I was doing to finish the room was the good solution, but the place of the clone and Beethro needed to be inverted, because of the sequence order ...
1S and 1N: Even if the two rooms share the same structure, the concept is pretty different. My favorite was 1S, trying to orientate the sword correctly to get the right sequence of moves was fun.
2N: Fun room, the right part seems tricky but once you understand the movement sequence it becomes really clear and easy. I might suggest to make the corridors shorter, maybe ?

I didn't finished the other rooms yet. I am totally lost when it comes to 1E, give me an hint please ! 2S is a great puzzle, I've been trying many time to find the good decoy configuration without finding it but it will eventually come !

I realize that I've finished most of the rooms playing in the editor so I only have 3 demos, demos that are in the attached file. I only tried a few rooms of Adders and Brains, I'll take a deeper look as soon as I can.

In Rocky Archipelago, The bug with the challenge should be fixed now.
For the two arenas, it is now no more possible to use the special key once the player step on the oremites, the problem should then be fixed.
The disarm token has been removed of Unprotected. Also, the number of soldiers has been reduced to 2 instead of 6 (good job for only using one soldier, I didn't though it was possible). In fact, this room is a preliminary to the last arena, Soldier War.

I understand your concerns about Beethro Learns Painting. After reading your comment I've been playing the level again and I think I'll change some stuff. The problem is that it is extremely time consuming to script this kind of rooms and I'm feeling a bit lazy to start over

What I would really like to modify :

1N2E: Keep the concept but change the mud shape (and maybe use more than one fegundo)

1N1W : as you said, it's only about counting the tiles. I need to find a new concept.

The Eye: Checkpoint added under every time token. Nice job for using 2 time tokens in 1N1W. I had already tried to used as least as I could but my best was 3 tokens. Your challenge is implemented


Reply to Insoluble:

Thank you for taking the time to test the Hold !

Fegundo Training Area: Most of the tokens under arrows has been moved for more visibility. Also, checkpoints has been added to the secret room (on every Pplates actually).

2W: The first design of the room had a smaller wraith area, but there was not enough holes for the briar to stop growing to quickly. I'll see if I can redesign this space, making it smaller but with the same amount of holes for the room to still be solvable.
1S1W: My first plan was to reduce the size of the puff but I've been feeling to frustrated to massively use checkpoints
1S: This room has been build on a random idea. I've been trying to improve it in many different ways but I didn't found anything concluding yet. Still need to work on this one.

The Eye: As said in Bent's reply, checkpoints has been added under every time tokens.

2W is by far the easiest one. I like the concept but I may have to find a way to make it harder.

Could you please send again the demo of 1W ? It is not working for me. Anyway, I'm extremely curious to see how did you clear this room with only one token. The challenge has been implemented, as well as the vision token as been moved south east.

===
===
===

Thank you both for having taking the time to test some levels. For now only a few things have changed :

In The Swampy Lake, 1S has been changed. I think the room is easier than the overall difficulty of this level. I might change it again.
I've deleted the level called Anticipation, but the two rooms that has been designed will be part of the bonus level. I have planned to create one last level, with time token puzzles again. Got some ideas that might be interesting.
In regards to the bonus level, most of the rooms comes from older holds I created for myself, or ideas that couldn't fit in any levels, or simply rooms not fun enough or to similar to other existing rooms to be implemented in the real game.
I also planned to add a second bonus level, which might be a mix of scripting games (in the same style as Sokoban Island) and minimap art.

I will now consider that Hungry Adder, Fegundo Training Area and Unprotected are complete and tested. I'll keep the label "need testing" in Colorful Cavern in case another person might be interested to test it. I'll try to keep working on the hold this week end and will give you news as soon as possible

____________________________
My Holds :

Architecture Salon
Do it Again

Insoluble
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1639
Registered: 09-04-2014
IP: Logged

File: AS The Eye 1W only one token.demo (17.1 KB)
Downloaded 45 times.
License: Public Domain

Glad you are back! This is a super fun hold. I'm looking forward to playing more of it.

jokokoe wrote: Could you please send again the demo of 1W ? It is not working for me. Anyway, I'm extremely curious to see how did you clear this room with only one token. The challenge has been implemented, as well as the vision token as been moved south east.

That's strange. I just downloaded the new version of the hold from the first post and my one token demo still seems to work fine for me. I'm not sure why it is not working on your end. I have several demos for the room, it should be the one titled "Only One Token" I'm exporting just that one demo and attaching it to this post just in case that works for you. The main trick is to get an eye to set off the pressure plate at (12,19) by juggling the eye's attention between Beethro and the time clone. I believe you actually need two eyes to make this happen though since only one will have a tendency to just get caught at (14,16) so you need a second one to slide off of it using vertical preference.

How I did this: Keep the 2 eyes alive at (27,4) and (27,5) alive and wake them one at a time to bring them to the west side of the room. I found it helpful to use the alcove at around (2,13), but looking back it probably isn't strictly necessary. Get the eyes to (10,12) and (11,12) using the time clone at (13,10) to hold them there. Then have Beethro at (12,16) facing N and the eyes will move to (12,13) and (12,14) as the time clone loops around to (14,13) Beethro can then get out of the way at the far west edge of the room. The time clone moves to (20,20) as soon as possible forcing one of the eyes to get caught on the force arrows near the plate. Then Beethro can move in and out of range to pull the eye to the west then let it move back south towards the clone. With that plate set off and the time clone resting at (20,20) Beethro can make his way to the conquer token relatively easily then clean up the remaining eyes.

____________________________
Links to neat forum tools that I always have trouble finding:

Bent
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 92
Registered: 12-11-2015
IP: Logged

File: Screenshots.zip (2.5 MB)
Downloaded 52 times.
License: Public Domain

Awesome the you've started working on the hold again!

About small sands:

About Beethro Learns Painting:

---

[Last edited by Bent at 06-02-2018 05:16 PM]

jokokoe
Level: Delver

Rank Points: 71
Registered: 02-19-2010
IP: Logged

Time for a new post !

Insoluble, I've been able to see your demo. I would have never thought that it was possible, that was very smart ! It will be a very nice challenge !

Bent, I've been taking into account your feedback in regards to Beethro Learns Painting. I was not really thrilled by the idea of using different color light. But after trying a few rooms with this coloring, everything was feeling easier, clearer and in a way funnier. So thanks for having pushing me into this direction ! One good thing is that if you put some lights that are not the same color of the mud / gel / tar, then you don't see the light. So I could still use this new design for 1N. I'll let you see by yourself (just try to do the upper right part of the room).

1N2E as been changed but the goal is the same (use of fegundos). There is now 2 fegundos surrounded by water, adding a bit more challenge to the room.
There is a new room, 2N1E. This room use adders.
1N1W is now 1N2W while 1N2W is a new room using briars.
I'm now more satisfied of this level but I'd really like to know what you think about it.

There is also a new level (the theme is time tokens again) called Impact Crater but it is in construction. One of my favorite TSS level was Temporal Anomaly so the design as been inspired by it. I plan to make the conquerable part invisible on the minimap (using arrows, briars, like Empty Space).

Impact Crater is supposed to be the last level I'll design (without taking into account the bonuses behind the master walls). But While designing Beethro Learns Painting I've been thinking of Puff and fluff. If i got some inspiration I'll try to add a new level dedicated to it. If not, I might add two or three more rooms in Beethro Learns Painting using it.

____________________________
My Holds :

Architecture Salon
Do it Again

Insoluble
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1639
Registered: 09-04-2014
IP: Logged

File: Architecture Salon.demo (42.8 KB)
Downloaded 51 times.
License: Public Domain

I tried two more levels. Demos are attached as always.

Beethro Learns painting. Highlighting the required shapes with lighting is much appreciated. Maybe put in a scroll letting people know that having alpha blending turned on for this level would be a good idea. I liked the concept here overall.

The Entrance. Players can exit without hitting the conquer token then reenter for a trivial high score. Maybe put a green gate to block the north exit.

1N1W: Fun room. I didn't try the challenge yet. Maybe have another checkpoint right before the yellow pressure plate?

1N2W: I decided to do this without taking the second speed potion just for fun. Probably best to ignore that possibility since it's not worth the bother.

2N1W: This was one of my favorite rooms. The solution is very clean and not to difficult to reason out. My one worry is that players will try to go for a messy and unpleasant solution. There's nothing wrong with leaving this open as a possibility, but I imagine it is a lot less fun and more frustrating. I almost feel like it would be nice to have it so that tar expanding on to the grass floor is an automatic fail state for the room (maybe there are pressure plates there that close off the room exit for example). That would make it clear to the player that a nice way to do this one is possible.

1N1E: This was a nice application for the classic trick of cutting a mud blob in two.

2E: Slightly harder version of 1N1E, but not all that much more difficult. The difficulty for this one feels like it could be a normal room instead of a secret, but it's probably fine to keep it as a secret.

1N2E: I actually found this one trickier than 2E, but I did not do it very efficiently. This was a neat room.

2N1E: This was another one of my favorites. It took me a minute to parse exactly what blobs to feed to which adders. The cleanup at the end was much less trivial than I originally thought it was going to be too.

2N: This was super tricky. This is an other room where I think it would be nice to signal to the player that a clean solution is possible by making the room automatically fail if the gel grows beyond the 7x7 square. I have no way how you could do that though that would be clear to the player. I stumbled about for quite a while trying to do something messy that involved gel growing further than that and it was only when I decided that a clean solution must be possible that I came up with something that works

3n: I fear I came up with a very messy solution for this one. I feel like there must be a nicer way to do this one as well but could not find it.

The Swampy Lake This was a fun level. The focus seemed to be more on horde rooms. It looks like you were careful to account for all backtracking issues except for one. In 1W you can place a clone at (37,24) then exit to the east and be stuck. I only mention it since you were so thorough to provide an escape in all other such situations!

1E: A fun horde room. Once I noticed how to avoid the fail situation of triggering the plate in the middle this was fairly straightforward.

1S1E: A much trickier horde room! This was definitely the most difficult room in the level for me. I almost managed this one by placing the clone directly on the conquer token. I'm still not convinced it is impossible to solve that way. You could always place a trapdoor under the conquer token to prevent this, but it's probably not necessary. You can always leave it as a well earned #1 score for the person who is able to do it that way!

1S: A very different kind of horde room! It was tricky to figure out how to even get started with this one, but once I reasoned about it a bit it was not too bad.

2S: This felt oddly easy for the crazy number of clones and pressure plates. I usually like to plan these kinds of rooms out ahead of time, but there were so many plates that I decided to do a trial run to get a feel for how everything linked up. So I did a trial run without putting much effort into it and somehow stumbled into solving the room. I don't know if I was just lucky, but I mostly just applied standard strategies for these kinds of trapdoor rooms.

1S1W: I trivialized this one by placing the clone at the room boundary so that the fail condition did not actually cause me to fail the room.

1W: Neat room. I feel like I was a bit sloppy with my solution, but I enjoyed this one a lot.

____________________________
Links to neat forum tools that I always have trouble finding:

jokokoe
Level: Delver

Rank Points: 71
Registered: 02-19-2010
IP: Logged

Some minor change in Beethro Learns Painting thanks to Insoluble reply :

A scroll has been added in the entrance (encouraging the player to use alpha blending).
Checkpoints added in 1N1W.
1N2W : It was not intended to take the second speed potion at the start of the room, an arrow as been added (I've tried finishing the room without using speed potion and it seems impossible.
2N and 2N1W : PP's have been added for the player to understand that there is an intended, "easy " solution. Nice idea !
1N2E : The decoration on the upper left is now a keg on thin ice. You can only use this corner to bump the fegundo once. The room is now harder but not to much.
3N: A good way to start is to put the mirror/Beethro at (5,13) and (10,17) sword facing NE. You'll be able to get rid of the right part after 2 full turns while keeping the left part not growing to much (more specifically, you don't want the left gel to go on the upper left corner).

The Swampy Lake:

2S My plan was to put some nasty arrows on the trapdoors but I didn't found any configurations for which I was satisfied.
1S1W: I changed the yellow doors by arrows and add a conquer token, there should be no more ways to make this room trivial.
Added some shallow water on 1W for the player to not get stuck, thanks for fiding this backtracking issue !
1S1E I've been trying so hard to finish the room using the clone on the conquer token but I've never been able to realize it. I wanted this to be a challenge ... But as you said, I think it might be managable, with some really nice effort.

Thanks for your feedback. I'll update the hold as soons as I can.

____________________________
My Holds :

Architecture Salon
Do it Again

Bent
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 92
Registered: 12-11-2015
IP: Logged

File: AS Beethro Learns Painting new rooms.demo (8.1 KB)
Downloaded 50 times.
License: Public Domain

Beethro learns painting:
This has now become one of my favorite levels in the hold! I played through most of the rooms in the level again, and enjoyed them all. I even enjoyed playing 1N this time around because of the eye candy. Some comments on specific rooms:

1N2E:
Much better than the previous version. The plant in the upper left corner was a nice little lynchpin. The mud "reference picture" isn't cut into shape though, which looks a bit off, and is probably not intentional?

2N1E:
One of my favorite rooms in the level. Really nice lynchpin puzzle!

1N2W:
I thought this was a good room as well. Cutting the briar into shape felt very much like dealing with tarstuff, which was an interesting point to make.

4N:
This exit room now feels very dark compared with the rest of the level, I think it would look better to highlight the tarstuff in here as well.