superluminal
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 75
Registered: 05-26-2016
IP: Logged

File: City Sewers.hold (9.7 KB)
Downloaded 55 times.
License: Public Domain

I've built a short hold that shouldn't take too long to conquer. Then again, it only took me a day to build. Seven rooms. No secrets. Anyone edit. With any luck, they're of good enough quality to publish to the Holds board.

Please let me know if you find any unintended solutions. The rooms are pretty simple so I don't think there are any, but hey, that's why we have the Architecture board in the first place!

Victory demos for each room are provided. You should be able to find them by pressing F6, but if not, I'll post the lot here.

Thanks for playing!

____________________________
spacelike

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[Last edited by superluminal at 05-21-2017 05:53 AM]

blorx1
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 920
Registered: 07-18-2009
IP: Logged

File: City Sewers Blorx Demos.demo (15.6 KB)
Downloaded 47 times.
License: Public Domain

The demos aren't viewable (If you want to make them available you could click "make viewable from title screen).

Anyway, it's good to see that there is still interest in making short one level holds. For the most part the rooms were either fun or painless. I think I broke 2S1E. I've provided a full demo set as well.

I liked the golem packing rooms in particular, since that's my sort of thing and 1S1W was neat to see. 2S on the other hand is a pretty typical roach queen killing room, but that's fine.

Edit: also the symmetry in 1W makes it a little repetitive. Maybe you'd want to consider changing it up to force slightly different approaches to killing the different queens.

Overall, the aesthetics were fine. Maybe you'd want to take advantage of the nice pipe obstacles provided in the style you're using to add to the sewer feel?

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If you need to think outside of the box, then you didn't build a good enough box.

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[Last edited by blorx1 at 07-31-2016 05:39 AM]

bomber50
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 872
Registered: 09-18-2006
IP: Logged

File: Bomber50 City Sewers Demos.demo (10.6 KB)
Downloaded 43 times.
License: Public Domain

Conquered all rooms. Overall, I enjoyed. The three eastern rooms and 1S1W were my favourites.

Looking at blorx's demos, we solved most of the rooms differently, so it'd be good to compare them against yours and perhaps make some changes to enforce certain solutions.

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[Last edited by bomber50 at 07-31-2016 06:14 AM]

Nuntar
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 4792
Registered: 02-20-2007
IP: Logged

Solved all except 2S1E, in just over an hour. Nice rooms.

I couldn't help noticing that 1W and 2S are very similar to rooms in Entry Point

1W didn't feel too repetitive to me, since I got the first two queens out at once.

1S1E: Why is there a gap in the south wall of the NW enclosure? It seems like an unnecessary extra annoyance that's unrelated to the solution concept.

2S1E: Checkpoint in a neutral location. Sure, it's only 20 moves to go from the room edge to the puzzle, but it's really annoying to have to repeat this every time I start over.

2S1W: Again, checkpoints could be better. Since you're forced to go past each brain in a certain direction, why not put the CPs on the tiles after each brain (and then you could remove the central ones)?

1S1W: Needs checkpoints outside the central area (preferably one on each side).

1W: Same as 1S1W. At the end if there are roaches in the middle, it can become impossible to checkpoint without releasing them.

____________________________
50th Skywatcher

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[Last edited by Nuntar at 07-31-2016 07:56 AM]

superluminal
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 75
Registered: 05-26-2016
IP: Logged

Change log:
* Added decorations. Things should look more sewery.
* 1W: Added a few force arrows and replaced the roach with a tar baby.
* 1S 1W: Trimmed some space around the edges to enforce the proper solution.
* 1S 1E: I liked bomber50's solution a lot, so I decided to steal his idea. Now, you can't kill any rock golems in the NW chamber (you need their corpses for something else). I'm hoping this will encourage some more out-of-the-box thinking right off the bat, since the solution doesn't actually require much movement order finicking, and I don't want players getting frustrated trying to finick the unfinickable. I also made things look pretty.
* Added checkpoints where Nuntar recommended.

Replies to replies:
Thanks for the comments!

____________________________
spacelike

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[Last edited by superluminal at 07-31-2016 08:36 AM]

superluminal
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 75
Registered: 05-26-2016
IP: Logged

New version! I've changed a few things again:
* Rearranged some decorations slightly.
* Replaced 2S with a decoy room.
* Replaced 2S 1W with a shallow water room.
* Added more checkpoints for MAXIMUM CONVENIENCE.

As always, victory demos for every room are provided.

____________________________
spacelike

Red-XIII
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 658
Registered: 08-05-2012
IP: Logged

File: City Sewers demos.zip (4.8 KB)
Downloaded 46 times.
License: Public Domain

I decided to play this too, and I liked it. Overall, good aesthetics and nice linchpin puzzles though there are some US (I confronted my solutions with your victory demos).
Some comments:

1E: Good puzzle with good linchpin.
1S1E: It took me a while to realize that there was no need to study movement preference, good room.
2S1E: Another good room, though it has a US.
2S: My favourite room in the hold, even though I used a different solution.
2S1W: I didn't really loved this, but it's ok since there are several ways to manipulate the babies.
1S1W: I'm not a big a fan of these type of puzzles, until I found out the linchpin, good room.
1W: I didn't do it the way you intended, ok room.

Too bad this only has 7 rooms, I hoped to see more. For information, it took me 1 hour to complete it.
Demos attached.

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

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[Last edited by Red-XIII at 08-05-2016 11:17 AM]

superluminal
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 75
Registered: 05-26-2016
IP: Logged

Red-XIII wrote: 2S1E: Another good room, though it has a US.

I wasn't going to fix this US since it's so much slower than the intended version, but since you're the second person to come up with solution, I made it go away.

2S: My favourite room in the hold, even though I used a different solution.

US fixed. Yours was a pretty brilliant solution, though!

2S1W: I didn't really loved this, but it's ok since there are several ways to manipulate the babies.

You're right that it's a bit more lenient than most parity puzzles, although there's only one place you can break the parity and get both babies on the same diagonal. Do you not love parity puzzles in general, or did you not like this room in particular?

1W: I didn't do it the way you intended, ok room.

US fixed. I hope you enjoy the room more now that you can't get rid of the baby so fast.

Too bad this only has 7 rooms, I hoped to see more. For information, it took me 1 hour to complete it.

If you finished the hold hungry for more, then my mission is complete. I'm glad you enjoyed it! I'm also glad to hear it took you ~10 minutes to complete each room, meaning they're not utterly trivial/boring. I don't think anything in here is a real brain-stumper, but neither is anything too easy.

Thanks for the comments! I've uploaded a new version.

____________________________
spacelike

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[Last edited by superluminal at 08-05-2016 07:12 PM]

Red-XIII
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 658
Registered: 08-05-2012
IP: Logged

2S1E,2S: While there are a couple of variants to do these rooms, the main idea is still intended, there should be no more US.

2S1W: It's just me. I don't love these type of puzzles, but the room itself is good!

1W: Fun and relatively easy room.

Also, I want to rewrite what you said. These rooms are not trivial at all, and by no means are boring. The difficulty, to my standards, is around 6.

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

Insoluble
Level: Smitemaster

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

Just bumping this since superluminal seems to be back around and it appears to be mostly finished. Looks pretty neat. Any chance of sending this to HA soon?

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

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[Last edited by Insoluble at 05-01-2017 11:56 PM]

superluminal
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 75
Registered: 05-26-2016
IP: Logged

Sure!

I replaced 1W with a new room. It should prove much funner, and a bit tougher. Demo viewable from title screen, plus a rerecorded demo for 2S 1W. I also touched up a few aesthetics. (If anyone asks, I put platforms under force arrows to make them stand out a bit better.)

New version in first post.

____________________________
spacelike

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[Last edited by superluminal at 05-03-2017 07:40 PM]

Insoluble
Level: Smitemaster

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

File: City Sewers.demo (16.8 KB)
Downloaded 42 times.
License: Public Domain

Super cool hold! I really enjoyed these rooms. I've attached demos for the latest version in case you need them. Don't think I did anything unintended.

This seems about ready to send to HA except for one thing possibly. The puzzle in the room 1S1W is essentially the same as the one in Pass The Hold Around: Division of Labor: 1S2W
Here's a room image for reference:

It's not the first time that two people have independently come up with really similar room ideas, but I guess you can see these have pretty much the same set up. Not sure if you want to tweak it a bit before sending this to HA.

Other than that, this is really great.

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

superluminal
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 75
Registered: 05-26-2016
IP: Logged

That's crazy! I've been sitting on that room idea for years! But Nuntar pointed out some other similarities, and I replaced those, so I've gone ahead and made a new room for 1S 1W. Hopefully it's just as good or better than the old room.

Hopefully it's unique this time.

As always, full demo from the title screen. New version in first post.

____________________________
spacelike

Insoluble
Level: Smitemaster

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

Has this been sent to HA yet? It definitely seems ready to me. I just wanted to mention that I absolutely love the new room you put in for 1S1W. I'm a sucker for multi push rooms and this one uses the mechanic in a combination that I haven't seen in a published hold before. Super cool!

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