Sorry it has taken me a while to get back to this. I just played through three more levels. Demos are attached as always.
Round 4.4 In the Army Now For about half of these rooms it was particularly tricky to find an opening sequence of moves that would allow me to survive. Specifically the rooms that felt like this were
The Entrance,
1N1E,
2N, and
1N1W. I found that if I was able to make it through about 20 moves or so the rest of the room was pretty doable. I mostly relied on standard guard manipulation techniques, but with so many guards I had to brute force my way though the first 30 moves or so. I thought about copying my moves for The Entrance over in 2N, but the move order is different and the trapdoor and obstacles are shifted vertically by a tile so it won't work. These four rooms were actually pretty good once I made an initial breakthrough to survive the first 20 to 30 turns though.
The other four rooms on this level were a lot of fun. I particularly liked
1E. On the whole, I've really enjoyed the thin ice rooms in these levels, they lend themselves to a more strategic approach. I hope that you continue making rooms like this! My favorite in the level was definitely
1N. This room was almost more of a linchpin puzzle than a horde room, but still fit the theme of the level quite well.
Round 4.5 Beyond Blunderdome I tested the time limit in a few rooms to make sure that you actually do get cut off after 30 turns. In general though, the time limit was generous enough to never feel too tight while still being strict enough to encourage me to work efficiently. In other words, it was just right for a timer room. Most of these felt easier than the rooms on the previous level, but not to such an extent that I would recommend moving the level earlier in sequence. There is a way to break the timer, but it is rather silly and not really an issue since it doesn't actually make the rooms easier. I recorded a second play through of a few of the rooms to show this method off, so you can check the demos for details. The goblin knight element is interesting, though it took me a second or two to figure out how it worked. The exit stairs in
1N exit the hold instead of taking me to the next level.
Round 5.1 The 12 Knights The difficulty in this level seemed to fluctuate pretty drastically from one room to the next. Some rooms were a breeze, but
1N,
1N1E, and
2N were very tricky. Nothing felt too repetitive though. I stopped at 1N and am still working on this one.
In general, I am still enjoying this hold. But I also find it easier to appreciate in small chunks of 2 to 3 levels at a time. That's probably because of the focus on combat, and specifically very chaotic combat in which at least some brute force is necessary. That's not a bad thing by any means, but may be something to consider since this hold is getting pretty large. I might suggest having a level or two in each round that possibly focuses on strategic setup (like the thin ice rooms) to give the player a bit of a break and to change things up a bit. Just a suggestion though, obviously.
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