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Xindaris
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File: Hold Title Mixup Contest Compilation.hold (2.8 MB)
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icon Hold Title Mixup Compilation (+5)  
Attached to this is the de-anonymized compilation. I want to get this ready to go to the Holds board as soon as possible, but there's lots of work to be done!

-The changes that were made during the voting period were reverted because I chose to make the changes to the anonymized version rather than make them to the non-anonymized one and bother Shick, but I THINK I got all those changes put in to this version just now. Please double check your entry and ensure that everything is fixed how it was before.

-Non-contenders: Mothergrebbin' Snakes dropped because of some unsolvability problems, but I'd like to include it as a "non-contender" if superluminal can adjust the rooms to be solvable. I also heard at least one other person had done some work on an entry but hadn't finished it quite in time to submit for the contest voting; if you did that I'd love to include your work as another non-contender entry bonus as well.

-Errors, fixes, etc. As usual, if there are leaks you'd like to see fixed and such let me know, give me something to copy over, etc. Some other changes which would be a little more complex than the mid-voting quick fixes were discussed with one or two entrants, I'd like to be reminded of what those changes were so we can make them if possible.

-STAIRS! If your entry lacks stairs to return to hub, or especially if it originally lacked "this level is finished" stairs, I'd like you to tell me where to add those if it's not already there or of it's there, but not where you'd prefer it to be. (This includes scripts that handle returning to hub instead of stairs where applicable, of course.)

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[Last edited by Xindaris at 09-19-2017 12:56 AM]
07-18-2017 at 03:33 PM
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Dragon Fogel
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File: Ode to Decoy.hold (5.1 KB)
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icon Re: Hold Title Mixup Compliation (+1)  
Here's Ode to Decoy. This should require the decoys in 1W, and should hopefully enforce clearing the room to get the challenge in 1N1W.

I don't mind unintended solutions in the first six rooms. I also won't mind any in 1S1W as long as they don't skip disarm tokens.

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Edit: Also, 3W in Dischorran Pizza: The Caves should be made unrequired because that's a terrible room. Making it unscorable or having a button to cheat it wouldn't be a bad idea either. Be sure to note that the room was originally required to beat the level, so it's clear why the entry scored as low as it did.

[Last edited by Dragon Fogel at 07-18-2017 05:22 PM]
07-18-2017 at 05:19 PM
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Dragon Fogel
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icon Re: Hold Title Mixup Compliation (0)  
Suggestions for making Mothergrebbin' Snakes work:

1S: Just put the briar on green sister doors.

1E: Put a right or left-facing force arrow at (27,17) so the snake doesn't go north, but you can still manipulate the giant afterwards. Haven't tested if the snake reaches the puff in time, but it would avoid the impossible timing issue I ran into.

1N: The white and dark blue relay station areas could be extended into 3-by-4 areas. (Block the other middle square with an obstacle, pit, or other relay station.) This would allow the adder to grow two more tiles, but those stations would have to be handled last. Then adjust the gel baby area so those two tiles are all that's needed.
07-18-2017 at 05:32 PM
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Insoluble
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Dragon Fogel wrote:
Edit: Also, 3W in Dischorran Pizza: The Caves should be made unrequired because that's a terrible room. Making it unscorable or having a button to cheat it wouldn't be a bad idea either. Be sure to note that the room was originally required to beat the level, so it's clear why the entry scored as low as it did.

I'm just posting here to agree 100% with this. Please let's make this room unscorable.

Also, I'm fine with leaving my entry, When you Wish Upon a Tar, as is. Doom and Uncopy2002 found some alternate solutions to a couple of rooms but I have no problem with that and don't really think those solutions need to be blocked. If other folks feel otherwise I'm willing to make changes, but I'd say go ahead and include it as it currently is.

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07-18-2017 at 06:42 PM
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Dischorran
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icon Re: Hold Title Mixup Compliation (0)  
This hold fixes trivializing USes in 1N, 1N1W, and 1N2W. And by fixes, I mean "seems like it should fix, but probably actually doesn't". I didn't do anything to the 2N2E challenge.

As per standard contest protocol, I leave it to the organizer to decide whether it's more appropriate to include the fixed version or the version as voted on in the contest.

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07-18-2017 at 07:15 PM
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Xindaris
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Update

Newly uploaded version of hold has replaced Dragon Fogel and Dischorran's entries with the uploaded new versions of the same; that One Room in Dischorran Pizza has been marked non-required with a scroll added indicating that it was required originally; I made a fix to an obvious noob architect mistake in DALXPEPR* 1S2E (you know, the "chromatic stuff" room).

I will hopefully await superluminal's input on fixing Mothergrebbin' Snakes in the way Fogel suggested or some other way.

*-I've been pronouncing it as "dalek's pepper" ever since I saw the abbreviation

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07-18-2017 at 11:52 PM
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icon Re: Hold Title Mixup Compilation (0)  
The Five Stages to Baking with the player role fix.

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07-19-2017 at 06:57 AM
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disoriented
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Sticks and Stones with fixes to rooms on several of the levels.

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07-19-2017 at 07:15 AM
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Resert On
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I looked at my entry and asked to do this:
- Dishorran Pizza : The Cave : 3W
Make this room unrequired and add a challenge if player clear this room with all seeding beacon disarmed (i guess that was good reward for clearing this room). Name of the challenge is "Stalwart Guider".
- Dishorran Pizza : Shattered Mine : 1E
Block the path to south by adding a rock.
- Dishorran Pizza : The Cave : Entrance
Add a way to return to The Hub (in cave exit) (i don't care if the prologue is repeat).

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07-19-2017 at 11:55 PM
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Dragon Fogel
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Resert On wrote:
I looked at my entry and asked to do this:
- Dishorran Pizza : The Cave : 3W
Make this room unrequired and add a challenge if player clear this room with all seeding beacon disarmed (i guess that was good reward for clearing this room). Name of the challenge is "Stalwart Guider".

I really don't think it's a good idea to add a challenge.
07-20-2017 at 12:25 AM
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Nuntar
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To expand on what Fogel said: if the reason for making a room unrequired is that feedback has said that people find the room frustrating to the point that it stops being fun, then awarding a challenge just means that players who are trying to get all the challenges will have to suffer through it.

Really, in this case I think the best thing would be to edit the room so it's more enjoyable and less frustrating to complete. As this is a contest compilation, you could include the original version alongside it for historical purposes, but leave it unrequired and unscorable.

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07-20-2017 at 01:13 AM
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jamesdenem
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As someone who came completely late to the contest party, and didn't have a chance to take part or vote, I have a simple question:

Is the hub area supposed to be confusing as to which levels you have completed, or is there some sneaky system to tell which you have completed?

It feels to me that the hub area should have some clearer method of showing which entry has been successfully cleared.

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07-20-2017 at 02:04 AM
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Dragon Fogel
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The hub was hastily put together so contest voting could be done. I agree there should be indicators in the hub at this point, though.
07-20-2017 at 02:36 AM
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I agree that putting completion indicators in the hub is a good idea, but wanted to also mention that I really appreciate the compactness of the hub. It was super easy to navigate from one entry to the next and I'd love it if that aspect of the hub were kept. Maybe just use scripted lighting or something similar to indicate when an entry has been cleared.

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07-20-2017 at 03:01 AM
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Xindaris
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Ohh yeah, I forgot about making completion indicators. Sorry, I'll get on it when I'm doing the next update.

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07-20-2017 at 03:14 AM
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Pekka
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Well, I don't have any minor changes to make in Gentryii-yi-yi!! Also,I don't think bigger changes are appropriate at this stage. So, I would leave it as is.

I looked at all the posted demos and I hope I didn't miss anything major in them or the comments. If anyone thinks I should change something, tell me!

(I had some plans that got dropped because I ran out of time.)
07-20-2017 at 08:55 PM
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azb
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Dragon Fogel wrote:
Resert On wrote:
I looked at my entry and asked to do this:
- Dishorran Pizza : The Cave : 3W
Make this room unrequired and add a challenge if player clear this room with all seeding beacon disarmed (i guess that was good reward for clearing this room). Name of the challenge is "Stalwart Guider".

I really don't think it's a good idea to add a challenge.

I agree that when this room was required, it was a bottleneck/obstruction for the player because of how it stood out from other rooms in terms of frustration.

However, in my honest opinion I would say challenges/secrets naturally rely on doing things the hard way and while yes, this room was indeed frustrating, I could come up with worse examples (IE: The City Beneath's final two levels due to the unpredictable nature of Builder movement.)

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07-21-2017 at 01:56 PM
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Xindaris
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disoriented, do you have an idea of exactly which rooms you changed in Sticks and Stones and/or how? The nature of that entry's map screen scripting makes it a pain to just copy the levels in like I am for everything else, so it'd be nice if I could just copy some of the rooms instead.

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[Last edited by Xindaris at 07-21-2017 03:39 PM]
07-21-2017 at 03:38 PM
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Dragon Fogel
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azb wrote:
I agree that when this room was required, it was a bottleneck/obstruction for the player because of how it stood out from other rooms in terms of frustration.

However, in my honest opinion I would say challenges/secrets naturally rely on doing things the hard way and while yes, this room was indeed frustrating, I could come up with worse examples (IE: The City Beneath's final two levels due to the unpredictable nature of Builder movement.)

It's bad design to just say "this is going to be hard, so I'll make a challenge for it". The fact that it's a mistake that's been made before is no excuse for making it this time when it's entirely avoidable.
07-21-2017 at 05:34 PM
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azb
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It's entirely up to Resert On, so I wasn't necessarily advocating for him to do it, I was just pointing out that secrets rooms and challenges are optional, and thus can be however hard or easy the author wants as the player isn't forced per se (as long as no Master Walls exist, and those only apply for secrets) to do them unless they have an external obligation not derived from the game (IE: someone specially requested them to do the secret/challenge, a sense of completionism, etc.)

The other thing is that as it features natural game mechanisms and elements (IE: monster movement order, constructs, seeding beacons, sister doors), it is entirely predictable if you know the exact mechanics of the elements and functions involved in question. A room like this, though tedious in execution, is better than say, a room that relies on random, unpredictable scripts.

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[Last edited by azb at 07-21-2017 06:05 PM]
07-21-2017 at 05:56 PM
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Dragon Fogel
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It's impossible to know the "exact" mechanics of stalwart movement.

And yes, guess-the-scripting rooms are bad, but I haven't been as frustrated by any of those as much as I have by this room. And believe me, I've played a lot of them.
07-21-2017 at 06:58 PM
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azb
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Dragon Fogel wrote:
It's impossible to know the "exact" mechanics of stalwart movement.

Emphasis added for the point I'd like to address:

I don't know about that.

While the last two (TFMurphy's article and the site article on stalwarts) are more general, the first one (Advanced Concepts 2) definitely spells out the principles of Stalwart movement play-by-play (IE: which direction they prefer in what scenario).

I'm not sure if you meant that it's impossible only here, or that stalwarts are indiscernible in general, but the first link proves that you can in fact learn them.

It's easy to say something is impossible out of frustration, but there are plenty of articles both on the site and the forum about things people used to hate downright when they were new, such as wraithwings or builders/citizens.

Though yes, even though it is indeed possible to learn stalwart movement, it is extremely grating after a while to have to predict where it will move next in order to keep both it and the constructs alive at the same time and I can appreciate 100% why this room would be archived and replaced with an easier one.

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[Last edited by azb at 07-21-2017 08:33 PM]
07-21-2017 at 08:21 PM
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Dragon Fogel
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You're missing this.

The short version is, it is impossible for a human to predict which of multiple equal-distance paths a stalwart will prefer. It's dependent on the outcome of a black-box algorithm.

The only reason the room is predictable at all is that you can push the stalwart and take his movement algorithm out of the equation. But you can't reasonably predict his movement, which makes it unreasonably hard to predict consequences of that movement, such as how long it will take him to kill the last construct or whether he'll survive the current formation if they revive at a particular time.
07-21-2017 at 08:44 PM
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azb
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Yes, so the issues is in this room in particular are that A: the distances are approximately equal and that the stalwart's logic becomes very fuzzy once constructs are equidistant from the stalwart and B: the nature of the stalwart when the constructs revive and form particular groups.

I would support a change with a more predictable puzzle using an element that has not been featured in another room already in that level: clones (either preplaced, from a potion or from a temporal token). This will keep the "allies, constructs and seeding beacons" theme of the room, but remove some of the chaos of predicting monster movement.

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[Last edited by azb at 07-21-2017 09:33 PM]
07-21-2017 at 09:13 PM
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Xindaris
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UPDATE

It's worth noting I had to make most of the changes here twice because I imported an earlier version of the hold when I shouldn't have

-Lights now in place which indicate completion of individual levels (yay!). I also renamed the variables that track level completion for my own sanity's sake.
-Five Stages to Baking and Sticks and Stones should now have been edited as desired.
-Requested changes made to Dischorran Pizza except I have not added a challenge to the Stalwart room. As the contest compiler I don't feel comfortable with including a horrid magic sequence room as a thing anyone will be in any way encouraged to try unless it's just necessary, and I'm much happier with the unrequired "historical record" state of that room than with keeping it required or even with replacing it, since replacing it makes it less clear why the entry ranked how it did. I guess an overwhelming majority of people wanting the room replaced or an extra "reasonable" version of the room placed off to the side, say, might convince me otherwise, but that's about it.

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[Last edited by Xindaris at 07-21-2017 09:46 PM]
07-21-2017 at 09:46 PM
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azb
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Though that was an unpredictable room indeed, it wasn't the only reason the entry was ranked low; broken English, bad scripting and empty rooms all most likely played a part as well.

I would suggest the variant I suggested before not replace the room, but instead be put off to the side of the room as a "bonus" secret room.

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07-21-2017 at 10:28 PM
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Resert On
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Is this hold are submitted to HAs?

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08-08-2017 at 10:04 AM
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Xindaris
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UPDATE: "Mothergrebbin' Snakes" entry removed as per superluminal's request.

AS FAR AS I KNOW THIS HOLD IS READY TO GO TO HA. IF THIS IS WRONG PLEASE TELL ME BEFORE THIS FRIDAY.

Also, I'm not sure I have demos for all rooms in this "non-anonymized" version with its edits. Which...may be a problem?

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09-19-2017 at 12:57 AM
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