So, this is a somewhat silly idea I had for a contest, but I ran it past the good people in CNet chat the other day and a few said it sounded like a good idea. So let's give it a shot!
I've played and enjoyed a few holds recently with a theme of limiting the elements used to a small palette, such as the awesome
King Nareik's Dungeon, a modern linchpin-style hold using only AE elements. I certainly don't want to steal Kieran's thunder by running an "
AE elements"
contest while his hold is still in development, but the idea of doing
something with restricted elements appealed. After a bit of thought, I came up with this: all elements in the game (except for a few basics such as floor and walls) are divided into groups. Pick one group, and use only elements from that group.
In dividing up the elements, I started with the Floor tab in the editor, selecting eight floor types as "
starter"
elements for the groups. Then I considered elements that would go well with each, e.g. shallow water goes with mirrors so you can make stepping stones, and those go with eyes.... Some elements would fit naturally into more than one group, e.g. invisibility has interesting interactions with eyes, tar mothers and roach queens. In those cases, I made a more-or-less arbitrary decision, while trying to keep the groups reasonably well balanced. In any case, I felt that if some groups ended up more tempting than others, some architects would welcome the challenge of working with a more challenging selection
I decided that force arrows should be available to everyone, since they are so useful that giving them only to one group would unbalance things too much. (That said, avoiding force arrows can be an interesting restriction in itself, as Chaco did in
Pickle Cellar.)
Also, disabled arrows are available to all groups, because otherwise there are five objects that can open/close/toggle and only three things they can affect.
So here's what I've ended up with, together with the general rules:
1. Make a one-level hold, with the same hold and level title.
2. Decide on one group of elements from the list below. You must use
only elements from that group plus the "
basic elements"
group.
3. Your level should contain a minimum of four puzzle rooms, and a maximum of twelve total rooms.
4. Every element in your group should feature in at least one puzzle.
5. Non-Beethro player roles are fine, but only if they match an element in your group.
6. As usual, entries must be "
Anyone Edit"
, must be masterable, and all challenges (if any) must be solvable. Usual HA rules apply.
Element groups
Basic elements (available to everyone): Beethro, sword, floor, wall, checkpoint, green door, blue door, staircase, force arrow, scroll, obstacle, lights, vision token, inert briar.
Group 1: Water, waterskipper and nest, trapdoor over water, platform over water, ice over water, fluff and puffs, fluff vent, adder, fegundo, power token, tunnel.
Group 2: Shallow water, ice over shallow water, rock giant, spider, gel/baby/mother, mirror, evil eye, soldier and horn.
Group 3: Pit, platform over pit, trapdoor over pit, red door and sister gate, bridge, wraithwing, one-use pressure plate, goblin, mimic and potion, disarm token, dagger.
Group 4: Hot tile, mud/baby/mother, aumtlich, guard, powder keg, pickaxe, speed potion, arrow rotator token, cracked/broken orb, stalwart.
Group 5: Oremites, construct, rock golem, Halph, Slayer, yellow door, on-off pressure plate, staff, citizen/relay station/PCMT.
Group 6: Floor spikes, tar/baby/mother, black door and sister gate, spear, invisibility potion, red serpent, decoy and potion, brain, orthosquare.
Group 7: Fire trap, green and blue sister gates, briar root, orb, conquer token, wubba, rattlesnake, seeding beacon, temporal split token.
Group 8: Crumbly wall, bomb/fuse, caber, seep, roach and queen, gentryii, clone and potion/horn, multi-use pressure plate, engineer.
Forbidden to all: Secret wall, master wall, hold complete wall, tarstuff switch tokens.
How to enter:
After posting this, I will open a submission topic. Post your hold file there when it's ready. Entries will be anonymised during voting, so go ahead and create your hold with the player file with the name you would like it to appear under in the final compilation.
When you post your hold, I will double-check that the entry does not use a forbidden element, and immediately notify the architect if it does. Architects may fix and resubmit their entries with no penalty.
The deadline for submissions is
11:59pm GMT, 2 May.
This is an official contest, so the usual prizes apply:
First place: 100 rank points and your pick from the Prize Pile
Second place: 50 rank points
Third place: 25 rank points
First-time entry: 10 rank points
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50th Skywatcher
[Last edited by Nuntar at 04-25-2018 05:53 PM]