Lucky Luc
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1215
Registered: 08-19-2012
IP: Logged

File: An Unsteady Dungeon.drh (17.9 KB)
Downloaded 96 times.
License: Public Domain

This hold started out as a silly idea that kept me up at night for a little gimmick hold and over the course of a few days turned into something I'm really proud of. I actually don't want to talk about it too much because I think the hold can speak of itself, but if you've already played it or are more interested in incoherent rambling than RPG, here's a few thoughts and specifics:


Okay, enough talking now. Go ahead and play it!

Update v2:
- Buffed the true final boss a bit.
- Changed "form" to "from" in the intro text of the third level.
- Third level style is now Aboveground.
TODO: Remove exclamation marks before submitting to HA.

Update v3:
- Updated goodie interface. Should improve readability drastically.
- Removed a small bug where an ice/magma/pit baby wouldn't work probably if it was one-shotted. I don't think this was even possible, but still glad I caught it.

Update v4:
- Fixed Devil's eyes' greckle values

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[Last edited by Lucky Luc at 04-09-2018 11:05 PM]

navithmastero
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 631
Registered: 01-03-2012
IP: Logged

Okay, uh, just for reference, and because I don't know whether it will actually have a bearing later on in the hold, the doors at (2,2), (3,1), (4,2), (8,2), (2,13), (4,13), (5,14) and (8,13) I left up in the entrance room, with the rest of them down, giving me a seed of 49884.


Okay, after the first level, my stats are:
HP: 198
ATK: 18
DEF: 18
GR: 51
REP: 51

I've no idea if this is any good so I'll just carry on playing and see if I run into any problems.

EDIT: Due to the price of the items, I will be replaying in order to get up to 55 greckles so that I can purchase both the wooden sword and wooden shield.

And thus I ended with the same DEF and ATK, but with 56 greckles and 182 HP.

Some general notes so far:
-All of the custom monsters have a '!' in front of their names: e.g. '!Alpha Roach' - you may wanna change this.
-Also, the bags of gold display on top of the monster, unlike other monsters. If you can, I think it might be nicer to display these underneath
-In the description for the Third Floor, 'form' should be 'from'.
-The deepspaces style in Third Floor was a little bit harsh on the eyes, I know there's not much you can do about it, but possibly consider swapping styles with another level?

Okay, I've played up to the Third Floor, but it's become pretty clear that I've not optimised well enough.

This is a super super cool concept, and like Luc's said, it speaks for itself. It is really unique and not like anything else out there, I would highly recommend checking this out. This hold reminded me (and Luc said that this was a major inspiration) of a board game called Labyrinth, so if you've played that, you'll recognise the similarities.

A couple tips for future players:
-If you push a column north and then push it south immediately afterwards, the same thing *does not* come back, which means that you can stand still towards the sides of the board and constantly replace stuff if you so choose.
-Greckles are very important!
-Each level *is not* independent of the next. For example, you take a yellow key from one level to the next and it will help you there. It is worth saving yellow keys particularly.
-The pickaxe may be more important than you think.

____________________________
Member of the Snake Appreciation Society

One of your local HAs.

My stuff:

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[Last edited by navithmastero at 04-05-2018 10:21 PM]

Someone Else
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2384
Registered: 06-14-2005
IP: Logged

If you hit . twice in a row, the game crashes. That's... probably not desirable. More comments once I've actually played some of it.

EDIT: Oh, and the monsters aren't moving properly. For reference, I used seed 0 and moved west twice and then moved my section up.

SECOND EDIT: Scratch that, looks like I'm playing with an old version. I'll let you know.

UPDATE: So far, it's really neat! I'll waste spend a lot of time on this.

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[Last edited by Someone Else at 04-07-2018 04:47 AM]

Lucky Luc
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1215
Registered: 08-19-2012
IP: Logged

Thanks for the feedback so far!

I'm not terribly thrilled about the hold crashing earlier versions of the game, since that apparently means I used some borderline scripting, but I'm also slightly reluctant to touch the script too much now, since it seems to work in the newest version.

About the balancing: I wanted the hold to be tough on your first playthrough -- maybe even a bit unfair -- but managable (yet challenging) on further playthroughs. But if you feel like any balancing choices are too tough, please let me know!

EDIT: Had another playthrough myself and decided the true final boss needed some buffing. Also did some other minor changes. Savegames that have not yet met the final boss should be intact.

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[Last edited by Lucky Luc at 04-08-2018 02:01 PM]

Lucky Luc
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1215
Registered: 08-19-2012
IP: Logged

Oh hey, another update. I just had an idea how to "solve" the moneybag-problem and drastically improve information accessibility. A small icon above the monsters now show which goodies to find underneath them, making it slightly less necessary to click every single monster every 5 seconds. The only problem remaining is that these icons don't disappear / turn into moneybags instantly after defeating a monster, but I can live with that.

If nothing comes up, I'll probably leave this hold on the architecture board for one or two more weeks and then submit it to HA.

Lucky Luc
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1215
Registered: 08-19-2012
IP: Logged

Sorry for the triple post, but it turns out I'm an idiot. Fixed a greckle value I messed up. If you haven't reached the fifth level yet, this shouldn't affect your savegames (or at least I hope so).

Lucky Luc
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1215
Registered: 08-19-2012
IP: Logged

Okay, it's been a few months, but I'm kinda active at the moment and I'd actually like to publish this hold, so I'd love to hear some more feedback (you know, like, someone actually conquering the hold). Currently, I have the feeling that the hold's balance is a bit on the tough side, which, combined with the unique mechanic, makes it a bit overwhelming. Is that true? If so, I'll spend some time rebalancing.

I feel like it might be a good idea to make the equipment cheaper, so that not doing that well on one level doesn't more or less automatically lock you out of the next one. And maybe make the greckle curve less steep, so that greckles from previous levels have more weight?

I could also work on the monster stats, but that's something I don't really wanna do until I now it's necessary (unless there are specific monsters that people think are too tough).

It also might be worth pointing out that the fake final boss isn't all that tough, so you can probably beat him even if your stats aren't great. But I guess if the early levels are already the bottleneck, that doesn't really help too much.

If you are busy with contest stuff / testing other holds, I'm also fine with waiting a bit longer. Just would be nice if people kept this on the radar

Von Wibble
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 35
Registered: 07-21-2008
IP: Logged

Just tried this, went for hitting no orbs.

1st room, I can't get out. There are 3 paths in my section of a maze, 2 lead to pits and the 3rd says there is no adjoining room . Unless I've missed something?

Lucky Luc
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1215
Registered: 08-19-2012
IP: Logged

Hey, thanks for checking out this hold! The main gimmick (except for the randomness aspect) of this hold is that you can "shift" the maze in a somewhat similar fashion to the board game "Labyrinth".

It should be possible to hit the special command key (Numpad . on default layout) to switch into "shift mode". A tooltip will appear in the top left corner that tells you what tile to expect. You can then choose the row / column and direction where you want the new tile to appear; all other tiles get shifted in the direction you chose.

If that doesn't work, maybe the scripting got broken in the new version and I'll have to look into it.