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Caravel Forum : DROD Boards : Architecture : Escort Mission (Everyone's favourite cliche, now in DROD!)
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hyperme
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File: Escort Mission.hold (24.3 KB)
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icon Escort Mission (+1)  
Do you ever think "Golly, killing monsters is great, but sometimes it would be cool to keep them alive for a while"? Well good news, this hold is for you! And other players as well.

Escort Mission is hold about keep monsters alive, so that you can eventually use them to activate a widget.

Currently there is one level and four puzzle rooms. (for some definition of the word puzzle) The overall architectural goal is three to four levels, and probably not many more than 20 rooms

Please leave feedback if you have played, and have feedback.

Those version histories:

Click here to view the secret text


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[Last edited by hyperme at 02-29-2020 01:12 PM]
08-06-2018 at 07:56 PM
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larrymurk
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icon Re: Escort Mission (0)  
I took a quick look.
I like the theme.
1E-
The 1st 2 sections didn't follow the theme. They were fine, but just seemed out of place.
1W-
I enjoyed keeping roachie alive while destroying the tarstuff.
1N-
1st section was fun getting the giant to the water.
Moving the giant through the water using platforms looked like more than I cared to try right now.
The 3rd section looked fine.
1S-
I played around a little pushing the guard around stabbing things but gave up for now.

Seems like fun stuff so far.
08-07-2018 at 04:52 PM
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komachi
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File: Escort Mission.demo (7.2 KB)
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icon Re: Escort Mission (+1)  
Conquered the four rooms. Looks good except the water area at 1N.

1W: fun and simple room avoiding the roach
1N: Good room, spent most of the time on the water area which I didn't like too much.
1E: Trivial room, you can "store" the baby in the first area making the room pretty easy.
1S: Good soldier manipulation room, a checkpoint in the first area would be good.

And the demos if you want to see them, I didn't find anything which would be strange besides 1E.
08-07-2018 at 05:29 PM
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Lucky Luc
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Just took a look at this. Basically what komachi and Larry said. Pretty fun stuff, except for the platform section in 1N, which can die in a fire. I don't think anything can be broken so far, except for the kinda break in 1E if that's not intended.
09-30-2018 at 01:31 PM
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hyperme
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icon Re: Escort Mission (+2)  
It's a hold update! It's shocking because usually they take me half a year to do.

Changes:

+ Two new rooms in Don't Kill the Monster
* Slightly changed DKtM: 1E so that the Gel baby is more involved.
* Replaced the horrible raft section in DKtM: 1N

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11-06-2018 at 05:27 PM
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Insoluble
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File: Escort Mission.demo (20 KB)
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icon Re: Escort Mission (+2)  
Demos attached.

The idea is neat so far. Many of the rooms feel like they go on for a tiny bit longer than they need to to get the idea across, but I never felt like anything was going completely overboard.

1W: This looked most approachable so I tried it first. Looks like there's no way to break the widget at the end so I had to keep the roach alive. This was a lot of fun and involved some interesting choices about how to cut the tarstuff. Nice room.

1S: Was mostly fun and probably the second most approachable room. The only bit that felt a bit over the top was the adder. You already get a similar experience doing the rattlesnake and the adder is super rude and always trying to eat the guard. I feel like this room would be better without it, but that's probably subjective and others may disagree.

1E: Horde of guards with spears are annoying. There's really no two ways about it. That being said, as soon as I realized that this was secretly a linchpin room and that the proper way to do it was to actually stash the gel baby away I really enjoyed it. Ended up being my favorite room because of this.

1N Rooms are starting to feel very busy now. This almost feels like it could really be two separate rooms: the first two chambers in one room and the last bit (possibly slightly expanded) in another room. Was still fun though.

1N1E: Was mostly okay. I appreciate that I could bring monsters along from one chamber to the next and didn't necessarily have to feed them to the adder in the room in which they first appeared. Made for a smoother experience. The business of the room was a slight detraction. From all the stuff going on, I misread the room and thought I had to have all the plates held down in the bomb chamber at once for a while. Almost managed it by bringing in two mud babies with the snake. I'm not convinced that it's impossible, but best to ignore that line of thought as it was extremely annoying to try to set up.

I see that there's a secret room and an inaccessible room on the next level. I'll try to get to those soon. As it stands this feels like maybe a 6ish brain difficulty maybe? Hard to tell.
Difficulty is predominantly in execution and monster manipulation obviously, but there were a couple of linchpiny insights that had to happen too.

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11-08-2018 at 06:05 AM
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hyperme
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icon Re: Escort Mission (0)  
After more than a year of failing to make useful DROD progress, a new version is released! There is now a new level, with up to five new rooms.

Pridefully, I will say that the hold is "halfway done".

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07-02-2019 at 07:47 AM
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KituU
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File: Escort Mission- KituU demos.demo (7.8 KB)
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icon Re: Escort Mission (0)  
Hi,
nice theme, very interesting. Some patience is needed, but mostly enjoyable. great!

Don't Kill Monster 1N : firetrap sector a lot more fun than previous impossible rafts. very nice

Keep Monster Alive 1N : why the scroll ? i think the hint takes away satisfaction of solving that sector, makes it trivial

Demos


07-03-2019 at 07:09 PM
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hyperme
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With a brisk pace of "one room a month", a new version is released, with a new level. Current plans are for one more level, at which point this will be complete.

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11-30-2019 at 03:39 PM
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Insoluble
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File: Escort Mission.demo (26.6 KB)
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icon Re: Escort Mission (+1)  
Here's another demo pack for the 2nd level "Keep the Monster Alive". I'll try to test out the third one soon. These rooms are very packed and often feel like they could be stretched out into multiple rooms. Maybe that's the effect you're going for. The end result though is that I basically feel like I can do about four of these rooms in one sitting before needing a break. I didn't try too hard to break things, but I did at least try to make sure that the end-of-room-widgets actually require me to keep the monster alive. Checkpoints probably are okay? I'm always bad at telling.

1E: Tried this one first. Slayer Manipulation is maybe not the most popular puzzle niche, but I count myself as one of the few folks into these kinds of puzzles. I liked a lot of the bits of this room at least. Getting past the fire trap, double hitting the orbs, and killing the last eye were all pretty fun and relied on fairly standard slayer tricks. Getting the eye on that pressure plate though. Man, that was fiddly. I'm not sure if you're looking for a super specific magic manipulation here, but I'm pretty sure the sloppy mess that I ended up with ain't it. I really wish there had been more room in that area around the pressure plate at (28,12), that would have made this room about ten times more enjoyable.

1S: This one was nice and approachable. I like that both parts had a bit of leeway and that the roach timers weren't any stricter.

1N: Felt like three separate rooms. The first and last chunks involved fairly standard manipulation tricks, though the requirement of dispatching with everything while standing in the same vertical column was fairly neat I suppose. But the meat of the room was definitely the middle section with the rafts, and honestly if that section was a room on its own it would be a super cool one. I guess it's all a mater of personal taste though if you like having a lot of stuff going on in each room. I want to emphasize that the raft bit was super cool though. I definitely had to take some time to work out a functioning strategy for this one.

1W: Now we get four rooms in one. Adder section was fairly straightforward. The second bit with the guards gave me some trouble, but mostly because I was tired and stubbornly refused to actually think about it. Muddled through that section by dancing around until something worked. I really liked the third bit and the end with the trap doors and bombs.

1S1W: Sweet Jeebus there's a secret room too? You give me a choice at the beginning of whether to bring the goblin with me and use the aumltich on the plate or vice versa. I took the goblin with me since it really looks like that's the only thing I'll ever be able to get onto the pressure plate at (23,8). Also, there are a ton of other aumtlich I could have access to in the room so it seems logical that I'd need the goblin I suppose. I may be mistaken and it may be possible to do with wither one which would be pretty cool. But if not you run the risk of players assuming either one would be okay (or just not seeing what the roadblock is) and then bashing their heads against the room not realizing they are already in a fail state. This kind of "gocha" may be fun for some, but is super annoying for a lot of folks.

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12-02-2019 at 06:07 AM
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Insoluble
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File: Escort Mission.demo (29.1 KB)
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icon Re: Escort Mission (+1)  
Demos for the third level attached. This one was pretty fun on the whole. I was a bit worried at first, what with two stalwart rooms. But they ended up being less terrible than I thought they would. I had fun with all four of these.

1E This one looked the most approachable at first. Decoys are pretty easy to predict after all. I had a lot of fun with this. Nothing super tricky. The guards and goblins were probably the trickiest part, but ended up not being super fiddly at least.

1W Took me forever to find a way through the bomb maze. That was the hardest part of the room by far. Everything after was fun, but fairly straightforward. The platform manipulation was mostly routine. The backward "c" shaped platform kind of telegraphs a good technique for gaining leverage. I didn't really see what the mimic potion was for in the adder area. Not sure how it would have helped having another mimic?

1S Hmm. Stealth adds an interesting twist here. I was worried about the stalwart manipulation, but things turned out pretty manageable. I had to fiddle around a lot to find a viable way past the rock giants, but everything else was fine.

1N Another stalwart? Well, soldier I guess, but functionally the same. This turned out to be very reasonable though. Pushing the skipper nest was the most interesting part of the room. I enjoyed that a lot. But I appreciate that the only monsters that reasonable could kill the stalwart here were snakes, and they're fairly easy to manipulate away from him. Nice room.

All in all I'm impressed that these stalwart rooms turned out to be quite fun.

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12-03-2019 at 12:57 AM
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hyperme
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icon Re: Escort Mission (0)  
The extra potion in DtF: 1W is a mistake. I've updated the top post with a fixed room.

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12-03-2019 at 05:36 PM
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hyperme
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icon Re: Escort Mission (+1)  
Coming in at just under two months of 'work', it's a new level. The final level! This is not just a hold update, but a release candidate.

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01-29-2020 at 09:00 PM
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mxvladi
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icon Re: Escort Mission (+1)  
I've played through the hold, excluding secrets (will do them a bit later).

Overall - mostly straightfoward manipulation stuff.
Demos attached. Will remove once you get to see them.
upd.: demos removed

Of particular note:

Click here to view the secret text


[Last edited by mxvladi at 02-09-2020 10:36 PM]
02-09-2020 at 08:47 PM
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hyperme
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icon Re: Escort Mission (0)  
Thank you for the demos. For most of the breaks, it looks like a small change will fix them, so hopefully there will be a new version within a week.

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02-09-2020 at 10:31 PM
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hyperme
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New version posted with fixes for some room breaks.

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02-12-2020 at 07:36 PM
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