Here's the latest hold in the Blank Dungeon series, which began with
The Blank Dungeon and
Secret of the Blank Dungeon, which were tributes to King Dugan's Dungeon and Journey to Rooted Hold, respectively.
This hold mimics The City Beneath's plot and level structure, and similarly to how that hold expanded its level themes and hold layout, this hold also features some hub interludes and changes of pace.
If I were to describe this hold in a single word, it would be "
ambitious"
. It's azb's largest hold yet, both in terms of total number of rooms and in number of high-scorable rooms. There's a huge number of levels in this hold, and even though most of them are combat rooms there's a large enough variety of themes that there's creative ideas through and through. Levels are also small enough that it generally doesn't take *too* long to move onto something else eventually.
However, that said, it's clear that this hold lacks polish and wasn't tested thoroughly enough. While it's true that not many people tested this hold in the Architecture thread, it's also true that it would have benefited from a bit more drive for tester recruitment and equally a bit more responsiveness to existing tester comments. Leaving aside the plot's structure and quality of dialog, this hold shares the problem of its two predecessors that there are some rooms which go beyond horde management into boredom or tedium. Some rooms are difficult mostly due to their length rather than due to interesting strategizing or prioritization. Some are larger than they ought to be. Others require very specific starting sequences or else the spawn rates get high enough that they become problematic. This hold has many good rooms within it, but it's clear after playing this for a while that some of them needed to be either re-worked or removed entirely. Many levels are fun to play, but several of them have at least one or two rooms which stand out as worse than the rest of the level.
Finally, I should also mention that a lot of levels are too dark for their own good. TCB mostly used darkness levels on the right half of the slider for intermediate monster-less hallways, story rooms, or low ambient light rooms that nonetheless had important puzzle areas very well lit. Generally actual puzzle rooms would use very minor darkness. This hold both uses very dark rooms, and still uses highlights and colored lighting for player direction (particularly marking a couple of scripted level entrance teleports). So it's important to turn off Alpha Blending for puzzle room solving but turn it back on for level traversal and story.
Overall, I'd say this hold is a fun time, if you go in knowing exactly what you're getting into, and don't mind hacking away at large hordes or trying to figure out ways to make long rooms easier on yourself. There's even some minor puzzles or thinky bits mixed into all the horde combat. The finale is actually pretty well executed, too, if you can make it that far. But don't expect this hold to be user-friendly, because it definitely is not.
Some good rooms:
Imperial Tunnels : 1 West;
Director's District C : 1 North, 1 East;
Serpent Station : 1 East;
Sea Base : 1 South, 2 West
Some bad rooms:
Imperial Tunnels : 1 North, 2 West;
The Prison : 1 North;
The Depths : Entrance
I hope azb is patient and listens to tester feedback for his next hold, that testers can manage to give him some constructive feedback, and that the next hold really shows off azb's skill as an architect.
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[Last edited by Chaco at 04-20-2019 06:36 AM]
