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Caravel Forum : DROD Boards : Holds : King Nareik's Dungeon (Modern AE hold)
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8.9/10 (15 votes)
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Author Name:Kieran Millar
Submitted By:kieranmillar
Hold Name:King Nareik's Dungeon
Theme:Modern AE hold
Author's Difficulty:
Number of Levels:20
Number of Rooms:216
Number of Monsters:1710
Version:DROD: The Second Sky (5.0.2)
High Scores:View High Scores
Hold Karma:15 (+15 / -0)
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admin
Level: Legendary Smitemaster
Rank Points: 8
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File: King Nareiks Dungeon.hold (93.8 KB)
Downloaded 430 times.
License: Other
From: Unspecified
icon King Nareik's Dungeon  
An earthquake has struck Glothorred and King Nareik's Dungeon has been flooded with monsters. You play as Rallim, an experienced Smitemaster who has been sent to clear it out. It has 18 floors, clear them all!

King Nareik's Dungeon is an Architect's Edition hold. This hold was made in its entirety in AE, and also played all the way through in AE. Yes, I played it all with no undo! However this is an AE hold with modern design principles, meaning it is mostly difficult lynchpin puzzles. Despite the slow introduction of new elements, this hold is difficult and not necessarily for beginners, it assumes players are already familiar with the full AE repertoire of elements.

After making this hold in AE, it was them ported to TSS, made to look nicer (but with identical gameplay) and the challenges were scripted. So the hold that you will download here requires TSS, however the AE version is attached as a bonus download in the following post. If you have TSS, obviously you should play the main download and take advantage of the visual improvements and scripted challenges, but the AE hold below will work in all versions of DROD.

There are a little under 200 puzzle rooms to solve. Good luck!

Thanks to the following people for testing (in alphabetical order):
* bbb
* Chaco
* komachi
* NoahT
* Nuntar
* Rabscuttle
07-29-2019 at 04:38 PM
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kieranmillar
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 2670
Registered: 07-11-2014
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File: King Nareiks Dungeon AE.hold (81.6 KB)
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License: Public Domain
icon Re: King Nareik's Dungeon (+3)  
Here's the AE version of the hold.
07-29-2019 at 04:39 PM
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disoriented
Level: Smitemaster
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icon Re: King Nareik's Dungeon (+3)  
Beautifully done. Really shows the potential in those tried-and-true elements. Don't miss the attention paid to hold design and aesthetics.

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[Last edited by disoriented at 08-04-2019 06:18 AM]
08-04-2019 at 06:18 AM
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MHighbrow
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 153
Registered: 08-02-2010
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File: KND Tenth Level 1N1W unintended solution.demo (8.3 KB)
Downloaded 64 times.
License: Public Domain
icon Re: King Nareik's Dungeon (+3)  
This is a lovely hold so far! I'll save a proper rating for when I beat the thing, but so far it's been very tough but completely fair. I'm on Tenth Level and I really appreciate you putting those little tutorial scrolls in the entrance - some very thoughtful design in the whole hold. Some great lynchpins, too. (Seventh Level 2N2E is a personal favourite so far - very demanding room, but very satisfying when I finally cracked it.)

I'm actually just dropping by to report an unintended solution, in case you think it breaks the room too much and want to fix it. On Tenth Level 1N1W, it's possible to slip past the roaches without using the serpent at all. I attached a demo. This also awards the challenge, although I'm pretty sure it's not what the challenge scroll wants you to do, judging by its wording. (In fact, I only looked for this solution because I thought it was going to be the challenge!)
08-07-2019 at 01:49 PM
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kieranmillar
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 2670
Registered: 07-11-2014
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icon Re: King Nareik's Dungeon (+1)  
Hi MHighbrow, glad you are enjoying it so far!

Well done on finding this solution! You are right that it is unintended, but that's OK! This means you're smarter than me. Also it looks like you've secured a solid 1st place score that should stick with you forever. Nicely done! 👍

I have a personal policy to only update one of my published holds in the event of total catastrophe, partially because I want to avoid people having highscores invalidated where possible, but also because at some point the line needs to be drawn on how long I spend working on a hold. This one started production in early 2016, I think 3 and a half years is a good time to stop.
08-07-2019 at 09:36 PM
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MHighbrow
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 153
Registered: 08-02-2010
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icon Re: King Nareik's Dungeon (+2)  
Thank you! That's fair enough if you want to leave the hold be - I did peek at the old Architecture thread earlier, and it's clear you've already put tons of work into it. (Also I think the score is beatable by someone better at managing roaches than me...)

I've made it a bit further and I think Eleventh Level is my favourite so far - I love the kind of puzzle that makes up the southern half of the level.
08-08-2019 at 04:03 PM
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mxvladi
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 2505
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icon Re: King Nareik's Dungeon (+4)  
Don't think I've played kieran's holds before (aside from some contest entries maybe?). Quite impressed by this one overall.

In short: among "modern" AE holds, this is one of the better and high quality holds I've seen. It is pretty tricky sometimes, too, especially near the end.
There are a few negatives that I'm going to note - some unintended solutions seemed to slip by, and some levels just seemed to be weaker than the rest. For a ~200 room-effort though it is pretty minor.

Expanding on what I wasn't particularly fond of and some of probably-USes:

Click here to view the secret text


Looking forward to Nareik's Journey, whenever that comes out.

[Last edited by mxvladi at 11-28-2019 03:05 PM]
11-28-2019 at 03:09 AM
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