Sitnaltax
Level: Roachling
Rank Points: 10
Registered: 02-17-2003
IP: Logged

1) Create 4 rooms in a 2x2 square.

2) In each room, make sure the room corner towards the middle of the square is clear.

Notice that the diagonal rooms are now "connected." Also, none of the rooms have a blue error highlight.

3) When moving in a cardinal direction, you move from one room to another as expected. When moving diagonally, you change rooms vertically. This is unexpected, although it is consistent with the way vertical movement is preferred with mimics, force arrows, etc.

4) Now fill in the exit on the upper left room. The upper right and lower left rooms get a blue error highlight, but the lower right room does not.

5) If you try to go diagonally now from the lower left room to the upper right room, you still move vertically--into the upper left room, where there is no proper entrance.

I think the ideal solution might be to allow diagonal room movement, but it's probably a lot of work for little return. Failing that, perhaps it would be better to send Beethro to the lower right room in this case?

mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5056
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

Good room layout experimentation. The behaviors you described are exactly how it's designed to work. Diagonal transitions might make sense to some, but not others (meaning they're not very intuitive) and they wouldn't really add anything new to the game. It might make for a tricky puzzle, but that's not exactly the type of puzzle DROD capitalizes on. (Rather, it's about being able to see everything and based on that decide what to do.)

Stepping onto the wall in the next room over is allowed, but usually bad design, and that's what the blue warning highlight means.

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.