zaubberer
Level: Master Delver

Rank Points: 251
Registered: 03-29-2005
IP: Logged

it's me again...

i'm absolutely not understanding the meaning of this puzzle. and without such a little bit of a chance to solve it it really sucks.

sorry, schep!

can somebody help me please?

zaubberer

TripleM
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1373
Registered: 02-05-2003
IP: Logged

OK.

Floor areas - islands.
Closed doors - water.
Open doors - planks.

The planks are of three different sizes - depending on how long the path of doors is. You can pick up and carry one plank at a time. You can then put down a plank between two islands as long as it is the right length, and then you can cross over it.

The only other rule is that you can't have two planks crossing over each other like is possible in the bottom right corner for example.

So an example of how you could start the room (but this way doesn't help you at all):

Hit the orb to your right to pick up the length-2 plank. Hit the orb above you to place it up that way. You could then walk across, and go pick up the length-1 plank if you like.

Hopefully that makes some sense.

zaubberer
Level: Master Delver

Rank Points: 251
Registered: 03-29-2005
IP: Logged

thnx, i did it.

zaubberer

key-smiter
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 121
Registered: 06-15-2003
IP: Logged

This room doesn't make any sense. I can go either straight north from the entrance, or or a few islands east and then one island north . . . but in either case when I get as far as I can go the only path "open" is right back to the entrance. A reading of the room scrolls and the hints above tells me that - for example - the doors at either (7,9) or (6,15) should open when I'm carrying the plank I've picked up by striking the orb at (2,25), but both stay closed.

What in the world?

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[Last edited by key-smiter at 03-14-2008 12:09 AM]

key-smiter
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 121
Registered: 06-15-2003
IP: Logged

I am fated to be a pest on this room, unfortunately . . . the passage of a week has not led to any flash of insight. What is, say, the first dozen or so bridges to be torn down and rebuilt?

Thanks -

key-smiter
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 121
Registered: 06-15-2003
IP: Logged

And, with another week gone by . . . no progress. Can anyone provide a hint of a hint?

Thanks -

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[Last edited by key-smiter at 03-26-2008 09:00 PM]

key-smiter
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 121
Registered: 06-15-2003
IP: Logged

File: PP First Level 2N2E try 1.demo (941 bytes)
Downloaded 39 times.
License: Public Domain

It may be gauche to keep posting and posting on the same room . . . so I'm crude, I guess. I've attached a demo of what I'm finding, which in all cases is "stuck almost immediately". (I've exported another demo, showing what happens when I go west out of the entrance; it's even shorter.)

Can anybody shed any light at all on this room? Surely someone has completed it - if so, please let me know what to do here.

Thanks!

key-smiter
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 121
Registered: 06-15-2003
IP: Logged

File: PP First Level 2N2E try 2.demo (1.8 KB)
Downloaded 40 times.
License: Public Domain

I can't possibly have stumped the forum crowd . . . what's hard for me is easy for everyone else. If I cry, will someone take pity on me?

I've attached a second demo, several hundred moves in length, documenting a typical pointless trip around the perimeter. I can go a few squares in, and then back to the beginning . . . please, please let me know what the secret is to this room.

Thanks -

key-smiter
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 121
Registered: 06-15-2003
IP: Logged

Surely someone has completed this room, and can be moved to give me a hint, or a description, or a demo, or something . . . . please?

(In my opinion, the "plank-lifting-and-dropping" the scrolls allude to doesn't work as advertised. Is there a version problem?)

Thanks -

key-smiter
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 121
Registered: 06-15-2003
IP: Logged

Perhaps I'm a monomaniac. Any hints of any sort on this room? Please?

Remlin
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 181
Registered: 04-28-2005
IP: Logged

key-smiter wrote:
... A reading of the room scrolls and the hints above tells me that - for example - the doors at either (7,9) or (6,15) should open ...

The door at (6,15) would only open if you lay down a plank that can reach from the (4,15) island to the (27,15) island. But those islands are four units apart, and the longest plank is three units long. So the door at (6,15) can *never* open. The door at (7,9) can only open if you're carrying a plank that's three units long. The three floating yellow gates in the upper left show what length plank you're currently carrying.

Maybe try the plank mazes at the link on the scroll as practice for the room?

key-smiter
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 121
Registered: 06-15-2003
IP: Logged

File: 2N2E.jpg (194.3 KB)
Downloaded 42 times.
License: Public Domain

Thanks for the response . . . and you've cleared one thing up for me already. I understood the planks to be proportional to door length, not number of doors - that (for example) a plank of length two was a 2x2 door.

However, just because I know slightly more doesn't mean I'm unstuck. Again referring to the instructions on the scrolls, from where Beethro is right now I should be able to open the doors to either the east or the west. Since I cannot (I can only go back the way I got here, back to the entrance) I'm missing some aspect of how the plank puzzle concept is rendered in DROD. Since my question may not be making any sense, and since this is as far as I can get (237 moves in, and can only go back to the entrance) will it be possible to get a demo? Or, failing that, a verbal walkthrough of the first hundred moves or so?

Thanks again -

Remlin
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 181
Registered: 04-28-2005
IP: Logged

I don't have a demo, sorry. You might be confused about what an island is: Only the 4x4 white areas with orbs are islands, the 2x2 gray areas aren't.

From the position you're in, no, you shouldn't be able to open the east or west door. You can't open the west door because there are no islands west of you - that's another door that will never ever open. To open the east door, you'd need to be carrying a length 1 plank. In your screenshot you're not carrying any planks. You could pick up the length 3 plank north of you, but you still wouldn't be able to open the east door, because planks have to be the exact length you need.

Here's where you first went wrong. You started by walking east, picking up the length 2 plank west of you, and putting it east of you. Then you walked east again, picked up that plank again and placed it north. So far so good. Your next step should be to walk one island north (NOT all the way north, just to that middle island). Hit the north orb to pick up the other length 2 plank. Walk back south and hit the west orb to put that length 2 plank down again.

key-smiter
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 121
Registered: 06-15-2003
IP: Logged

Thanks . . . clearly I slept through class the day the way to solve this room was described.

Even with the starting route you suggested, it looks like I get back to the entrance. {sigh . . . } The flash of insight that will allow me to figure out what to do still lies in my future, apparently. What should I be doing next?

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[Last edited by key-smiter at 05-11-2008 03:08 AM]

key-smiter
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 121
Registered: 06-15-2003
IP: Logged

{sigh} Let's cut to the chase . . . I don't seem to be capable of making this room operate the way it should. Can someone provide me a demo so that I can see what's up?

Thanks -

pigletto
Level: Goblin
Rank Points: 19
Registered: 02-01-2007
IP: Logged

File: PP First Level 2N2E Victory.demo (2.4 KB)
Downloaded 66 times.
License: Public Domain

A very messy demo attached

key-smiter
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 121
Registered: 06-15-2003
IP: Logged

Thanks . . . this room made me feel like a complete dullard. Glad it's behind me.

Kafka
Level: Delver

Rank Points: 42
Registered: 01-18-2004
IP: Logged

Sorry, I just don't get it. How do you know which orb to hit in order to pick up a required length of plank, since clicking on the orbs gives no indication of what they toggle?

____________________________
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