Doom
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A little inspired by this topic, here are my thoughts of the last level in JtRH. I've tried to keep them as un-spoilery as possible in case an outsider wanders here.

I got disappointed to L25 in JtRH pretty quickly after getting to it. What kind of feeling did the level give me? The impression of doing the same thing again and again in almost every single room. There are some good exceptions to this, such as 2S3E and 2S, which are clearly the 2 most puzzle-like and interesting levels in the entire level.

These were my first thoughts after completing the level and that’s what I still think. It wouldn’t be propably so big deal, but the fact that the last level lacks variety and has so few good puzzles is a little disappointing.

No. I wasn't expecting a KDD-L25 copy. That wouldn't have been very cool either. But in any long hold I'm expecting to see something special at the end. Maybe extra hard rooms, something unique, ... JtRH just didn't accomplish that for me.

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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It's a fair opinion. We planned all the levels in advance and reserved guards early as the New Thing for level 25. My feeling was that the player would have a big reaction to seeing not just one swordsman (i.e. the Slayer) on the screen, but a whole army of them. No doubt, it was not so obviously awe-inspiring as I imagined.

There were arguments like yours about the level being boring and repetitive. We had a round of revisions to the rooms to make them better, and you would have liked the earlier version of level 25 even less. Likewise, there were many changes to the end story to make it better. I tell you this so you understand we found a balance between rushing the thing out the door in raw form and delaying our ship date forever. There always has to be a balance to avoid releasing a big stinky pile or not releasing at all. I imagine we could have done better on the last level, but there is always something that can be done better. It's still worthwhile to talk about shortcomings though. I can say that we've already learned a fair bit from the last level of DROD: Journey to Rooted Hold about what to avoid.

-Erik

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stigant
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Hmmm, I had to go back and refresh my memory as to the rooms in level 25. I remember hating the ones against the east wall (the ones with the diamond in the middle). They just seemed to require too much trial and error. I agree with you on 2S3E and 2S. The other rooms were the typical sort of introduce an element in as simple and gradual a manner as possible. Unfortunatly, its hard to then elaborate on that theme (which is what the last level often does). I think that compared to KDD level 25, JtRH level 25 is a real let down. KDD:25 was full of hard puzzles using old elements. JtRH:25 was mostly tedious and frustrating with a couple of good gems. I suppose the reason for this difference is probably in the new element introduced. Guards, like any other monster in JtRH, are predictable and puzzles are built around that behavior. The Neather, on the otherhand, was meant to be a facilitator to make otherwise impossible puzzles possible. He was meant to be unpredictable, but his behavior was scripted specifically to each room to make a good puzzle.

We've ripped the puzzles... what about the story? I felt like the wrap-up was a bit ham-handed ("But you're just a surface dweller...oh" - gag), and obviously pandering to a sequel ("What happens to Halph? What is Architect Guild up to? What is the thing in the pit? Tune in next time for the exciting conclusion! Same Bat-time, Same Bat-channel!). The ending to KDD was more interesting... yes, it was setting up a sequel, but not as, I don't know, cheesily. It brought back some ideas that I had missed when I played through the puzzles (that strange door on level 10 etc), and built in a story that was otherwise absent in the rest of the dungeon.

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eytanz
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I think one of the problems with the puzzles in the last level is that guards are not nearly as exciting or surprising if you're already familiar with them from the editor. I'm not saying that level 25 would have been that great otherwise, but it would have had the chance of including the emotional impact that Erik described. Also, the fact that we introduced the slayer very early on and that by that point the player was very familiar with him didn't help.

So yeah, like Erik says, I think there were lessons learnt from JtRH that hopefully will make a better game out of TCB and future Caravel products.

As for pandering for a sequel - I should point out that the title of the game is "Journey to Rooted Hold", not "Rooted Hold" - it was always supposed to be perfectly obvious that this is meant to be a middle part of a sequence, not the ending of the story. Maybe that was too clear to the dev team so we left too many threads loose, but we never intended these questions to be really hooks into the the story, but rather setup to build on.

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stigant
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Well, I can appreciate that. But here's a thought I just had: I prefer Empire Strikes Back as a movie to A New Hope, but ESB was clearly meant as a lead-in to the third of the trilogy where as ANH was (initially) a stand-alone movie (since GL didn't know if he was going to be able to make the sequels until it smashed all the box office records). Why doesn't the ending to ESB leave as cheesy taste in my mouth as the ending to JtRH does? Perhaps it would have been better if the Slayer had revealed that he was Beethro's father! (I'm of course kidding - that would have been shameless). But it seemed like the main arc of the story (ie the Slayer) came to an end, but we now have to play through a third act to tie up loose ends, some of which felt like they were introduced just as sequel fodder. In ESB, we reach a dramatic climax ("No! That's not true - that's impossible!"), but there's much more interesting questions to answer rather than just some loose ends.

I'm being fairly critical here - I'm looking forward to The City Beneath. I do want to know what's going on with the Architects Guild etc etc. I especially want to play the new puzzles and meet the new foes. But I was sold on that before I even played level 1 of JtRH. The campiness of the story line is, after all, part of the charm of DROD. I just liked the ending to KDD better than JtRH. I guess there's great cheese and then "merely" good cheese.

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mrimer
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stigant wrote:
In ESB, we reach a dramatic climax ("No! That's not true - that's impossible!"), but there's much more interesting questions to answer rather than just some loose ends.

This is a very good point. Fortunately, the story of Beethro's journey goes much deeper (oy...no pun intended) than just tying some loose ends together from JtRH. Many of those, as Eytan observed, do serve as simple ground-laying and are tangential to the "real" story.

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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.

eytanz
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Stigant - I think the flaw is more in the execution than in the structure. JtRH was really the first experience anyone on the dev team had with integrating puzzles with stories in the DROD framework. The entire system wasn't even in place when we started building JtRH - changes to the scripting engine happened all the way through. A lot of what you identify as "sequel hooks" weren't designed as such - taking the example of Halph, he started as a gameplay element and comic sidekick, but ideas for him developed as we went along, and as they grew more developed, it became clear that there's no way they could be contained within JtRH. Actually, in Halph's case, he went through a version of the plot which resolved a lot more than the current version, but had totally the wrong tone. Similarly for the Pit Thing. Once we settled on a tone everyone agreed with more or less, then we no longer had room to develop the story anymore as most of the hold was finished.

So, yeah, we made mistakes in JtRH, and your critiques reflect that - but hopefully it was a learning experience. TCB will be, if nothing else, a more mature storytelling work - at least I hope so.

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Alneyan
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Running process "Gathering thoughts"... Done. Launching "Speak clearly for once.dll"... Done. User starts "Posting.exe.".

So. I would agree with Doom about level 25 being weaker than some of the others preceding it, though not necessarily for the same reasons.

I've found the story to be fine actually, though the final showdown between Beethro and the other chap was bound to happen (the other fellow in KDD was more of a surprise, I think). Still, there is little to be done about hiding the Slayer, and KDD already used the ambiguous morality device. A teaser of sorts may have been appropriate however, giving the player a small tidbit of what is in store for Beethro. It could be the standard dying words/prophecy, a peculiar monster by the exit (using scripts), a "oops, blowing up all these bombs wasn't such a bright idea" sequence, or something to that effect. Perhaps it is just me, but I found the travel between to the stairwell to be somewhat lacking, despite the dialogue that takes place there.

What I disliked more on level 25 is the lack of variety of most rooms. A tar mother appears along with a few goblins, and the usual roaches, but otherwise it's all about guards. Rooms using other game elements in conjunction to the guards would have worked better, I think. As it stands now, most rooms on this level can be completed with hack, step and undo, and only a few rooms offer something beyond that (you know them).

Perhaps the guards could have been introduced around the end of level 24, leaving more room on level 25 for other kinds of rooms? Game elements are normally introduced on one level and made harder on another level (levels 10/12/14/20), but since level 25 is the last one in the game, it may not work so well. It may break the element of surprise somewhat, though some players have already seen the guards in action before level 25, and it would only appear a short while before level 25 proper. On the other hand, seeing guards right before reaching the last level might actually instill fear in the heart of the delver, especially if said player had a lot of trouble dealing with the "forward" guards.

My two pennies worth... or two centimes worth, if you so insist, or even two greckles worth. It might even grow into a two mod points worth thingy; these at least aren't subject to fluctuations on the market.

forrestfire
Level: Delver
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I am surprised that people didn't like level 25 as much as the other levels. In both KDD and JtRH level 25 is my favorite. I really liked seeing a new enemy. In this case, the guards. They were very fun. The only problem I can see with level 25 is that it is short. When replaying JtRH it is one of the levels I beat the fastest.

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Banjooie
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I really liked seeing a new enemy. In this case, the guards. They were very fun.

It's not particularly new if you played many user holds before hitting 25.

mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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Banjooie wrote:

I really liked seeing a new enemy. In this case, the guards. They were very fun.

It's not particularly new if you played many user holds before hitting 25.

Definitely true. This is the fine line that is walked when introducing a new game element: players will see it sooner or later, and hopefully their introduction to it will be in an appropriate way. We're hoping players are introduced to new game elements through the official holds, but at their discretion they can just as easily have everything immediately "spoiled" through the level editor as by user holds.

I think it's correct to say King Dugan's Dungeon and JtRH serve as official "introductory levels" to the game and game elements. Given this, saying "What's up with these first levels? It's just a bunch of trivial roach (or guard) puzzles!" after playing several user holds is accurate, but unfair. It's kind of like reading Tolkien these days and remarking "These novels are so cliche! They're all about the same old, stereotypical halflings, elves, dwarves and goblins."

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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.

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[Last edited by mrimer at 11-17-2005 11:51 PM]

jamie
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Yeah, that's how I see it to.

Whenever I've mentioned DROD to people, I've told them how it's self-teaching - you learn each new bit as you go along

(this was in reference to KDD - or webfoot drod in my day)

I actually liked that about the game alot, and I think it's what helped suck in a number of us - and therefore its importance shouldn't be overlooked.

I know some people who would have otherwise played one or two levels, but are now spending many hours in the depths of KDD.. As soon as you learn something, something new comes along...

I woudn't really advise any people I've told to try any of the userholds until they've got quite far in the official holds - so they get a proper feel of the game and it's methology

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[Last edited by jamie at 11-19-2005 03:59 PM : Tiswas!]