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File: Great Uncle Yurgess Hold.hold (112.4 KB)
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Are you in need of a sizable loan? Maybe your rich great uncle has some menial task for you to do at his place far out in the country...

... wait, you don't have a rich great uncle?

Well, Beethro's Great Uncle has sent back a reply, "Yes, I am very much looking forward to your arrival."

In this hold, adventure is just a secret-passage away! Strange things abound and, as is natural, things get stranger the deeper you go.

This short hold has 14 rooms of puzzles and monsters, with plenty of story and action in between. Plus, characters with funny names.

MeckMeck GRE
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 594
Registered: 01-03-2005
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Level 3 / 4N2W : I solved the room facing north ! This brain dosent really prevent me doing this by saying "Reenter and retry" every some moves. What I want to say :



Anyway... those brain challenges are really the highlight of the hold. Very well (especially 3N)

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[Last edited by MeckMeck GRE at 11-06-2005 10:44 AM]

Sergenth
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 296
Registered: 05-04-2005
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Meckmeck:

That's hilarious! Alot of "leaks" like that were picked up in the Architecture forum, and for one,

Now I must figure out how to exploit your finding for the next hold.

As long as rooms are completable, I will hold off on updating the hold file until some game-ending bug is encountered, like exiting a room and going back in to find it unsolvable due to a scripting mistake.

TripleM
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1377
Registered: 02-05-2003
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Its great to see a hold with such a strong storyline. The puzzles weren't extremely hard, but they were almost all unique ideas which made it very fun to play. There were a few scripting problems with scripts repeating after you've completed the room and reentered, but overall it was a nice hold.

larrymurk
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1917
Registered: 12-09-2004
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Level 3: 3N2W and 4N2W have unintended solutions.

The Level 3 rooms are interesting. I would've liked the evil eye puzzles if they were a little more challenging.

Sergenth
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 296
Registered: 05-04-2005
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TripleM sez:

The puzzles weren't extremely hard, but they were almost all unique ideas which made it very fun to play.

Thanks! That's where I was aiming. There's a place for mind-crunching challenges, just not in my holds! Haha!

larrymurk noticed:

Level 3: 3N2W and 4N2W have unintended solutions.

Would you be able to secret tag the unintended solution for 3N2W... I'm baffled. Messing that up *should* keep the door closed and force a retry, but I can see how a scripting error could creep in.

eytanz
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2708
Registered: 02-05-2003
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I think this is a really nice hold - fun puzzles, and an interesting, well-written story. My only complaint is that it lacks polish - a lot of scripts repeat if you reenter the room, and some of the stairs that backtrack lead to the wrong level entrance. Still, minor issues in a hold I'm enjoying a lot.

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Sergenth
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 296
Registered: 05-04-2005
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Eyetanz declares:

My only complaint is that it lacks polish

I would strongly contest that! I polished it quite well, but when I put it in the water, I found that no amount of smoothness or shiny things can fix leaks.

I did look for and quash as many of the "NPC-left-the-room-but-is-stil-there-when-you-return scripting errors", but I allowed "NPC-hasn't-finished-what-he-was-saying-or-doing scripting redos upon re-entry", simply because I didn't want errant exiting of a room to let players miss some vital jibe between characters.

Since I'll be allowing backtracking/adventuring in the next hold, I will keep your critique in mind, because small things bug me too. Maybe I'll lock the player in a room for every event

eytanz
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2708
Registered: 02-05-2003
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I definitely can see that there's a balance here between allowing players to miss important conversation and creating a realistic feeling where the same conversations don't occur more than once. There are places, however, which are clearly wrong - in L2 1N1W, for instance, Beethro repeats his "I get to go in my own pace" every time you go through. And, as I mentioned the stairway back from level 3 leads to the wrong end of level 2.

Again, these are tiny things and not really important compared to the good stuff in the hold. I'm extra-sensitive to them, though, partially because I trained myself to notice this sort of thing during JtRH development (I gave JtRH the first play-through, before the beta started).

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wookie2424
Level: Goblin
Rank Points: 15
Registered: 10-10-2005
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Such a fun and charming little hold! Please tell me there's a sequel coming soon!!!

Oneway
Level: Roachling
Rank Points: 10
Registered: 12-08-2003
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A very entertaining hold.. Lots of fancy scripting and storytelling.

But most of all i laughed when i noticed your little 'Futurama' reference.

Well done!

Alneyan
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 622
Registered: 07-06-2004
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An interesting hold, worth a 8 for me, and five brains on my scale (the same as KDD, with some easy rooms and some harder ones).

I cannot say I enjoyed the story much; I do not play DROD for stories though, so there is probably a link between the two. I did enjoy the rooms quite a lot however, especially levels 2 and 3. Most of them involve an original concept, and they are well executed; definitively fun the whole way through.

jbluestein
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1670
Registered: 12-23-2005
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Fun fun fun! Not difficult, but quite enjoyable.



____________________________
"Rings and knots of joy and grief, all interlaced and locking." --William Buck

roach strangler
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 57
Registered: 01-07-2006
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I liked it but next time make it harder but not to hard. It sounds like there is another one coming out and im going to play it.

tokyokid
Level: Smiter

Rank Points: 453
Registered: 05-06-2006
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Whoo! 3 holds mastered in a day! Anyway... This hold is amazing. I absolutely loved it! The puzzles were excellent with awesome scripting. Perfect for the medium player like me. Virtually no flaws, no unintentional solutions, either. With only one harrowing trip to the H&S board, I am very proud of myself for beating this wonderful hold. The story was captivating, the details added to the value of the hold.

Level 2 2N1E has to be one of my favorite rooms of all time! This hold is ranked very highly on my favorite holds list.

I am happy to give this hold 4.5 brains and a 10 rating. I can't wait for a sequel (if there will be one!). Great work!

Danteslives
Level: Delver

Rank Points: 48
Registered: 11-16-2006
IP: Logged

This hold is a classic. I wonder why there aren´t any more holds by this author. Great story telling, funny, a little short on puzzles but the puzzles are great if a little easy. Best hold for an hour of fun!

da rogu3
Level: Smiter

Rank Points: 491
Registered: 04-06-2011
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Just conquered this the other day. Overall, I think it was a very enjoyable hold. The aesthetics were especially impressive, particularly in level 1. There were also some very unique puzzles, my favourites were 3N2W and 3N on level 3. The scripting was also quite clever. I think that this hold ranks among the top in terms of being fairly easy to play through, but still offering a very rewarding and well polished experience.

A true classic, nice work

Edit: Another thing I forgot to mention - the hold has brilliant dialogue. Despite not having any voice acting, I was still able to imagine the voice and emotions of all the characters. This, the engaging plot, and well thought out level design helps create a terrific sense of atmosphere.

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[Last edited by da rogu3 at 04-24-2011 04:00 PM]

west.logan
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 608
Registered: 03-09-2011
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This was a really fun hold to play. Nothing overly complicated and meandering through rubble could get a bit tedious but some of the puzzles were very interesting and having the story and script was quite entertaining as well.


Additionally


Thanks!

____________________________
-Logan

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[Last edited by west.logan at 05-06-2011 09:57 PM]

Moo
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 224
Registered: 10-14-2006
IP: Logged

This was good. Interesting but not too difficult.

I also found a funny thing: L1 2W, you can use the mimic to kill Yurgess, and open the door to the "viewing box" and wander around outside too.

Syntax
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1218
Registered: 05-12-2005
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Thanks for commenting on this hold as it reminded me I hadn't commented on it myself...

Thoroughly enjoyed this one. One of the few story lines I actually followed with interest and overall fun rooms.

OneMoreNameless
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 131
Registered: 07-31-2010
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I would like to call Great Uncle
Yurgess' Hold a bad hold, but
that would imply that it
was actually a hold and not just I'm not continuing this joke passable fanfiction in a rather awkward format to read. There is a lot of dialogue and it might have been entertaining on its own, but progressing between rooms consisted of (as far as I played):

- Smashing through twisty secret wall.
- Smashing through twisty secret wall.
- Walking down a twisty pass, smashing through occasional broken wall and watching scripted NPCs masquerade as monsters.
- Walking down a twisty pass, smashing through occasional broken wall and abruptly restarting the room after a hidden script spawned actual monsters around the player.
- A simple hoard fight, interrupted multiple times by dialogue popping up for flavour or in one case to warn against a scenario (getting stuck after crossing force arrows) which I'm pretty sure wasn't even possible in that room.
- Killing a seemingly impossible scripted monster by smashing through a secret wall.
- Clearing a seemingly impossible non-scripted monster room by smashing through secret walls.

I can't believe I was linked from Uncle Arable's Rooms to this, what the heck.

da rogu3
Level: Smiter

Rank Points: 491
Registered: 04-06-2011
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OneMoreNameless wrote: I can't believe I was linked from Uncle Arable's Rooms to this, what the heck.

I think it's quite clear you want the pure puzzle solving experience from DROD. Numerous other people think this hold is excellent - perhaps this type of hold simply isn't for you?

mauvebutterfly
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 771
Registered: 05-03-2015
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Not a terribly challenging hold, but a fantastic use of early DROD scripting. This hold won't take you long to play through, so you should really check it out if you haven't.

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106th Skywatcher