×
First Delver! (I was the first non-tester/dev
to conquer TCB.)
d/dy

×The Entrance - Loved the way it was fractured. I suggest, as a theme, that you restyle some rooms to keep this motif through the level. It's symbolism... oh fug it.

North - Easy when you know how. It would be interesting for new DROD players, but the design relies too much on working out that brains don't take themselves into account. However, trying to get the wraithwings to stay where they are was great fun. A redesign with more trying to manoever the wraithwings to get themselves killed would be more interesting.

East - I liked this room. The snakes sections in particular were great fun. I found, though, that the sections with the tar babies weren't as clever, and it's a shame. But maybe that's my preference.

West - The invisibilty potions get used to great effect here. I found I had some difficulty with the swarm of eyes until I realised it was a hack-and-slash job. What I liked about this room was that avoiding brains was a key part of the room, and it's a shame you can't do that more properly up the top. Perhaps if you replace the swarm with snakes, cleverly positioned, it may make the stealthy fun more interesting.

South - Gave me a bit of thought, but it's aethetic, but not really that difficult. When you've got one side, it doesn't take much to get the other.

All in the same house - Sitting in the back room, waiting for the big boom...

sorry.

×Lost.

×Entrance: I just randomly placed stuff down. I will probably do that for each entrance room on each level...although maybe one will have spiders...heh, heh...

1N: this is the first room I made. I had said in the challenges forum that I would like to see a room with a block of brains and the way you carve your way through them is important to the puzzle. Then I thought, hmmm, I don't remember ever seeing Wraithwings in a puzzle with brains. So I combined them. I actually think it works out better this way. Yeah, they're easy to kill initially, but getting the last one can be tricky, or impossible if you've been indiscriminately carving the brains up.

1E: this was the next room...also based off an idea I posted on--a room where you are forced to keep a snake alive in order to stay alive yourself. I agree that the room could be tightened up a bit, and perhaps reworked to have a brain added to make the tar babies tougher. The tar mother in the top was there to make it so you had to open the door to release the snake at the right time, but it didn't work out so well, I guess. And that trapdoor maze, where you have to make sure not to trap the snake, should probably be a level all on its own.

1W: again, this room was based on the discussions we had about the way brains interact with invisibility potions. As I mentioned in the bugs forum, I wanted there to be roach queens in the far corner, and I wanted them to be continuously making roaches so that you had to make your way through a brain maze in order to kill them off and survive (otherwise there would be too many roaches to fight off). But since queens don't spawn when you are invisible...that didn't work! Replacing them with snakes might work, but on the other hand they move regardless of Beethro's invisibility, so it might be tricky.

1S: originally, this was just going to be the exit. But then I decided that if I added some tar mothers here and here, it looked kind of like a face, so I made a little puzzle. Yeah, it's pretty easy...if you are cautious and/or prepare ahead of time. I actually beat it very quickly when I designed it, then when recording a demo I started making lots of stupid mistakes, then I calmed down and did it very systematically and it was easy again. So this would be an early, relatively easy room in the final dungeon.

×You *can* kill the snake before you ever enter the tunnel with the eye. I kept doing that, thinking that was the trick of it. That kept me stumped for a while.

×So if the brains saw themselves as a barrier, the wraithwings would have come directly after me, instead of hammering the wall o' brains on the other side of me, neh?

×...I didn't know how brains reacted with wraithwings anyway, since that wasn't in Dugan's Dungeon. As I mentioned above, I was already going for a different concept. But since wraithwings run from or go after Beethro regardless of wall anyway, what would brains do? More experimentation is probably needed. I should probably make two rooms in a row...one with breakable walls and another with brains. And I just realized that even the last wraithwing doesn't require you to use the brains to trap it, since you can probably just manipulate it to the entrance to the level. Hmmm...how to do it...

×I dug about 5 into the brains, then turned around (created a little room), and waited for them to come down the new tunnel. Popped out to attract more, rinse, repeat. When there was only one left, he wouldn't stop in the tunnel, so I just pushed him towards the entrance.

×East - I worked out the snake pretty much from the start. I did enjoy the snake/trapdoor combo, but a whole room based on it may be a bit tiresome. Maybe more snakes?

North - I used a very similar strategy here. Carve in, rotate, kill. Wash, rinse, repeat. What may be an idea is to add some trapdoors so you can't use the entrance to kill them.

×Lost.

×Yes, if I did an entire room based on the snake/trapdoor thing, I would have many more snakes. It'd be a lot more difficult to herd more than one snake! But you have to be careful with the trapdoors so that you don't make it possible to creat a dead end...unless that's the only way to solve it (tricky...damn, I'm giving away all my secrets).

×Hmmm...that might work, but how does one leave the room? I know...make the exit beyond a one-way arrow, and make it so that beyond that arrow the wraithwing can't be killed. Yes, makes sense. Anyway, I knew that all the wraithwings but one would be easy...it's the last one that's supposed to be tough.

×All in all, very good. I though that E and W were far better than N and S, but there you are. My only complaint was the lack of a checkpoint in 1S - it made it far more boring than it should have been. As you say, closer study of brain-wrath movement is needed to make 1N effective.