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File: Channel One Suite.hold (112.6 KB)
Downloaded 1597 times.
License: Other
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Without the aid of the scripting character, JtRH just wouldn't be as much fun. So I made a small hold that emphasizes the scripting character. With what you ask? Well, if beam eyes, cannons, proximity bombs, thwomps and gates (and much more!) don't excite you; well, then I guess you have a problem...

This project took about 8 months to construct, thanks to all the testers on the Architecture board for helping me polish the hold.

I hope you enjoy, you won't be disappointed.

tokyokid
Level: Smiter

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Pretty nice hold! I liked the way you used scripting as elements. Wow, 8 months! I gave it an 8 with 8.5 brains

Pilchard VIII
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 392
Registered: 01-21-2006
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Haven't played all of it yet, but it is an absolute cracker. Very good work!

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Andy101
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 222
Registered: 07-22-2005
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Catacombs 4N4E appears to be impossible as you can't reach the brain once you have cleared the tar.

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"True perfection has to be imperfect"

Stuwy
Level: Master Delver

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Andy101 wrote:
Catacombs 4N4E appears to be impossible as you can't reach the brain once you have cleared the tar.

Fixed.

Chaco
Level: Smitemaster
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As one of the testers, I can confirm that the puzzles here are original. And quite tricky.

It's a good hold, Stuwy. I'm going to hold off on voting and specific commenting until I figure out the whole Catacombs, though.

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Andy101
Level: Master Delver
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All the highscores have disappeared!

I'm guessing this is because Stuwy added a new version of the hold to fix the error instead of updating the old version

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"True perfection has to be imperfect"

eytanz
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No, updating the hold temporarily removes all the highscores. They'll be back but it seems there's a long queue - either someone else updated a hold or someone just uploaded a long progress.

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Andy101
Level: Master Delver
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eytanz wrote:
No, updating the hold temporarily removes all the highscores. They'll be back but it seems there's a long queue - either someone else updated a hold or someone just uploaded a long progress.

Phew!

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"True perfection has to be imperfect"

Tahnan
Level: Smitemaster

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Still playing. There's a lot in here that I like. But there have been a few places where the scripting has been utterly counterintuitive.

If you're stuck on Deep Freeze: Entrance, you may want to know what Wallu discovered and revealed.

And if you're stuck on The Catacombs: 2E, it's for one of two reasons:

.

The latter was wholly non-obvious to me; I had to watch Stuwy's demo of it, at which point I said, "Hey, hold on--".

larrymurk
Level: Smitemaster

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Well, using scripting is a neat idea, but I believe you ought to try to stick with one concept or the other as follows:

1. Guess your best- Here the architect does whatever he/she feels is "reasonable" and the player hopefully has fun figuring out what's going on when things are questionable.

2. Total disclosure- Here the architect makes all scripted things very clear to the player.

In The Dungeon:1S1E, you have:
1. Slayer doors- open both directions.
2. Guards with arrows- open in direction of arrows.
3. Guards w/o arrows?- Hmm, my assumption is they open both directions. Well, maybe not!

I see further up in this thread that there are probably a couple more less than intuitive scripting features. It bothers me because it appears based on the fact that there were some arrows that the architect was going for method #1(full disclosure), but I'd recommend people be wary.

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[Last edited by larrymurk at 08-21-2006 11:21 PM]

eytanz
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It's definitely not full disclosure - a lot of rooms later on seem to be "guess what the script does" - it's sort of like old Adventure games of the 7th Guest type - the player is presented with a puzzle with hidden rules and a big part of the puzzle is figuring out what the rules are.

I do, however that in the room you are describing the arrows are missing by mistake.



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larrymurk
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eytanz wrote:
It's definitely not full disclosure - a lot of rooms later on seem to be "guess what the script does" - it's sort of like old Adventure games of the 7th Guest type - the player is presented with a puzzle with hidden rules and a big part of the puzzle is figuring out what the rules are.

Yes, I believe this is the intention.

The very next room, Dungeon:1S, why else would you have scripting cause the orb to be struck when you stand on the dirt instead of simply placing the orb where the dirt is?

I guess I just wish the architect would put some disclaimer at the beginning of the hold like:

"Scripting is used. Often you'll have to play around a little to understand the scripting before you'll be able to solve certain rooms."

bandit1200
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 290
Registered: 10-29-2003
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Strange happenings! I played this excellent hold all the way through in architecture, and downloaded and imported the finished hold an hour ago. There appear to be two rooms added to one level and one to another level, yet the door to one isn't there - the crumbly wall to another isn't there - and the third is blocked by an NPC, or it is if the entrance is where I think it is. Anyone any idea why this is happening?

Syntax
Level: Smitemaster
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larrymurk wrote:
I guess I just wish the architect would put some disclaimer at the beginning of the hold like:

"Scripting is used. Often you'll have to play around a little to understand the scripting before you'll be able to solve certain rooms."

I think the unwritten rule of "an odd tile triggers an event" has been used consistantly throughout though... so far anyways.

Tahnan
Level: Smitemaster

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Syntax wrote:
I think the unwritten rule of "an odd tile triggers an event" has been used consistantly throughout though... so far anyways.

Which is not uncommon in scriptful holds in general, I think. (I recall HIJK's "step here for commentary" squares, for instance.) There are other tricks to find, though, with (I think) varying degrees of fairness. The "stand on this square and oh by the way face west" was on the low end of the fairness scale.

Stuwy
Level: Master Delver

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There are other tricks to find, though, with (I think) varying degrees of fairness. The "stand on this square and oh by the way face west" was on the low end of the fairness scale.

I thought the key purpose of this game is to observe your surroundings then plan out your moves; after all, this is a turn-based puzzle game. Take Deep Freeze entrance for an example, the arrows on the yellow door do in fact hint out what direction you should be facing before you step on that event tile, in which I did introduce that element the level before.

On the other hand though, specifically the entrance to Deep Freeze has annoyed a lot of people with the scripting. It's going to get fixed.

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[Last edited by Stuwy at 08-24-2006 08:03 AM]

silver
Level: Smitemaster
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it could easily have been fixed with a scroll saying "face west"


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Stuwy
Level: Master Delver

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silver wrote:
it could easily have been fixed with a scroll saying "face west"

Well... Update then see

silver
Level: Smitemaster
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there seem to be some rooms (but, they're secret rooms) for which the game refuses to admit high scores - they should one-move demo out of existence, but they don't.


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jbluestein
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I seem to have inadvertently discovered a trivial solution to The Catacombs: 2E.

If you just wait in the opening square with your sword pointed north, the tarbaby machine will eventually run out and the guard timer won't count down. I can't really tell what the timer is supposed to be -- it appears to only be active when Beethro is in one of the two side chambers where the brains are.

But this way you can kill all the tarbabies and then take out the brains with plenty of time to spare.

Josh

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Jatopian
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jbluestein wrote:
I seem to have inadvertently discovered a trivial solution to The Catacombs: 2E.

If you just wait in the opening square with your sword pointed north, the tarbaby machine will eventually run out and the guard timer won't count down. I can't really tell what the timer is supposed to be -- it appears to only be active when Beethro is in one of the two side chambers where the brains are.

But this way you can kill all the tarbabies and then take out the brains with plenty of time to spare.

Heh. I thought of that, but it seemed easy enough to do the intended solution, and a future update might have invalidated my progress *hint hint to Stuwy: remove force arrow, maybe putting it in previous room*.

We really need limitless monster generation in TCB.

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Stuwy
Level: Master Delver

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jbluestein wrote:
I seem to have inadvertently discovered a trivial solution to The Catacombs: 2E.

If you just wait in the opening square with your sword pointed north, the tarbaby machine will eventually run out and the guard timer won't count down. I can't really tell what the timer is supposed to be -- it appears to only be active when Beethro is in one of the two side chambers where the brains are.

But this way you can kill all the tarbabies and then take out the brains with plenty of time to spare.

Josh

Good eye Josh, a scripting flaw like this spotted out deserves more than one rank point.

As to the rest of you guys, you are now forced to solve it the way it was supposed to be solved (nah nah!)

Surnia
Level: Goblin

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Registered: 09-04-2005
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Just want to say: I love this hold!!!

I don't understand one thing: I'm through with it, but the program tells me I managed 0%. Very strange...

eytanz
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The percentage you see in the holds list is the percentage of secret rooms you solved, not the percentage of the hold you solved.

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Surnia
Level: Goblin

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Thanks for the information..

Stuwy
Level: Master Delver

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FYI, rooms that have no puzzle potential have been omitted for high-scorables. Hurrah!

Tahnan
Level: Smitemaster

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OK, forgive me if this has been covered elsewhere (bugs?), but: how exactly does one get a high score for the secret room at

Tahnan
Level: Smitemaster

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OK, I thought I'd seen it somewhere. :-) It's a really irritating bug feature of the game that this happens.

silver
Level: Smitemaster
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I believe it's fixed in 2.0.15 (which is still in beta, but downloadable via the forums)... or at least, a similar bug is fixed with scripted rooms that don't have demos if you restore in them.



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