The_Red_Hawk wrote:
I have tested 1W, 2W, 1N1W, 1N, 2N, and 1N1E so far. They are now all a little easier... I hope you will think they are playable. 2N doesn't have any more trapdoors, 1N has fewer goblins, 2W has more passages, 1N1W has no trapdoors, and 1N1E stayed the same. I added a mimic potion at the start of 1E, but I haven't solved it yet. Here it is...so far.....
A new release (already? have all the rooms on all the levels been tested yet?) These comments apply to the version that was available previous to this, so may be out of date. I'm not going to play this hold again for now, so I'm not going to check.
OK, getting better, but there are still, obviously, broken rooms (and we haven't even seen levels 2 and 3 yet) If there's a level warp, it's certainly not accessible directly from the entrance of the first room. If it's 'hidden' then please tell people where it is, and make sure not too much work needs to be done to reach it.
Click here to view the secret text
×
1N - This room is a little too easy now - I think I actually preferred a few more goblins here, but it's up to you, perhaps a balance between the number that was available before, and the number now. Also, what are those yellow doors for? They serve no purpose other than to slow the player down. IMO you should just get rid of them. Green doors would do just as well.
2N - Without the trapdoors, this room is basically a cakewalk. Perhaps try to come up with something more interesting in its place.
1N1W - OK, that's much better. The room is still a challenge, and, getting all the mimics working in your favour, whilst having to remain conscious of the tar and tar babies, is interesting. Using the invisibility potion makes the room kinda dull, but you could leave it there for those who are still a little overwhelmed by the number of queens. With the green door in its current placement, is the room only supposed to be approached from the other side? If so, use arrows in the next room instead. It's not good practice to enter into a room and be standing ontop of a door. On a point of style, I'm not totally keen on the 'Ha Ha Ha' thing. IMO that's on the telling people to eat sh*t side of funny i.e. not very. Of course my perception is already coloured by my previous experience with this hold, so I may be overreacting.
1W - I like this room, interesting balance of pressure from multiple directions. The room is harder if you enter from the north. Once I'd got to the top left, the tar queen was rather easy to deal with. Perhaps spice that corner up a little, somehow (and test it!)
2W - A few wraiths, a little dull, a slight challenge in how to get rid of the last few, given the trapdoor placement. Most of the trapdoors will never be used, since Beethro is basically trapped in the entrance until he's chopped his way through all but the last 2-3. It makes the room look a little more visually interesting, but they're not very functional.
1N1E - I preferred this room with the trapped roaches on the right (and it was a shame the orbs didn't do something bad, so the player would then have to figure out how to play the rest of the room without tripping one of them - with checkpoints in place of course) The mimic isn't needed at all now, though that is a *huge* number of roaches to chop through. The mimic does make it a little less boring to kill them all, but is 'less boring' good enough?
1E - I liked this room. Unfortunately, I like it less when I have to pass through it more than once, and still have to do all the work to open the red door. Is there anywhere you could put one or two green doors to make it easier to traverse once completed?
2E - Uh oh. Looks like we've reached one of the rooms you've not tested yet. Impossible. How do you place that mimic ontop of trapdoors? How do you even reach it before the tar has grown to fill that corner? No checkpoints, to save progress after having hacked through all the wraiths. Oh yeah, that's a lot of trapdoors, but that's not such a terrible thing I suppose. What's the red door on the right for? Symmetry I suppose.
1S1E - Impossible and *dull*. My fingers hurt. You've heard of carpal tunnel syndrome, right? Basically, prolonged, repetitive actions can cause permanent damage to your hands. This room causes physical injury to its players, and you want me to *test* it? Also, put in a damn checkpoint! I made a slight slip up while trying to complete the right section, and there's absolutely no way I'm playing through that again. Anyway, as far as I can tell, it can't be done. Kill the tar mother, and the tar grows in behind, and eventually generates an inaccessible tar baby. Don't kill the tar mother, and roaches are generated as fast as they can be killed (30 every 30 turns) since tar does not grow in to block them.
At this point, though I have enjoyed your first level more (no clue what's on the second or third) there's no way I want to play through all those rooms again to get to the fixed ones, after upgrading (I can only go to the entrance room of levels I've reached, and without finishing level 1, that means back to the start of level 1 every time I upgrade - no fun) It's *imperative* that you test all your rooms to at least determine they can be completed, before you release your holds (especially now) People are not going to play through a level more than once unless the process is very rewarding. If they can't complete it, you're almost guaranteed to have lost a tester (and instead of quality feedback, you get the 'this is broken' kind of feedback, which is of no use to you since you *should* be able to tell this yourself) I'll still play levels 2 and 3 if they become available, but only after an assurance that they can all at least be finished.
/dy
