StuartK wrote:
eytanz wrote:
There's no way you can win from the situation shown above.
Quibbling over details I know, but...
Click here to view the secret text
×From what I can see, that's 16 roaches generated every 30 turns, which offers some leeway. Of course, it's not the easy solution, but it's certainly possible. It is, however, true to say it would be necessary to retreat from the position in the screenshot back to the entrance alcove, and attempt an alternate route to the right. Once there, the roach queens at the bottom right will fill the middle alcove, stunting their growth, and making the remainder of the room relatively easy.
Your solution is, however, far more efficient
Click here to view the secret text
×It's not just about how many roaches are being generated - it's about the fact that they're coming from 3 different directions. Note that none of the alcoves here are protected - in the sense that you can't enter one and avoid roaches coming in from behind you. It is possible to fend off the roaches indefinitely - but I don't believe it is possible to both do so and actually get into any of the alcoves.
For example, take the entrance - note that if you stand in the entrance's mouth you will end up facing a 3-high roach pile (i.e. dead). If you enter the entrance, you're safe, but you can only kill 15 roaches per spawn cycle - i.e. 1 less than is generated. In fact, by some careful moving back and forth it's possible to efficiently kill the roaches - but it's not possible, in my experience, to do so with enough free moves left to allow you to reach anywhere you could do the same in.
Of course, I may be wrong - but I believe that I'm right until proven wrong. I've tried this room literally dozens of times to see if I can solve it this way - hoping to make a challenge of it - and never succeeded. I think the fact that no such challenge exists, even though it's a pretty obvious one, indicates that no-one else succeeded either. If you can solve it, please include a demo.
[Edited by eytanz on 09-10-2003 at 01:00 PM]
____________________________
I got my avatar back! Yay!
/dy
) The file doesn't really need to be cropped if you use the appropriate format. A screenshot should be around 80kB if you use an optimised .gif, or 40kB for a .png file (or larger if they're not optimised) If you've ever used the built in screenshot feature of this forum (Insert DROD Room image) those files are in .png format.