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This is just a simple hold I did to fill in story plot parts for my main hold I have in planning. Not difficult at all. Infact it's anti-difficult.

I also used this to get used to TCB elements I plan to use in future holds.

larrymurk
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Sorry to the hold author who I assume spent time and effort trying to make a good hold, but here's the way this hold came accross to me.

Hmmm... "Beethro's Week Off" sure sounds similar to an excellent hold named "Beethro's day off". I think it even mentions that it's a prequel to said hold. Thing is, you didn't design the other hold. Did you even ask Stephen's permission to make a prequel? Is this hold in any way related? No, no, no!

Sadly, I'd also say there is nothing special about this hold. It might be an OK hold for beginners I guess.

You might want to name your next hold War 14, I believe that's still open. Again, sorry to act so mean, but why use someone else's hold name unless it just works perfectly and you discuss it with said hold creator first?

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[Last edited by larrymurk at 06-01-2007 09:45 PM]

tokyokid
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First off, if you are looking for a sequel to 'Beethro's day off", this is not it. Not saying that it isn't a good hold, it's just alright. It was a pretty easy run through, with some fun rooms thrown in. If have 15 minutes to kill, check this out!

Some complaints: Day 2-part 2: Cutscene doesn't even have a cutscence! And Day 2 part 3: there's a cutscene at the beginning of the level that doesn't seem to do anything. Tsk, tsk, tsk.

Hey, it does mention it's a prequel, in the theme!

EDIT: Uhm, post collision.

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[Last edited by tokyokid at 06-01-2007 10:01 PM]

Tahnan
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larrymurk wrote:
Hmmm... "Beethro's Week Off" sure sounds similar to an excellent hold named "Beethro's day off". I think it even mentions that it's a prequel to said hold.

Now, let's be fair. What he said was that this is a hold "to fill in story plot parts for my main hold I have in planning". That is, he says it's a prequel to his own hold, not to someone else's.

Of course, I have to admit that "Beethro's Week Off" sure is reminiscent of "Beethro's Day Off". (You'd think someone might've brought that up during beta-testing.)

It's not too bad so far, though "Day 1: 1S1W" has an annoying backtracking problem, made more annoying by the lack of checkpoints.

bomber50
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I completely agree with the first three comments.

And I have two more comments to add.

1. Once North, Once East on Day Two has a pointless black door. If you keep mud babies alive and run to the north exit, you can trap yourself.

2. I give this hold one brain with 2 overall. Easy and a bit fun.

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[Last edited by bomber50 at 06-01-2007 10:36 PM]

Stephen4Louise
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larrymurk wrote:
Hmmm... "Beethro's Week Off" sure sounds similar to an excellent hold named "Beethro's day off".

Thanks Larry

The name was mentioned by Jatopian in the architecture thread. And with my new found hold admin powers I have been aware of the hold for a while now. I'm not too concerned about it, and had plenty of opportunity to bring it up before now if I was.

At least anyone reading the thread will know pretty quick there is no relation between the two holds.

Thanks guys
Steve.

Tahnan
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OK, just finished. There's...good and bad here.

The good: I kind of liked having a room with an aumtlich in it as just another monster; in TCB we really only saw rooms with aumtlichs that were Aumtlich Rooms. In general, I mostly enjoyed optimizing the rooms, though I didn't find them hard to conquer. And I thought the use of clone potions in Day 2: 1N was interesting, something that again I don't think we've really seen yet.

The bad: I don't think you've quite got the hang of cutscenes, since it seems that the cutscenes here involved 20 turns zipping past instantly, independent of the speech not being finished yet. (Again, did no one catch this in testing?)

The secret room in Day 2, Part 1 is a fine illustration of something that's been kicking around in the back of my mind for a few days, namely this. Rule #1 of Architecture: Don't irritate the player. Really, is there any reason whatsoever for that long boring spiral, other than to irritate the player?

Day 1: 1S was a pretty standard (i.e. boring) "lead the monster to the end of the maze". Day 2: 1N and Day 1: 2S1W had some pretty meaningless briars in them. (The former also has a pointless orb in it.)

Such is my two cents.

jbluestein
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Tahnan wrote:
It's not too bad so far, though "Day 1: 1S1W" has an annoying backtracking problem, made more annoying by the lack of checkpoints.

What's the backtracking problem, exactly? I didn't notice it myself. (And I can't see it from staring at it.)



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jbluestein
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larrymurk wrote:
Sorry to the hold author who I assume spent time and effort trying to make a good hold, but here's the way this hold came accross to me.

Hmmm... "Beethro's Week Off" sure sounds similar to an excellent hold named "Beethro's day off". I think it even mentions that it's a prequel to said hold. Thing is, you didn't design the other hold. Did you even ask Stephen's permission to make a prequel? Is this hold in any way related? No, no, no!

Sadly, I'd also say there is nothing special about this hold. It might be an OK hold for beginners I guess.

You might want to name your next hold War 14, I believe that's still open. Again, sorry to act so mean, but why use someone else's hold name unless it just works perfectly and you discuss it with said hold creator first?

Hi Larry --

I think you're a little off base in your criticism here. While there is a similarity in names between the Day Off and the Week Off, that's about as far as it goes. I certainly don't think that there was any attempt to represent this hold as in any way related to Stephen4Louise's hold.

It's clearly a beginner hold (and billed as such), and it's by a first-time hold designer. That said, it's better than some first-time holds and not as good as some others.

Overall, I gave it a five and 1.5 brains. Nothing too exciting, but not really bad (IMHO) either.

Josh

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

Tahnan
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jbluestein wrote:

Tahnan wrote:
It's not too bad so far, though "Day 1: 1S1W" has an annoying backtracking problem, made more annoying by the lack of checkpoints.

What's the backtracking problem, exactly? I didn't notice it myself. (And I can't see it from staring at it.)

Specifically, if you pass through to the Secret Room (oops, did I give something away?) without conquering the room, there's no way out. (Is there? I didn't notice one myself.)

jbluestein
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Tahnan wrote:

jbluestein wrote:

What's the backtracking problem, exactly? I didn't notice it myself. (And I can't see it from staring at it.)

Specifically, if you pass through to the Secret Room (oops, did I give something away?) without conquering the room, there's no way out. (Is there? I didn't notice one myself.)

Hmmm. Well, you're right. I didn't notice it while checking the hold over. I'll handwave and say that backtracking issues involving secret rooms aren't really considered blocking issues...but nevertheless, whoops.

Josh

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eytanz
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jbluestein wrote:

Tahnan wrote:

jbluestein wrote:

What's the backtracking problem, exactly? I didn't notice it myself. (And I can't see it from staring at it.)

Specifically, if you pass through to the Secret Room (oops, did I give something away?) without conquering the room, there's no way out. (Is there? I didn't notice one myself.)

Hmmm. Well, you're right. I didn't notice it while checking the hold over. I'll handwave and say that backtracking issues involving secret rooms aren't really considered blocking issues...but nevertheless, whoops.

Josh

Only the other way round, actually - backtracking issues that prevent you from solving secret rooms aren't blocking issues. A secret room that prevents you from solving required rooms should be - if we would have caught this in time, it would certainly have needed to be fixed.

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Bobpie
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larrymurk wrote:
Sorry to the hold author who I assume spent time and effort trying to make a good hold, but here's the way this hold came accross to me.

Hmmm... "Beethro's Week Off" sure sounds similar to an excellent hold named "Beethro's day off". I think it even mentions that it's a prequel to said hold. Thing is, you didn't design the other hold. Did you even ask Stephen's permission to make a prequel? Is this hold in any way related? No, no, no!

Sadly, I'd also say there is nothing special about this hold. It might be an OK hold for beginners I guess.

You might want to name your next hold War 14, I believe that's still open. Again, sorry to act so mean, but why use someone else's hold name unless it just works perfectly and you discuss it with said hold creator first?

There is no problem with constructive criticisem

Anywho, I ment not to make this anything like Beethro's Day Off, I just learned about it as soon as I posted this on the arc board.

Tokyokid wrote:
Some complaints: Day 2-part 2: Cutscene doesn't even have a cutscence! And Day 2 part 3: there's a cutscene at the beginning of the level that doesn't seem to do anything. Tsk, tsk, tsk.

I never really liked the way cutscenes happen, I like to have people be able to move freely during them, or if they want, just skip over them. So thats why I didn't make it a real cutscene, just story plot being stated.
(I evolved this feeling after playing "Kingdom Hearts", cutscenes can't be skiped and the very first one is like 20 flipin' minutes long.)
Also, I liked the way "the cutscene" sounded compared to "a confuseing spout of information that you can run away from"(though this one does have a certain ring to it.)

tahnan wrote: Rule #1 of Architecture: Don't irritate the player.

Dang, there goes my 5 other holds...j/k.
I did this because I gave this hold to my friend before I put it up in arc boards. When my friend did this room, he laughed, and appaerently I didn't catch his disgrunteled sigh soon after. So I kept it in.

Tahnan
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I never really liked the way cutscenes happen, I like to have people be able to move freely during them, or if they want, just skip over them. So thats why I didn't make it a real cutscene, just story plot being stated.

Well, it's still possible to zip through a cutscene by hitting the spacebar. But if you don't want a cutscene--if you want something people can move around for--just skip the "cutscene" command and use speech without it instead.

larrymurk
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Bobpie (Bob?), thanks for taking my comments positively. Maybe the HAs could have worked on the hold name with you. In any case, you say you did hear about the name clash when you put your hold on the architecture board. I just hope in the future you'll consider changing things when you find problems or get suggestions.

So, what I really wanted to say is welcome to architecting. Really, we haven't had many new holds so I hope you continue loving DROD and make some great holds.

Beef Row
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larrymurk wrote:
In any case, you say you did hear about the name clash when you put your hold on the architecture board. I just hope in the future you'll consider changing things when you find problems or get suggestions.

Well, I guess making Beef Row's Weak Cough would be out of the question?

Some random comments:

Day 1:2S1W is the most humorously loosely timed efficiency room I've ever seen.

I was expecting SEVEN days from the Week Off title, the ending seems exceedingly sudden.

The DJ was funny.

Although all the rooms are simple, there are a couple fun ones (the room with all three types of serpent was fun, and doing Day 1:1W from the west entrance was fun.) And other than the spiral there weren't any tedious rooms.

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west.logan
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The DJ was indeed funny. It was an interesting idea, a few entertaining puzzles and rooms and not annoying. I enjoyed myself. So what is the sequel, or did I miss it somewhere?

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