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Pekka
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File: Abels_Hold.hold (8.4 KB)
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icon Abel's Hold (+2)  
This is a little hold I've made. I set myself the limit of only using AE elements in the rooms, even though I used the 3.2.0 engine. I think I did follow it everywhere, except that I used those neat hand statues for the two-by-two obstacles.

I've played through it and I have a demo for every room. I hope you'll enjoy it too. Let me know what you think!

EDIT: Attachment updated on Oct 2nd to the latest version. All the changes are explained below in the thread. New downloaders should note that I switched 1N and 2N in Tar Gloop, but the reviews below may have them in the old order. Otherwise the rooms remain essentially unchanged.

[Last edited by Pekka at 10-02-2008 06:46 AM]
09-21-2008 at 04:35 PM
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Jutt
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icon Re: Abel's Hold (+1)  
Pekka, you've put some nice rooms together here. I downloaded the hold just to peek at the puzzles and ended up completing the entire hold. Sure, it's only 18 rooms, but it was just right for a two hour diversion. Some comments on the rooms:

Snarky Serpents:
Ent – Thought this was going to be messy, but luring an eye to (20,5) and having the serpent die between the eyes was easier than expected.
1N – Pretty straightforward what to do here. making it work took some effort though. Ended up freeing the roaches on the east side first, but it's probably doable the other way around as well.
1N1W – With the knowledge that it's easiest to make a serpent move away from you northwards, I pretty quickly managed to solve this room.
1N2W – This one was rather simple. just created a few babies, then hid behind the door. With the babies and serpents on the other side I could easily trap the serpents between the babies and he door corners.
2N1W – Fun room. Took me a while to realize what to do and how to do it. With some trial and error I gradually came closer to the solution and finally killed the wraithwing at (16,10) with the serpent blocking it.
1N1E – Simple room. It's clear you need to enter from the other side and with some luck I did it on my first try.
2N2E – This was a tough one to get right, possibly because I was a bit clumsy manipulating the roach. I ended up dropping all trapdoors but the ones in the 8x8 central area and randomly kill the serpents in the thusly created alcoves.
2E – Nothing too hard here, but still interesting to figure out which mimic to place where and what order.
1N3E – Also quite straightforward. killed the first serpent with help from the other in the trapdoor area before entering it, and the second one when it tried to follow me shortly after entering.

Tar Gloop:
Ent – Nice appetizer. At first glance it looks impossible, until you see the little trick. Liked it.
1W – Fun puzzle. It's not too hard because your advance it pretty linear. but the way you had to move the mimics was counterintuitive, which I liked.
1N – Challenging room as the timing was rather tight. Several times I was fairly positive there was no way to reach the mothers before they blocked the entrances and without getting attacked by a roach. Excellent efficiency puzzle.
2N – Déjà vu from the first level. Nice to see a similar room with a different solution. Having solved the first room already, this one seemed a bit easier. Killed the wraithwing in the same way.
1N1W – Nice one. Solved it without the invisibility potion, but it's a nice red herring anyway if you take it right from the beginning. I prevented the passage above the tar mother from filling by luring the east eye in there and have it help making a lot of tar babies. After that it was mostly clearing up the mess.
1N1E – I had to go round twice, because I couldn't kill the entire first mother the first time. Other than that putting the goblins in place in time wasn't too difficult.
1S – I chose to attack the mothers in this room, which worked. Managed to kill the East mother by approaching it from the north and trap myself in the tar such that I was safe from the brained babies. Then gradually made my way to the second mother and repeated that trick. A good brain room.
1S1W – It looks like it's impossible to create a baby at (29,26) with out creating one at (34,18), which had me puzzled for quite a while. Until I realized that the baby could also be created somewhere else ((29,13) in my case) and that was a nice touch to an otherwise not very difficult Tar guiding puzzle.

All in all an enjoyable little hold. I liked the second level the best, especially 1N. Maybe that's because of my love for tar, or maybe because serpents always seem to be a bit more random than everything else.

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Holds: An Architects Audition, Artful Architecture, Salamander, Elusive Exhibitions, Leftover Levels, Six Times Six
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09-21-2008 at 11:44 PM
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Pekka
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Thank you for playing and reviewing my hold, Jutt. I welcome further comments from everyone, of course. I'm not in a hurry to get this to the Holds board, so you can take your time in playing it.

I feel that it is reasonably complete in the sense that it has all the things that I wanted to include. I did leave some rooms out that simply weren't working at all. That said, I will listen carefully if you tell me there is anything you'd like me to change, remove or add.

I have no clear plans for my next hold yet. I am quite sure I'll get started on one sooner or later, though. It's fun.
09-22-2008 at 03:26 PM
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Pekka
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Well... it's been up for almost a week and it says 31 downloads as of this writing. It seems nobody has wanted to add anything to what Jutt wrote.

About the only thing I could think of is adding a reminder in a scroll to two of the rooms that you can press Control+Wait to wait until the next tar growth. Though I imagine everybody knows that, except for the rare casual player who probably won't be downloading my hold anyway :)

Right then, how do I proceed now? Is it customary to wait longer than a week?
09-28-2008 at 07:18 AM
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CuriousShyRabbit
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I'm sorry, Pekka. It seems like many people are distracted by the new RPG game right now. But don't worry, they'll be back.

I've played through this one too. It's a very impressive first effort. :)

Snaky Serpents
Entrance - I trapped the serpent between an wakened eye and a sleeping eye.
1N - I used the serpent to avoid getting clobbered when I opened the doors. It looks like the four statues are where I'm supposed to kill the serpent after that, but I just used two roaches and the wall.
1N1W - I killed all the queens but the northern one, and sent the snake up there to keep her company.
1N2W - Very easy. I used the babies from one blob and the door to create a dead end.
1N1E - I used the arrows and the snake to change places with the roach.
2N2E - I made a dead end in the NW corner using trapdoors and the roach, and all the snakes walked right into it.
2E - I needed Beethro to go around the loop twice to get all the mimics in the right spot. I liked the twist with the crumbly wall and the yellow door.
1N3E - I diagonally sidestepped one snake on the trapdoors, creating two dead ends that killed both snakes.
2N1W - I made a dead end in the NW corner, manipulated the snake into it, and while the snake was dying, I killed the wraithwing in the corner made by the snake and the yellow door.

Tar Gloop
Entrance - That statue in the SE corner was in just the right spot.
1W - I pushed the mimics against growing tar, which meant I pressed control-5 a lot. The best part was keeping the tar from becoming uncuttable at the T junction. I used tar babies for that.
1S - This took a lot of trial and error. I ended up killing the mothers before the brains.
1S1W - You stumped the Rabbit. I looked at Jutt's comments for a clue.
1N - This is a very nice puzzle, and it almost stumped the Rabbit, but not quite. I liked how one of the queens has to block the growth of two different tar blobs.
1N1W - I did use the invisibility potion, but not before I had positioned one eye and one tar baby to keep a passage to the mother open.
1N1E - I used only one of the two goblins (killed the other in the beginning). I also needed two passes to kill the western mother.
2N - I removed most of the tar, except a blob in the NW corner, and then used the same solution that I used for the first level room. I manipulated the snake and the wraithwing in exactly the same way.

You've got a backtracking problem in Tar Gloop 1N. If the player creates babies after the green door drops and exits north, east, or west without killing those babies, the player will get stuck. It will be impossible to return and conquer that room, because the green door will be back when the player re-enters. You'll need to fix that problem.
09-28-2008 at 09:50 AM
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Pekka
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icon Re: Abel's Hold (+1)  
Thanks for the review!

That backtracking problem was certainly unexpected. I wonder what I am going to do to fix it. Well, I'll try to find a good & neat solution and will post the updated hold when it's done. I'm glad there are sharp-eyed people who know to look for things like this.

EDIT: Do you think it would be too drastic a change to switch the Tar Gloop rooms 1N and 2N? This would require some extra ledges going around the old 2N, but as a bonus you could now reach any of the rooms in Tar Gloop after conquering the entrance.

I just want to ask to make sure this kind of change does not potentially upset anyone or have hidden drawbacks. I don't expect invalidating two demos to be a serious drawback, and I like the idea of easier to access rooms (i.e. no green doors).

[Last edited by Pekka at 09-28-2008 01:20 PM]
09-28-2008 at 11:39 AM
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zwetschenwasser
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Hey! I didn't know about Ctrl-Wait! :angry

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Currently working on GaTEB and KDD (never finished the silly thing). :yahoo:
09-28-2008 at 03:52 PM
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CuriousShyRabbit
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Pekka wrote:
EDIT: Do you think it would be too drastic a change to switch the Tar Gloop rooms 1N and 2N? This would require some extra ledges going around the old 2N, but as a bonus you could now reach any of the rooms in Tar Gloop after conquering the entrance.
That sounds like a good idea to me.
I just want to ask to make sure this kind of change does not potentially upset anyone
This is the architecture board. It's meant for works in progress, and it's expected that architects will change their holds around based on tester feedback. Indeed, it would be a bad thing if someone found a problem with your hold and you didn't change it.

It used to be that architects could change their holds after they were promoted to the Holds board. Then changes did upset players. Imagine spending hours optimizing a room to get a highscore on CaravelNet just to have the architect change it a few days later. Architects are no longer allowed to change their holds after promotion, so you don't have to worry about upsetting anyone in this way.
09-29-2008 at 01:03 AM
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talund
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Pekka:

I thoroughly enjoyed solving the puzzles. In fact, I was looking over another hold on the Board and cited your hold as an example of how to include puzzles in rooms rather than make them simple hack and slash rooms.

Comments:

Snaky Serpents

Entrance - Same solution as CSR.
1N - Same solution as CSR except I used one roach and statues to kill serpent.
1N1W - Same as CSR - This will be an interesting one for optimizers as I had trouble getting the timing right.
1N2W - Very easy, used babies from one tar blob and door.
1N1E - I liked your use of roach movement to set this one up.
2N2E - Again, may be a good room for optimizers.
2E - Did this in one loop - used yellow door to keep top left mimic in place, then by swinging sword able to break crumbly wall and step up on to parchment to open last door.
1N3E - Used one snake to kill the other, then I diagonally sidestepped on the trapdoors, creating a dead end to kill the other snake.
2N1W - Same as CSR.

Tar Gloop
Entrance - Timing and placement are everything.
1W - I thought this was quite clever. I used tar babies to block the corridor and had one left over to push the mimic onto the arrow.
1S - I went through the left mother, then through the middle brain and down to the right mother, killing the other brains aftewards.
1S1W - Again, observation is key. Spent a great deal of time trying to time this until I figured out when to kill the tar mother.
1N - Stumped me until I saw CSR's comment about moving the queen.
1N1W - Same as CSR
1N1E - I used only one of the two goblins but kept the other one alive underneath the arrow after killing the northern mother. I was able to trap the trailing goblin in the western tar blob by timing my kill of a tar baby and then was able to kill the mother and have it trail me so needed only one pass around.
2N - I used paths through the tar to lead the wraithwing and snake up so that I could use the snake to trap the wraithwing long enough to kill it. The snake actually came up the western edge and died in the NE corner.

Good effort.
09-29-2008 at 07:17 PM
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Pekka
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icon Re: Abel's Hold (+2)  
Here is the updated hold. I will eventually remove the older version(s) and make the last one the only one available here. The changes are listed below and I will now wait for further comments.

I swapped the rooms 1N and 2N in Tar Gloop. This removes the backtracking problem and also makes all the rooms in Tar Gloop accessible after conquering the entrance. I removed unnecessary exits, corridors and the green door from old 1N and added a ledge and walls in old 2N. I also moved the starting position for the Wraithwing one step for aesthetic reasons (farther from the ledge). This doesn't affect how to play either room.

I added scrolls to the rooms in Tar Gloop where you have to wait for tar growth that explain how pressing Control + Wait takes you to the next tar growth.

I added thanks to CuriousShyRabbit, Jutt and talund for their help and reviews, to the ending.

I changed the filename to use an underscore instead of a space. Most other hold files seem to use this convention (at least the ones I have been enjoying lately).

(I made no changes in Snaky Serpents.)
09-30-2008 at 10:29 AM
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CuriousShyRabbit
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Pekka, this looks fine. You've corrected the backtracking problem, and the room swap did not change my solution to either puzzle. Good job! :)
10-02-2008 at 03:01 AM
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Pekka
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I updated the attachments. The first posting in this thread now has the latest version and the earlier one is no longer available. I uploaded exactly the same file again to re-attach it to the first posting.

I would be ready to submit this to the Hold admins soon, but I'd be happy to wait a couple of days more at least so everyone has a chance to take a careful look at it.

EDIT: I submitted it to HA's now. Let's see what happens :)

[Last edited by Pekka at 10-05-2008 02:28 PM]
10-02-2008 at 06:52 AM
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