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Level: Legendary Smitemaster
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File: Yggdrasil Hollow.hold (30 KB)
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I'm not one for making a story so this is storyless,
hope you enjoy anyways.

Insoluble
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1638
Registered: 09-04-2014
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I was just reviewing the holds released in 2015 in preperation for voting in the 2015 dealies and am surprised no one has commented on this yet. This was actually a really nice medium sized, medium difficulty hold.

The hold gets off to a bit of a slow start, with a lot of straightforward rooms focusing on monster manipulation and horde management. But things definitely pick up and by the final two levels you'll see some trickier lynchpin rooms. There's a good mix throughout though, so if you aren't in to tricky lynchpins, there are still some good horde management and optimization opportunities later on.

As the architect notes, there's not an actual story, but there is a nice thematic concept running through the hold relating to the Tree of the World. The aesthetic design of each level reflects this concept nicely, and the last two levels in particular are quite lovely. The final level was probably my favorite overall. The level map was beautiful, the puzzles were fun, and there's a very nice metapuzzle that involves finding the way to get through briars to move from one room to the next.

All in all this was a very solid hold. If you didn't get around to playing it the first time, or if you never made it through to the final level, it's definitely worth spending some time one.

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OneMoreNameless
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 131
Registered: 07-31-2010
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Yggdrasil Hollow is focused almost entirely on set piece monster manipulation challenges. Pressure plates are frequently abused to add weird movement restrictions or specific goals (as well as standard timers); this makes for some unique puzzles but also means it can take a minute or two of looking around before you figure out what you're supposed to be doing. There's no mechanical themes so expect everything from goblins and golems to gel and gentryii to show up even within the first level. There's technically a few horde rooms but the difficulty still comes from carefully moving around room-specific caveats rather than overwhelming odds.

There's no story and the shape of connecting passages is about the only visual theming - until the last of five levels when the hold partially turns into a withered briar maze and makes moving between the last few standalone puzzles a hassle. There's also one puzzle using both wraithwing and puff hordes with no room for error in either kill locations or time that left me about ready to jump onto a bridge (off of its last orthogonally connecting trapdoor) IRL.

If you have a little patience, this hold is worth playing for its interesting puzzle setups.