eytanz
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Characters can't drink potions either. Only Beethro can.

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rowrow
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That proves one of agaricus's riddles wrong. It says that the 'neather can drink mimic potions.Joking. Anyway, in that room, he doesn't.

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Rabscuttle
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After seeing the wispy screenshot:

Does the Slayer always follow your path exactly? If he's on the path, will he leave it even if there's a shorter way to get to you (say, if you're standing next to him, but have previously taken a loop around the room)

How does he move before he gets on your trail? What happens if you go over a trapdoor or block the path with a dead golem, so that he can't follow you?

He can slay other creatures, right? So it's not possible to block him with a roach.

DiMono
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The slayer follows the path laid down by the Wisp. If the Wisp crosses itself, the Slayer will choose the shortest path.

Before the Wisp catches you, he just stands there. If you get too close to him, he'll turn his sword, and the Wisp will pause for that to happen. This lets you get ahead of the Wisp. If you completely block his path, he just stands there like a deer in the headlights.

Yes, he can slay other creatures.

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Mattcrampy
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He's also clever enough to get out of traps. If you trap him in an enclosed area which contains the orb to get out, he'll go over there and hit it. Some of JtRH's puzzles are based around this behaviour.

Matt

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Rabscuttle
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How does the Wisp move?

Can he jump paths if they are next to each other (but not actually crossing)? For example in the screenshot, the player presumably went N onto the checkpoint, then W off it. Would the Slayer step on the checkpoint or go NW and bypass it?

The Slayer is acting like a Slayer, so he's presumably not a character in that SS. But he's also talking. Does that mean that it is possible to put lines in the mouths of non-characters?

eytanz
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The wisp moves like a brained roach, more or less (there are subtle differences but they're hard to explain without giving specific examples). It always tries to move one square closer to Beethro.

If Beethro steps on the wisp then everything beyond him vanished from the wisp. If Beethro just steps adjacent to the wisp, the wisp will continue as normal. But when the slayer starts moving, he will always choose the shortest path to Beethro. So in the following case:

    B
xxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxs

Where Beethro doubled up and caused a two-square wisp, the slayer won't follow the original path of the wisp but will turn north early.

As for speech - it's possible to make Beethro, the Slayer, and Halph talk without them being characters. It's not possible to do so to arbitrary monsters (it involves using an invisible character to hold the script and a special hard-coded way to associate the lines with the right person).

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DiMono
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Also, if the Slayer is following the Wisp, but you're within swording range, he'll sword you. ...Scythe you... So don't assume that just because the Wisp goes all over the screen he won't get to you early.

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b0rsuk
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Is the Foundation theme the one on screenshots ? With nasty pink/violet walls ?

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Krishh
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It most certainly is, since that's what the first three levels of JtRH are built from. You can check out the other two on www.caravelgames.net . Iceworks is obviously the icy one, And all thats left for Deep Spaces is the greyish one.

b0rsuk
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Then Deep Spaces gets my vote. It's the best for me, best contrast, color balance, variety etc.

Q:
Doesn't it bother you you can't see grid on many floors ? It's not really "problem" with the game, rather with room design... Harder to count tiles.

[Edited by b0rsuk at Local Time:02-25-2005 at 10:10 AM]

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Krishh
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Iceworks gets my vote as best looking, although I guess all that birghtness could tire your eyes after a while, and Deep Spaces comes in second, first for playability.

It doesn't bother me much, because I'm fairly sure that the JtRH will not abuse this and use these floors to diversify the enviorment only in rooms that don't rely much of specific tile count. Other architects might not be so thoughtful, but we don't have to play holds that abuse these floors.

Mattcrampy
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We've deliberately steered away from obvious checkerboard for this version, but you don't have too much of a problem picking the grid, nevertheless.

Note that this doesn't apply to the special floors, which aren't gridded at all. Upon playing them, it doesn't make too much of a difference if the architect's being considerate. Remember, architects, there's a difference between being challenging and being cheap.

Matt

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eytanz
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To Elaborate -

The gridless floors are really only an issue in rooms where a very specific move order matters. Grids make it easier to remember and repeat differnt move combinations. But JtRH doesn't have many of those rooms, definitely not to the extent some of the user holds do, and the rooms that are less forgiving use grided floors. Also, trapdoors - the game element where the grid matters most directly - are clearly gridded.

JtRH also includes some other conveniences that make the grid less important. For instance, you can left-click on an evil eye to highlight the squares that will wake it. This was introduced primarily because there was a concern with diagonal evil eyes and gridless floors.

But basically, Matt's right - it takes a short while to get used to gridless floors, but once you've been playing them for a few hours you barely even notice the lack of an explicit grid anymore.

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b0rsuk
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How many MB is JTRH ? DROD:AE is about 13 MB download...

[Edited by b0rsuk at Local Time:02-26-2005 at 05:19 PM]

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ErikH2000
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b0rsuk wrote:
How many MB is JTRH ? DROD:AE is about 13 MB download...

Somewhere between 50 and 80mb.

Yeah, I know that's huge. The speech and music files are mainly to blame.

-Erik

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mrimer
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ErikH2000 wrote:

b0rsuk wrote:
How many MB is JTRH ? DROD:AE is about 13 MB download...

Somewhere between 50 and 80mb.

Yeah, I know that's huge. The speech and music files are mainly to blame.

And don't forget the

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b0rsuk
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Not the kind of game you could play in work :<

Fortunatelly, demo most probably doesn't contain contain all the music files and speech. Unless you make it as "enter registration number" shareware. It's like asking for being cracked.
So I suppose free version would be much nicer to download.

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gamer_extreme_101
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Only 5 songs and 1 graphical style are included, so it should be a bit better to download the demo. Still horrible for all ye olde modem users, most likely.

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wackhead_uk
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On JtRH, orbs can be clicked on to see where they go, agreed? But does that mean that if you hide some doors under tar then you are able to see which orbs control them and what they do to that door? Doens't that mean that some rooms in KDD (namely level 11 rooms) will become much, much easier?

Stefan
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wackhead_uk wrote:
On JtRH, orbs can be clicked on to see where they go, agreed? But does that mean that if you hide some doors under tar then you are able to see which orbs control them and what they do to that door? Doens't that mean that some rooms in KDD (namely level 11 rooms) will become much, much easier?

Yes, yes and yes. You won't be able to see which orbs control the doors, but you'll be able to see which doors the orbs control.

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stigant
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Stefan wrote:
Yes, yes and yes. You won't be able to see which orbs control the doors, but you'll be able to see which doors the orbs control.

Forgive me, but I don't see the distinction... do you mean simply that the reverse information won't be available? (In otherwords, click on a door, and see what orbs control it?) This seems more convenient than the current system (hit the orb, observe the effects), but not as convenient as it could be...

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Stefan
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stigant wrote:
do you mean simply that the reverse information won't be available? (In otherwords, click on a door, and see what orbs control it?)

Yes, that's what I meant.

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Strabo
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gamer_extreme_101 wrote:
Only 5 songs and 1 graphical style are included, so it should be a bit better to download the demo. Still horrible for all ye olde modem users, most likely.

Indeed. Thank goodness for fiends with broadband.

Mattcrampy
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For those poor souls with dial-up, we are offering a CD version, with nifty cover art, which you can see on the prize pile. (People who have nominated to win a copy of JtRH will get the CD version.) We certainly don't think it's wise to limit our game to just the broadband peoples.

Matt

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b0rsuk
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You mean I can just ask and I'll be sent a CD with the demo ?

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rowrow
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I don't think they would but if so, you would only get the demo on it.
Or should.

[Edited by rowrow at Local Time:02-28-2005 at 02:44 PM]

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ErikH2000
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b0rsuk wrote:
You mean I can just ask and I'll be sent a CD with the demo ?

No, the demo would only be downloadable. But it is also quite a bit smaller. I think it was around 35mb.

-Erik

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Oneiromancer
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Stefan wrote:

wackhead_uk wrote:
On JtRH, orbs can be clicked on to see where they go, agreed? But does that mean that if you hide some doors under tar then you are able to see which orbs control them and what they do to that door? Doens't that mean that some rooms in KDD (namely level 11 rooms) will become much, much easier?

Yes, yes and yes. You won't be able to see which orbs control the doors, but you'll be able to see which doors the orbs control.

I think I pointed out somewhere else public that you still don't know the initial state of the doors under tar. So while it may make KDD rooms much easier, future holds can take this into consideration. Of course, most people don't enjoy doors under tar at all, so there won't be many tears shed over this development.

Game on,

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b0rsuk
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Do Tar Babies have so nise chewing animation like in AE ? What makes it especially cool is the fact that they seem to stare at you from the other side of the monitor, in a threatening manner. So if JTRH Tar Babies do the chewing in 8 various directions, it's BAD.

[Edited by b0rsuk at Local Time:02-28-2005 at 11:16 PM]

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