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Caravel Forum : DROD Boards : Holds : T R E F O I L (Knotted Puzzles)
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6.4/10 (8 votes)
σ 1.11
Author Name:Xindaris
Submitted By:Xindaris
Hold Name:T R E F O I L
Theme:Knotted Puzzles
Author's Difficulty:
Number of Levels:1
Number of Rooms:4
Number of Monsters:26
Version:DROD: The Second Sky (5.0.2)
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Hold Karma:0 (+0 / -0)
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File: T R E F O I L.hold (2.3 KB)
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License: Other
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icon T R E F O I L  
One day I had my head in a knot because of thinking about knot theory, and decided to try and make a knot based hold. This is a 1-level, 4-room hold whose map is a square picture of the trefoil knot (3_1 at knot atlas) but you don't really need to know what I'm talking about knot-wise to enjoy this hold. The puzzles are knotted, each room appearing multiple times from different perspectives to create a hopefully unique and interesting experience.
11-25-2017 at 11:12 PM
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Kaelyn
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 79
Registered: 01-21-2019
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icon Re: T R E F O I L (+2)  
I'm shocked by how little attention this hold has gotten. It deserves far better than tumbleweeds! So let's fix that.

Thanks to the titular trefoil-style knot, Xindaris managed to accommodate nine-count-em-nine puzzles in just four rooms. Each is pretty self-contained, but they influence the others just enough to make the whole thing feel cohesive and intimate. And thanks to the looping structure, each room starts you from a new entrance, which forces you to adopt a new perspective for all of them. My favorite room is definitely 1S1E: the first time through, you have to battle a gel mother and create a mimic ratchet using gel babies, while the second time, the room starts clear but now you need to ratchet the mimic in the other direction using tar babies. It's fantastically clever!

The loops remind me of another hold I'm playing through -- A Quiet Place -- where you're dealing with the same rooms from many entrances. There weren't seeding beacons back in AE, so conquering those rooms was often the last thing you did. Here, it's only the halfway point. But the scale of rooms there, plus the cleverness of loops here, times the power of seeding beacons, and it's clear the potential of these kinds of levels is limitless.

Xindaris has created a good little hold with fun little puzzles, but I think the real value is how it's a proof-of-concept for intertwining puzzles. Whoever capitalizes on this will have a seriously awesome hold on their hands.

Even if you don't plan on architecting the next great knot, you should play this hold. It's fun and engaging! (And leave your thoughts in this thread. It deserves even more attention.) :)
5 brains
8 fun

[Last edited by Kaelyn at 05-30-2019 05:52 AM]
05-30-2019 at 05:51 AM
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Ezlo
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icon Re: T R E F O I L (+1)  
First hold I've played in a while. Fun experience! Took about an hour, puzzles were all fun and varied. I appreciated the easy ability to backtrack.
06-01-2019 at 03:25 AM
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