Hi, and welcome back to the forums after all these years! I played through the first
two four levels and enjoyed them quite a bit so far. This is a very nice average difficulty hold so far. I will definitely play some more soon. I have attached demos so you can see what I did. I'll also make comments on the two levels I played.
First Level
The Entrance: This was a very nice first impression of the hold. The room has an interesting puzzle that is not too tricky and fits the difficulty level you are going for I think. It may be nice to have a checkpoint at somewhere like (21,19) for players who manage to save a roach but make a mistake in the second portion of the room.
3N Seems appropriate difficulty for a secret room in the first level.
2N I think a green door at (18,25) and (16,25) would be nice. Otherwise players coming back through this room after have to go through the whole sequence with the fegundo again to exit the room.
1N1W: I like the way you explained the scripting. I also like that you did not make it too strict and gave more trap doors than are absolutely necessary.
1N1E: This one could use a checkpoint. I also am not sure if I am doing the pressure plates in row 21 the way you intended (see demo).
1W: This was very fun. I would suggest changing the scroll to say "
The special mimic moves towards you 1 step..."
instead of "
The special mimic follows you 1 step..."
1E: I like this room a lot. For an extra challenge, you can solve the room without letting Beethro step on the grey-yellow triangle pressure plate (see demo).
2E: Another very fun room.
2S1E: This was an interesting room. I did not end up needing all 4 roaches in the bottom right, but it is nice to have extra in case you need them.
Second Level
The Entrance The exit stairs here lead to
Level 1: the entrance instead of
Level 1: 2n,1e as I would have expected.
2N This was a tricky room. I really liked it.
1N This looked intimidating at first, but the force arrows made it manageable. Fun room. Maybe put one checkpoint that is not on a trapdoor so that there is always one available.
1N1E: Another really interesting room.
1N2E One of my favorites on this level. These are a lot of fun. Again, I like the way you explain the scripting so that I don't have to just guess.
1W: This felt a lot longer than most of the other rooms so far, but it was still enjoyable. I was a bit surprised to not have any speech text about the scripting, but it's probably simple enough that it isn't necessary.
1E: I'm not sure about using dark ceiling to hide the hot tiles. I ended up just turning off alpha blending in my settings for this room, though I suppose right mouse clicking on tiles to see what they are would work too. I don't think this increases the difficulty in an enjoyable way though. If you feel that this room is not difficult enough on its own, you can always remove some of the invisibility potions instead of hiding things from the player. It was a fun room though, and I liked the use of invisibility potions to set things up here.
3E: Was somewhat tricky as the scroll said, but I enjoyed it a lot and don't think it necessarily needs to be marked as unrequired.
1s1w: On the other hand, I think it was a good idea to make this room unrequired. Stalwarts are notoriously fiddly and difficult to manipulate. That being said, I think this room is actually quite good. There is a bit of a puzzle involved in figuring out which corners you should do first and which ones to do last, and the yellow pressure plates are placed in a way that makes it fairly forgiving.
1S1E: Fun room. I don't have much to say about this one.
2S1E: This one was fun, but I also think it was good to make it a secret. The last section is fairly tricky, and it is more combat oriented than the rest of the level, so it works well as a secret.
Third Level
2N: As with previous scripted rooms, I really appreciate the restraint you show here. The scripting is very easy to understand and the difficulty is not too severe. Maybe put a checkpoint somewhere in the central area?
1N2W: Nice room. I very much appreciate that I was not required to clear all the tar due to a black gate.
1N: The room is not really all that bad without the speed potion. You could possibly make it a challenge (if you are using the 5.0 engine).
1N1E: Interesting room. I went through the wrong way the first time before I saw the catch.
3W: This was maybe a little bit too straightforward. I don't know if it is maybe too easy for a secret room. I usually play with transparent tar (as I imagine a lot of people do these days). I can see how this may be a different experience if you can't see through the tar.
2W: A neat room. Nothing too difficult, but I like rooms like this that require you to think through the correct sequence for a series of tasks.
1W: Fairly straightforward.
1E: An interesting challenge (or secret room if you want) is to do this one without dropping the trapdoors. It's not all that difficult to do, but makes for another interesting constraint.
1S1W: Challenge: Don't step on the green sister gate. I know what I did in my demo is unintended, but it is ridiculously inefficient and probably not worth preventing.
1S: Nice little room that makes the player think through the initial choice for each section.
Fourth Level
1N1W: You can currently solve this one by just killing golems on the plates. If you want to enforce having the adders hold down the plates you'll need to build in some sort of delay for Beethro.
1N: This one was not as strict a timer as I first thought. Nice room. The tunnel isn't strictly necessary, but is nice to have.
1N1E: The snake length felt a bit overly generous here, but it was still a fun room.
2W: Challenge: only drop one trapdoor before hitting the orb (Probably best to not make this an actual scripted challenge.)
1W: Fun little room.
1E: You can hit the first pressure plate with Beethro instead of the snake. You can leave that in as an option (it's a fun optimization trick for the room), or you could have all the yellow plates close the door at {11,18) to prevent it. Personally I think it's more fun to leave it in as a trick for the perceptive optimizer.
1S: A fun variation on a classic type of room.
1S1E: Neat room. I like how it elaborates on the trick in
1W but elaborates on it. I also really like the use of invisibility potions here. Those don't get used enough in architecture these days and make for interesting puzzles.
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[Last edited by Insoluble at 03-22-2018 05:46 AM : played more levels]
I agree with Insoluble about adding a checkpoint.
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