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File: The Blank Dungeon 4.hold (50.8 KB)
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Thanks to Nuntar and Insoluble for public testing this short hold. This hold was largely built in AE, with the sole exception being the last level, which utilizes the JtRH scripting engine.

mauvebutterfly
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 720
Registered: 05-03-2015
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A fun little combat hold. The levels are all themed nicely and aren't too long. A few rooms feel like repeats of each other, but if you're looking for some quick horde rooms, this hold will give you that.

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106th Skywatcher

Insoluble
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1638
Registered: 09-04-2014
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In case you're they type of person who tends to gloss over the "hold theme" field (I know I am), The Blank Dungeon really does hold up to that theme pretty well. It is indeed a "Combat-oriented tribute to KDD" going so far as to have the constant room template style of KDD level 6 (level 2 in this hold) and ending with a 'neather like NPC level. There's even the inaccessible orb leading to a sequel (which, by the way you can still go play test and help post comments for in architecture as of this post!).

The nods to KDD are charming and go over well for the most part. And having recently played through a good chunk of AE era holds I can say that this actually holds up pretty well to that style. Unfortunately it also adheres to some of the less popular design choices of that era as well. Most of the horde rooms here are interesting and fun, and provide a good contrast to the more linchpin puzzle style hold that is the norm these days. A few of the rooms feel a bit on the repetitive side, but are still mostly enjoyable (and nowhere near as repetitive as many AE era holds got!). But there are a couple of rooms that do end up bringing the hold down. Level 7:1S1E and Level 8:1S were both extremely tight move sequences involving multiple goblins and wraithwings respectively that felt like tedious exercises in trial and error. It's not that they were hard rooms, the solution is simple enough in both cases: try things pseudo-randomly until you stumble upon a sequence that lets you survive. The experience of those two rooms in particular (and possibly a couple of others) are what I suspect is dragging the overall rating of this hold down though.

Don't go looking here for linchpin puzzles, but if you are interested in old-school DROD combat I would still recommend this hold in spite of a few tedious rooms. The majority of the hold is fun open ended hack'n'slash. Many of the rooms are interesting for optimization and it starts off very approachable.

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[Last edited by Insoluble at 05-29-2018 09:17 PM]