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File: Delta Dungeon vfinal.hold (32.5 KB)
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First level: puzzles involving roaches and queen roaches puzzles.

Second level: Mostly eyes puzzles.

Third level: the famous hated (or not) tar puzzles

Fourth level: Golems, snakes and other stuff.

Fifth level: invisibility puzzles, snakes and some other scripting stuff.

Sixth level: it's about guessing scripting behind the room. more explanation in-game. Sorry if some people are not "fan" of this kind of rooms

I hope you enjoy it

Chaco
Level: Smitemaster
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Dali returns with a new offering, similar to his past holds Lendy's Dungeon and Beethro's Mission: Spiders.

Having played all three, I think on average this hold is a little bit easier than the other two - the earlier levels start out less complicated and in general puzzles here have fewer moving parts. There's some scripted "helper" statues in some rooms in the first five levels, but they're all well explained and pretty much only there to enable unusual room conditions that wouldn't be easy to enforce with standard DROD monsters/widgets.

The sixth level has been getting a bit of controversy in chat whether it counts as "fun" or not, but I found about half the rooms to be easily guessable; the others can be subjected to really thorough investigation or just looked up in the editor. None of these rooms are particularly hard to complete once you know what to do.

So, overall this was a fairly quick romp that could be beaten in one to three sittings, and had some enjoyable horde problems. Just be on the lookout for the occasional hard room mixed in - even the first level secret is no joke. I'm looking forward to seeing what Dali can do with DROD 5.0 elements.

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Dali
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 174
Registered: 02-05-2005
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Chaco wrote:
Dali returns with a new offering, similar to his past holds Lendy's Dungeon and Beethro's Mission: Spiders.

Having played all three, I think on average this hold is a little bit easier than the other two - the earlier levels start out less complicated and in general puzzles here have fewer moving parts. There's some scripted "helper" statues in some rooms in the first five levels, but they're all well explained and pretty much only there to enable unusual room conditions that wouldn't be easy to enforce with standard DROD monsters/widgets.

The sixth level has been getting a bit of controversy in chat whether it counts as "fun" or not, but I found about half the rooms to be easily guessable; the others can be subjected to really thorough investigation or just looked up in the editor. None of these rooms are particularly hard to complete once you know what to do.

So, overall this was a fairly quick romp that could be beaten in one to three sittings, and had some enjoyable horde problems. Just be on the lookout for the occasional hard room mixed in - even the first level secret is no joke. I'm looking forward to seeing what Dali can do with DROD 5.0 elements.

Chaco this is really nice from you, i really appreciate it
This motivates me to build more original and thinked puzzles in the future.
Thanks again for testing and validating the hold

skell
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 3734
Registered: 12-28-2004
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I haven't played a DROD hold in a year so perhaps my perceptions might be slightly off but...

Delta Dungeon is a really brilliant hold filled to the brim with puzzles that a DROD newbie can pick up and have lots of fun solving. It's also a hold that a veteran won't be bored with, even if the puzzles err on the easy side most of the time.

The sixth level, however, is something I'd like to devote more of my time to - I think it's amazing. Sure, for the most part the puzzles there can't even be called puzzles because, as the author admits, they are "guess the scripting" rooms.

But it touches a much grander thing. DROD is all about DROD puzzles with DROD monsters and, initially, scripting was added to create cutscenes. But there was never a huge movement in DROD architecture towards redefining what DROD is with scripting (of course there are guys like skell who made Narrows Perspectives, This and That not to mention Why Would Anyone Do This architecture threads, he's a cool and swell guy) which could've opened the doors for even more unique experiences.

Partially I blame the fact that established architects were more interested in finding new interactions between the existing elements, partially I blame unexperienced architects creating holds which were nothing more than guess-the-scripting fests which propagated the (very incorrect) impression that it's impossible to do fun puzzles which heavily rely on scripting. TSS partially took that down with quite a few scripted elements that opened up people's perceptions to those new things but, for the most part, arbitrary scripting is frowned upon.

And I think it's wrong. I am extremely glad this hold has sixth floor even if I found half of the puzzles there bad, because they weren't bad due to the scripting - they were bad because the architect decided to make them about guessing the scripting instead of putting the hints to the front and making them about solving the riddle. Still, the other half was fun and the room with brains and trapdoors will forever remain as one of my favorite DROD reimaginations.

I wish I was present to help testing of this hold so that I could attempt to convince the architect to take the sixth floor a bit more seriously which, in my humble opinion, could've elevated it from its controversial and generally disliked status to something of a "wow, I didn't know arbitrary scripting can be that good!".

Dali, never be afraid to experiment. The same goes for all the architects out there. Not every experiment will be a good one, but with how little experience the community has with decent scripting-based holds you don't have giants on whose shoulders you could stand on to see further. But that's okay.

Become the giants.

Difficulty: 4
Fun: 8

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disoriented
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I really enjoy holds in this difficulty range; they are fun to optimize and there’s minimal frustration. Good job Dali!

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Dali
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 174
Registered: 02-05-2005
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Skell thanks a lot for your appreciation to the hold
I tried to go for pretty easy and 'fluid' rooms so any player can easily finish. Before I was building most of the time big rooms filled with many elements, but now I changed my style.

I like your analysis, indeed scripting is probably the most revolutionary thing in DROD gameplay (it started from Jtrh release) which opened huge possibities to make new kind of puzzles.

I think good scripting rooms have to find a mix between classic drod playing (killing, moving monsters, efficiency, ...) with unusual game aspects such as solving riddles, enigmas, managing variables and NPC, ...

I will indeed keep experimenting new things (as drod build section is a fun sandbox ) and probably take more seriously some ideas such as the "brain and trapdoor" room that you mentionned.

Thanks again

Dali
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 174
Registered: 02-05-2005
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disoriented wrote:
I really enjoy holds in this difficulty range; they are fun to optimize and there’s minimal frustration. Good job Dali!

That's what I was looking for, reduce frustration even for skilled players. Glad you enjoyed disoriented !

navithmastero
Level: Smitemaster

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Okay, I'm afraid I disagree with Skell here.

I've played through this hold, and it's pretty easy. No rooms gave me any trouble, and it *is* a nice hold if you want a little diversion. However, this hold felt... pretty standard. Nothing was particularly difficult or tedious, but equally, nothing particularly stood out to me. One or two of the scripted rooms were neat (the one in the first level was really fun), but the majority of them just felt pretty gimmicky to be honest. The novelty of a mimic turning when you do a certain thing wore off pretty quick. I think a problem with easier holds is that they often don't feel particularly unique or set themselves from the crowd, since, due to their nature, the nuances of the game aren't really explored, they *can't* really be explored. As a result, you don't really get to see tricks you might have never seen before, or really intelligent room design to prevent you from doing a certain thing as in harder levelsets which can put a hold apart from anything else on offer. Easier holds need to differentiate themselves in ways other than regular puzzle design, like through story or cool minimap art (an example of a nice easier hold is roaches and walls because, due to its element restriction, it is unique and super cool). Delta Dungeon tries to do this with the scripting, but unfortunately I feel it falls a little short. The scripting is pretty basic and uninspired and more often than not felt gimmicky, as I said earlier. As a result, it doesn't manage to be anything more than a pretty standard hold.

Don't get me wrong, this certainly isn't a bad hold by any stretch, it was still pretty fun to play and Dali certainly shouldn't be put off making more holds, this one just didn't particularly wow me either.

Difficulty: 3.5
Fun: 7 (I would've given it a 7.5 if I could, but I don't think it warrants an 8).

Hope I don't sound to harsh here as I don't mean to, I think the ideas are nice and it has potential to be great

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[Last edited by navithmastero at 04-11-2018 04:26 PM]

Dali
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 174
Registered: 02-05-2005
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Hi navithmastero,

I'm fine with what you said ! As a start, this hold is made with TCB with many old AE rooms, so of course many new elements are missing.

That hold wasn't meant to be "absolutely-unique-original" puzzles, It was just some simple rooms some with scripting (maybe a bit repetitive, I agree) some with not.

Yes most rooms are easy, because I don't want players to "rage quit" when they are stuck

I'm working on new aspects mixing scripting, variables, NPC management and fighting monsters.

Thanks for playing, and 7 is a nice fun rate, so it's cool

navithmastero
Level: Smitemaster

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This is true Dali, the likelihood is that if you'd released it back when it sounds like it was made, this likely would've received at least an 8 from me. Also, I absolutely have no problem with easier holds, they can still be fun (as this hold shows). Experimentation is always good and although I'd probably stay away from 'guess the scripting' rooms if I were you, I'm sure you'll be able to come up with something really cool in the future. I look forward to your next hold!

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skell
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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navithmastero wrote:
Okay, I'm afraid I disagree with Skell here.

Haha, it's okay - like I said I haven't played much DROD recently, Outings with a Delver was the previous hold I played over a year before and I don't even remember what was before that, so I am out of touch with easier holds - back when I actively played pretty much every easy hold was simultaneously pretty bad and uninspired (or just, well, made by a really novice architect). So I am ready to admit to being wrong on this.

I still stand by with the later message of my review, about experimenting with scripting. At least the part where I encourage people to do it, even if there are more holds with clever scripting nowadays.

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martz
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 414
Registered: 08-19-2005
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This is a fun hold - lots of nice varied puzzles which aren't too difficult, until the last level...

Having finished it I've decided it's not so bad but I personally don't want to guess scripting to solve a room - I had to check the editor for a few of the rooms. My opinion is that good puzzles should have all the elements visible for you to solve and that's not the case with some of these rooms. There are some clues though I think it would be better if these were available at the start of the room.

Couple of minor issues, the exit stairs in all levels take you back to the entrance room of the previous level instead of the stairs you just came from, and also in the sixth level secret room you can place the decoy on the door tile.

I don't want to sound too negative as this was a fun and fairly easy hold, just be wary if you're not a fan of scripted puzzles.

Difficulty: 4
Fun: 7

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