Welcome to the newest DROD contest!
The rules are simple: Make a single room in the style of the Arky rooms in DROD: The Second Sky.
Obviously, there's going to be some difference of opinion from person to person on exactly what this means, but that's part of the fun.
However, as some people may not have played through Second Sky, or not have found any of these rooms, I'll offer a quick explanation and some examples of the rooms.
Who is Arky?
For those who haven't played through it, DROD: The Second Sky features a new character: the new First Archivist, who Beethro calls "
Arky"
in order to distinguish between him and the former First Archivist (who Beethro calls A1). He has a rather distinctive speaking style, with a voice provided by Erik Hermansen.
Arky is a minor antagonist who gets in Beethro's way from time to time. He is particularly upset by Beethro's rudeness.
What's an Arky Room?
A number of the secret rooms in Second Sky were created by Arky, marked as such by scrolls where he explains his thought process in making the room.
In Second Sky, these scrolls are accompanied by a voiced explanation from Arky. Erik has kindly agreed to reprise that role for the contest compilation once it's time to publish. (I'm not doing it before then because people might decide to re-word their scrolls after the contest is over.)
Here are two examples of these scrolls, along with the rooms they go in:
Click here to view the secret text
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Arky's Notes
Tarstuff
Put blobs of uncuttable tar in a room.
Each will require a powder keg to break. Only give the delver one keg!
Since there is more than one blob, the room is impossible.
Hah!
Arky's Notes
Aumtlich
I have arranged for ten aumtlich to be pointed directly at the delver when he steps in the center of the room, swordless and trapped by force arrows.
(second scroll)
The arrangement of roaches and fuses requires that it be he that steps into the middle - no trickery with placing mirrors or creatures there instead.
There's no way to block ten aumtlich beams with only two mirrors. He is doomed for sure!
Submission Guidelines
Entries to this contest will consist of a single room. If you want to make more than one entry (participants are allowed up to three), you may include them all in the same hold.
Entries should include one or more Arky's Notes scrolls, as seen in the examples, and these scrolls should be easily readable at the start of the room. It is not necessary to script Arky talking, I'll take care of that after the contest is over.
I ask that each entry be a separate level. I will be using the name of the level to refer to the respective entries during the voting, so please name them while keeping this in mind.
There's no particular expectation of how hard the rooms should be; some of the canon Arky rooms are very simple and straightforward, while others are quite devious. Use your own judgement on what difficulty to aim for.
Submissions will close in three weeks - that is, on May 22. I'm not going to be a stickler about the exact time, though.
[Last edited by Dragon Fogel at 05-01-2019 08:45 PM]
