×Overall: Part of me feels that maybe I was too generous with rating entries I didn't like very much, but whatever. Even the meh ones had some interesting stuff in them.
Also I'll note that if I broke a room I didn't necessarily bother to look for intended solution and usually moved on to next one. So if your room had some sort of amazing solution but I happened to break it in a silly way - tough luck.
Also (relevant for one entry) - I didn't penalize rating for any flaws which are related to original custom element's script, but I did penalize rating if some sort of incorrect behaviour occured because of architect's sloppy copying of the custom element or tinkering with its script.
1. sssss
Introduction of the element: looking at it again, it seems like there was none. Although I was kind of familiar with the element so it wasn't that big of a deal for me. But still.
I felt like some of the rooms here were kind of interesting, but some weren't really based on the element at all: 2S 1E is concept that could be done with ordinary snakes as well, 2S 2E is more about aumtliches and stalwart than about hydra. 2S and 1S 2E are based on very similar concept (with 2S being a more interesting version). 1E, 1S 1E and 1S are okay I suppose.
So overall - I think this is an okay entry, no huge flaws, but it couldn've been more.
Rating: 7
2. Isle of Transfiguration
Introduction of the element: it becomes kind of obvious what it does even if you haven't seen it before - you're forced to step on it in first room and there is immediate effect after that. Special command thing is also mentioned in a scroll. So - okay, in my opinion. Although it does throw you straight into a puzzle room.
Fun entry, but flawed. I feel like it has the right difficulty for a contest entry in order to get pretty high rating, and it was pretty fun to play. Sadly, some rooms are currently broken (1S, secret one), also a major annoyance for me was that construct-golem and mimic-decoy swap-a-trons suddenly have processing sequence of 9999 (aka after monsters and pretty much everything), while the original swap-a-trons have processing sequence of 125 (after player, mimics and temporal clones but before everything else). This is inconsistent and I hold architect fully responsible for it
Since it's clearly result of "
custom-made"
swap-a-trons (I don't believe original hold had construct-golem and mimic-decoy ones) and also pretty obvious when you play through contruct-golem rooms, so definitely could be noticed and fixed.
Also, I propose a challenge, or a secret version, for 2S 1W: only step on swap-a-tron once.
Rating: 7,5 rounded to 8 since I liked it more than sssss overall and wanted to show it.
3. Fade Away
Introduction to the element was kinda rough in my opinion. Having never seen these custom trapdoors before it wasn't immediately obvious what's up with ones in 1S for example.
Overall this is all basically purely trapdoor puzzles, and I feel more could have been done with it, even if it's not the easiest element to work with. Maybe, like, combat rooms where the floor consists of these trapdoors, or something. They are ghost display so monsters can walk of them. The time-clone interaction was kinda interesting (and the time clone gimmick is introduced well enough), but not interesting enough IMO. Although a trapdoor puzzle or two here was kind of cute.
Rating: 6
4. Double Sided Mirror
Introduction of the element: thank you for scrolls in the entrance, I was very confused what's up with these things before reading them both. The name of the element is pretty misleading as well
Considering there isn't much going on with this element, I think the introduction (scrolls) is enough.
The level design may be a bit weird but is still pretty interesting.
As for the puzzles - I think 1N 1E was good. Everything else - not so much. 1N is kinda weird and the interaction with the custom element is kept to a minimum. 1N 1W would be way more interesting if maybe you had to do something with custom things in mimic part of the room... right now you only push one of them with Beethro at the start of the room and then run around a lot. I broke 2N apparently so I guess I was supposed to push the custom thingies somewhere at some point, but, well, I didn't. So yeah. To be fair, it's not the easiest element to make interesting puzzles with.
Rating: 6
5. Lost Temple Of Ankistralusida
Introduction of the element is great, a whole semi-puzzle room is dedicated to this.
Puzzle-wise I felt like this was the best entry, although it does seem a bit tricker than the rest as well, which for some may be a downside. Also - 1S 3E is very broken currently, and 1S 2E may be partly broken. 1S 1E and 1N 4E however were great. I liked 1S 2E too, but probably as I said I "
cheated"
at some parts of it currently. Liked 1N 2E as well, although I probably solved it in some non-elegant way. Didn't play the unrequired version of it yet though.
Rating: 9
