I have a few changes to my entry in mind after seeing Rabscuttle's videos, but wanted to wait for other people doing video play-throughs to see if they too break anything.
Also I'll be quite busy until next Wednesday, I hope we're not in THAT big of a rush.
@Dragon Fogel: I'll join Xindaris and say that resolving the Hub to be the template level with convenient spawn locations sounds like fun!
As for the dilemma of having 9 templates and 7 entries, it could be that you resolve the last two with some additional items locked behind blue doors, which get unlocked after you beat the 7 entries.
Alright, and here are some notes for myself about the levels (that I might post later
Edit: yes, you are posting them).
The entries and rooms are written in the order I played them in.
Colour code:
favourite room of the level,
solved room,
I think I broke something,
room not solved.
The Widgeing Hour:
Click here to view the secret text
×
Architect guess: Dragon Fogel.
Entrance: Simple and nice.
1N1E: Today I learnt something new; Adders don't eat rocks when brained unless they are forced to.
1N: Quite restricted and therefore not many possibilities.
1N1W: After the initial confusion of order settled, I got it.
1W: Quite tough, but probably because I tried to do everything at once.
1S1W: I didn't realise kegs, breakable walls, and constructs interact like this!
1S: Lighting the fuse with the Aumtlich was a red herring all along!
1S1E: Why let the oremites be only an obstacle... I really liked that idea!
1E: ??? Ah, there was an error. Then the room makes sense and it's pretty neat.
Overall: Quite simple, but it used all the widgets and they clearly were the center of the attention!
Emerald Iceberg:
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Architect guess: Red-XIII.
Entrance: Interesting colour scheme.
1W: Very tricky, but it all unravelled itself with some further inspection. Great room.
1N: I may have broken this. Or a lot of the room was a red herring, but based on 1W, it seems like everything should be used.
1E: I feel like I'm close, but the room is too tough
I can't get the southern hot tile path to be usable by me.
Overall: I really enjoyed how the widgets played together.
Break the widgets:
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Architect guess: kieranmillar
1S1E: Nice!
1S: Challenge completed. What's the proper way of keeping something alive until the end? My solution felt a little hacky.
1S1W: Also a neat timeclone room. I was afraid it'd be harder.
1N1W: All these potions... Might be my favourite room here!
1N1E: This room would have been much easier if I didn't forget what a stick does.
1N: Challenge completed. Further challenge: Do not use the keg nor decoy potion in any way.
Overall: Quite clean rooms with not too many moving parts which involved the widgets nicely.
Twisted Ziggurat:
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Architect guess: Chaco.
Entrance: Initially I didn't understand, but then it clicked for me. Clever!
1S: Not sure how, but I did it.
1N: Fun disarming!
1N2W: To brain or not to brain.
1N1W: Oh that tunnel actually rescues me? I was sure I had failed...
1W: Very nice, I liked the interplay between the islands!
2W: Also nice timeclone planning. I was hoping (and initially thought) that the task is to smother the nests with the timeclones, but you cannot really record that, unfortunately. (At least seemingly.)
Two more things here: One, this was my favourite room of the level. Two, strictly speaking, the widget was NOT here as was prescribed, because the inside got changed by the additional shallow water tiles.
1S1W: First pass was alright, second pass more or less too. What is the soldier horn doing there, though?? Or the six decoys, for that matter? I'm confused.
1S2W: Uh, the room seemed fine, but I could never hit the beacons while playing, I'm on the wrong side of the two decoy bridges when I enter.
So instead I broke it completely with some thin ice shenanigans. I HOPE this is not the intention of the room.
Additional note: The staircases seem to be mismatched; the two in the entrance go back to the hub, while the two in 2W end the hold.
Overall: Very hard looking, but in the end the rooms were pretty doable. Used the widgets nicely too.
Serenity Springs:
Click here to view the secret text
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Architect guess: ???
Entrance: The entry text has some squares, was this the intention?
2N: Neat! It looked like it might be really messy, but it was just shuffling in tight space.
1N1W: Phew, staying stealthy while making puffs behave like you want them is not easy!
1N: Slightly messy.
1N1E: I didn't expect THAT to be needed from the soldier...
1N2E: This room built nicely on top of its counterpart. Also probably my favourite room of the entry.
Overall: The rooms were good, but I didn't really feel like the widgets were "that central" to the room's gameplay.
Fighting through the horde in 1N and ferrying puffs in 1N1W took big priority over the widget they were supposed to solve.
Land of Rotation and Exchange:
Click here to view the secret text
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Architect guess: Xindaris.
1W: It's almost doable the normal way... But you still need to cheat.
1S2W: Ahaaa, Land of EXCHANGE, you say? Nice!
3S: Uh, was this intended? I feel like there should have been more to this.
3S1W: Difference spotted, challenge completed.
2S: Dirty loops!
2S1E: Is there some clever way of dealing with the skippers? It felt like quite a slog...
Entrance: So it is possible to get in with two mirrors.
1S1W: Huh, I did not expect that, I thought I'd need to use the gentryii.
2S1W: Best room of the entry in my opinion! Challenge completed.
1S: This looks like it could be neat, but I don't remember at all how to abuse the tunnels with the timeclone. Shame.
Overall: Tough rooms, some look quite daunting. Also isn't 10 rooms breaking the contest rules?
Heat Mirages:
Click here to view the secret text
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Architect "
guess"
: Myself, I made this. Therefore, I offer some architectural commentary and some hindsight comments.
1S: I really like how cleanly this room turned out. With a pinch of "
perfection"
on top.
1S1W: Wanted some more story flavour and to also do the bridge trick.
1W: The end-room rush might be unnecessary, but the room felt too easy without it.
1N1W: The blurry visions are getting out of hand on this one
One part, which I thought was really neat, which was a total accident is that the seep around gel are not defeatable by the pickaxe!
1N: I thought that having one cooldown room in the middle would be welcome. Also really glad how the timing here works out.
Entrance: This room played a big part in why the level became linear, since I wanted to have entrance-direction be the "
thing that solves a widget"
.
1E: If you insist on player to not only solve a widget, but also rescue some monsters from it, what do you get? This room!
Quite lengthy, but I hope the overall objective is clear enough that it doesn't deter people. Hardest room of the entry (in my opinion).
1N1E: I'm not 100% happy with this one, the southern potion section ended up a little messier than I planned. Still happy how the "
not quite enough time"
works out in that section.
Overall: I have enjoyed making this contest entry; my first one. Both in terms of the many-widgets idea and the building itself.
I suppose having it more openly traversible instead of linear would be beneficial. Ah well.
Hope people still enjoyed solving it and that it wasn't TOO difficult!
I also posted additional architectural commentary on Rabscuttle's videos as a reaction to his solutions.
