[Release] The Mine of Malan Vael

[Ixnatifual]

Really looking forward to seeing this tileset in action in the coming weekend.

[flatline]

Ok, the awesome level is just too high!

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DAT OUTRO! BRILLIANT!Amazing how you've accomplished so much. I played on hard, 2 fighters, 1 rogue, 1 mage. Exactly 4 hours (but probably 2 more spent loading) 13/15 secrets. 351 items found, 3 skulls.

This dungeon could have been a regular expansion to the game. Some amazing things in here, for sure. You might all want to compare notes at level 5. Won't spoil it, but it just gets better
However, I've managed to break it with a CTD when

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Firing the ballista at the cultist. At the third hit, I got a CTD with the following log:
#script_entity_40:70: attempt to index global 'ballista_drawn' (a nil value)
stack traceback:
#script_entity_40:70: in function <#script_entity_40:65>
[string "ScriptEntity.lua"]: in function 'onMessageReceived'
[string "MessageSystem.lua"]: in function 'sendMessageToEntity'
[string "MessageSystem.lua"]: in function 'broadcastMessage'
[string "TriggerEvents.lua"]: in function 'fire'
[string "Timer.lua"]: in function 'update'
[string "Map.lua"]: in function 'updateEntities'
[string "Dungeon.lua"]: in function 'updateLevels'
[string "GameMode.lua"]: in function 'update'
[string "Grimrock.lua"]: in function 'display'
[string "Grimrock.lua"]: in main chunk

[juho]

That was some impressive and cool stuff. I watched over Antti's shoulder as he skimmed through it. Well done!

[antti]

Yep. Great work Phitt!

I gotta play through it properly at some point too: now after clearing the first level I turned to the dark side and cheated because I wanted to see the whole thing.

[Komag]

Again, thanks for the comments. Here are a few answers:

The 'Serve the dinner' puzzle was already solved by the people who asked, but the idea is that you need to put four food items on the table since there are four chairs around the table. That's all there is to it. The secret room you can find when pushing the button in the room with the herder has a good amount of food and a respawning snail, so if for some reason you should have no food you can get as much as you want there (though the snail respawns every 30 seconds only and only if you are not close to the room). Note that everything you can eat counts as food, that means you can use Grimcaps as well.

went back and found that button I missed, found room, and would definitely have noticed the snail respawning, so that would have solved it for me. Perhaps that button could be a large one, since it might be essential for player progress? Or better yet, maybe have the snail moving around, as a clue that there is a secret room somewhere nearby? Also, I was wondering if it's possible to have the dinner table have four custom alcoves around it so you actually set food in each place? That would really be satisfying!

Like already explained by someone else the puzzle on level 3 is some kind of 'sun dial'. If you look closely you will see that the rocks on the floor are ordered like a clock face and the torch shadows work like a watch hand. If you put a torch into the southern torch holder the clock will be at 12 o'clock (or 'midnight'). Move the torch around clockwise (to 3, 6, 9 and again 12 - noon) and the door will open.

Yeah, that is reasonable enough, tricky but not too crazy. I can't remember, is that puzzle optional?

Food was a problem for beta testers as well btw, but I added a good amount of additional food to the dungeon before release. Wouldn't have thought you would still run out of food that easily! On my last playthrough I ended up with around 20 food items left when I entered the boss room, already wondered whether it was too much now! Of course that was a speed run (where I killed all monsters and opened all secret areas though), but still...

Players like me go back a lot. We explore and re-explore, we swing at walls and tables and mine carts and crap, which takes food energy. And especially in this amazing dungeon, we march around and gawk! So I found myself spawning in a few snail slices. If I had found the snail room on lv 1 before, I would be satisfied that I can load up a little bit (but not too much, for weight), and always go back if need be, so that would solve it enough for me.

And I wonder whether anyone actually played the ogre encounter like I intended it to work. You are not supposed to fight him in the room where you meet him - there is no space to avoid his blows and I assumed it was more or less impossible to kill him there. I put in the wall text and Malik's note to give you a hint. The way I intended it is that you use the frost bombs you found a few steps away in an alcove in the storage area to stop him, hack your way through the crates until you reach the door, close the door. Then kill the two scavengers and afterwards you have all the time in the world to kill the ogre, you can even use the 'hit and strafe' tactic in that room so it shouldn't be very hard to kill him there. Maybe I should make it more clear by letting Malik talk about frost bombs directly.

Yeah, if he mentioned the frost bomb that would definitely help, maybe some "clue" way such as talking about "they don't move so fast once you put the chill to them" or something. I never even considered that idea.

The reason why the ogre sometimes gets 'stuck' is Grimrock's AI. I guess you already noticed that monsters often don't find the way around obstacles, there is nothing I can do about that. I already gave the ogre seeInvisible, allAroundSight and sight = 7, I put blockers on top of the blockages, but he still gets stuck sometimes and walks back instead of following the player. That happens in the original game as well, wish I could do something about it.

Ah, didn't know that (never noticed the problem before). It just appeared to me like there was a convenient blocker there keeping him from me around the corner, so I just stepped out, hit, stepped back, until I beat him (tough!). If I couldn't have done that (minor redesign?), and there was a clue about using frost bombs, I'm sure I would have figured it out after a bit

[Phitt]

Oh, the devs played my mod! Thank you, glad you liked it!

However, I've managed to break it with a CTD when

SpoilerShow

Firing the ballista at the cultist. At the third hit, I got a CTD with the following log:
#script_entity_40:70: attempt to index global 'ballista_drawn' (a nil value)
stack traceback:
#script_entity_40:70: in function <#script_entity_40:65>
[string "ScriptEntity.lua"]: in function 'onMessageReceived'
[string "MessageSystem.lua"]: in function 'sendMessageToEntity'
[string "MessageSystem.lua"]: in function 'broadcastMessage'
[string "TriggerEvents.lua"]: in function 'fire'
[string "Timer.lua"]: in function 'update'
[string "Map.lua"]: in function 'updateEntities'
[string "Dungeon.lua"]: in function 'updateLevels'
[string "GameMode.lua"]: in function 'update'
[string "Grimrock.lua"]: in function 'display'
[string "Grimrock.lua"]: in main chunk

I feared this could happen, but it never happened when I play tested so I thought it was 100% safe. The ballista is made of buttons (for the animations) and I have two different ballista models that I switch (destroy, then spawn) depending on the draw state it is in (when it's not drawn it's the 'ballista' entity, when it's drawn it's the 'ballista_drawn' entity). If the script ever tries to access one of the entities while it's destroyed naturally a crash will happen. I have to look at the script carefully to understand how this could happen, I thought I put in enough safety checks to prevent this. If I can't find out why it happened I'll put in a findEntity check, in the worst case the ballista will simply not do anything when you push a button in that case (instead of crashing the game...). Thanks for the report!

I'm currently working on v1.1, with a few small changes to gameplay. And of course the file size will be reduced to less than 30%, plus I'll try to see whether I can find out why the boss fight crash could happen. Should be ready for upload this evening.

[Batty]

I actually played the ogre as intended, understood the hint too, didn't think it would be possible to stand there & kill him. Running away blasting the barrels was fun.

Having said that,

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edit: ignore, solved

[Komag]

Komag, have you gotten past the:

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four times four puzzle? If so, SPILL IT!

just figured it out:
clue:

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it goes by something other than quantity

answer:

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it goes by weight! must have exactly 4kg in each

[msyblade]

Wow, gotta play this. Is there any better compliment to a mod than the game devs enjoying the hail out of it? Very impressive! Wish I hadn't read through this all, for spoiler reasons, but sounds like it is a sight to behold in and of itself. Cant wait!!!

[Batty]

Komag, have you gotten past the:

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four times four puzzle? If so, SPILL IT!

just figured it out:
clue:

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it goes by something other than quantity

answer:

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it goes by weight! must have exactly 4kg in each

Thanks! On to level 5!

edit: ok, finished, only found 7/15 secrets!
major spoilers:

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New items I found: Gladius, Elven Bow, Royal Mace, any others? (they are so well made!). I love the shrakk hive!

As flatline said, this could be an official expansion!