Grimrock

LocalFire wrote:I'm stuck on the riddles room in the high tower level 4, I'm not getting the clues for I drift, I dance etc I thought maybe the quill or a note, but nothing and I've gone and placed all the items I have onto each alcove and so far nothing. Help?

LocalFire wrote:Ok so I've played and posted my review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sccP0_e ... ure=gp-n-y

Now for further notes to elaborate on what I liked and disliked and how I'd change things. Obviously this is just my opinion so yeah take it as it is or parts or whatever

LocalFire wrote:Ok so I've played and posted my review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sccP0_e ... ure=gp-n-y

Now for further notes to elaborate on what I liked and disliked and how I'd change things. Obviously this is just my opinion so yeah take it as it is or parts or whatever

SpoilerShow

*This is one of the best looking mods out there, straight up nothing else I've played comes close, I've only seen screenshots for labyrinth of lies and that looks to be the only competition

*The layout is great, non-linear. In my review I made it sound like I may of hated this, that was about having to look for items that I need for riddles that are way back in the dungeon because the non linear element makes this dungeon more fun to explore

*Magic, I like scribing scrolls since I can now use spells I coudn't otherwise use. Finding the scrolls is a good mechanic as well but with the spread of scrolls its a pain to have the 'Wrong' type of mage. I found fire spells last out of all the elements. What I would do is have a script at the start check the highest level elemental magic and give the mage a scroll in their inventory for that element, it makes sense story/lore wise since a trained mage is going to learn a spell at some point before going to a dangerous dungeon and it solves the problem of the mage being 'useless' until you find their scroll, I don't need a mage throwing stuff, I have a rogue for that. As for higher level spells fine with having them scattered about, it rewards the player to search if they want the better scrolls for other spells but I think they should start with something.

*Traps don't make so much sense in this as in EoB2, I know it had traps but you can disable/disarm them in EoB. And yes traps can work in grimrock, but a random fireball nailing me in the middle of a hallway? bad! Set a plate or leave a place to dodge or some clue or something so I can react to avoid the trap.

*Insta-Death. Ok if you had a pit like in the mines fine, I avoided these but others may react by jumping down them to see if theres anything down there (as the main game has conditioned them to do) so a note or something left by the mine foreman mentioning that these are death pits. As for things like the door that opens for the four water orbs, you clearly have a script that checks if the party is holding the things before teleporting them to avoid the death trap, so change it to only open the door like if item: party:getChampion: slot whatever is Water_orb then door_blah:open() else spawn:fireburst(party, x, y facing etc). That fixes it so the door punishes you for not having the orbs, doesn't kill you and force a reload and forces imported parties to actually find the orbs. Other wise remove death traps, I'm in the ice gardens now (because I like to finish what I start) and I stepped onto a random square and died, from full health my lvl 20 party was randomly killed and that trap served zero purpose, if you had to have it mark the locations where I can/can't walk and frostburst me, it suits the setting and not left standing there going "WHAT THE FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF".

*Warnings, I walked into the res chamber see the life crystal and right in front of me a treasure! so I grab it and BAM! most of my party dies, theres a note to one side warning me that the room is trapped, but the flow of the room means I ( and I'll assume most players) will trigger the trap before they read the note. The layout of the room needs to be changed move the altar so I get the note first and then the trap is my fault, rather than a what the hell moment.

*Hints, like I said in the review I like most of the puzzles but some were trial and error and that was bad, it takes no skill or thought to solve these its just luck to guess, provide a clue or hint (like those riddles! they were good), I'm talking about the pressure plate puzzle in the prison wallset area (can't remember names) I read on the forums it is susposed to be and X (I solved it by placing rocks on all the plates and it opened so maybe thats a bug) so for an X maybe a clue like "like the atlas treasure marked" (X marks the spot). But this comes up in other spots too, like beating the two high priests in the mine area/ high priest room I just guessed that I needed something on the altar and whacked on random stuff from the treasure room until the portal opened (after wall scanning to find a secret button for the same purpose) need a clue here to speed things up. Lastly I come to the room with the weights (four alcoves put a certain weight on them to open the door) I just guessed that it was weight here after trying other things and because I've seen this used in other mods, some players may not be aware of such a thing and have troubles (skipping over this room) add something like "weigh your choices well" to hint at this. Oh and the feed me thing, make him say "I have rich tastes" or something when a non coin is put in place so the player isn't just randomly guessing what it might want.

*Backtracking, I don't mind revisiting part of the dungeon to get into new areas and the like as I said, I don't like having to wander around looking at the floor to find item X because I didn't think it was important and now I need it. So you need to slip in the items nearby so I don't have to go far, a good way might be to put in 'easy' secrets, namely a secret that is obvious so the player will find it and the item but not go "hey why is this here? I must need it!". Another point to raise is that face that eats items and gives you rocks, I did need the rocks for the son of the boulder door but that can still eat anything it seems and that includes quest items and the like that I NEED, so just get rid of that thing! scatter so rocks about the floor of the dungeon, rocks are always good to have for puzzles and pressure plates so its not odd to find them about and the player should be able to put boulders son together quickly enough that the rocks around the place won't ruin the riddle (it was kinda easy and the rocks would be spread across all the floors and rooms anyway). The last thing to say about backtracking is that doors close and prevent me getting back into areas if I missed something I needed (like the key I mentioned) really I should be able to get back to any section of the dungeon I need to visit. And about that key, I wandered past it since its in a hallway and not a room so I was going for the teleporter and missed it, I know this one is all my own fault for rushing but if I did it others will too, so maybe expand the hallway into a room, if its a room the player will stop and look around and is less likely to repeat my mistake.

*Combat. It ranges from standard grimrock combat which is fine, to hordes and traps. Grimrock combat is all about movement so trapping a player is never a good solution if anything getting force cornered isn't as challenge, since it requires less from the player, they just stand there and click attack and maybe use a potion. I said in the video that the ideal combat encounter (for me) is a 3x3 room (I said 9x9 by accident I know) the player has restricted space to move and has to watch both the monsters in order to avoid being cornered, in this way the combat is difficult and challenging, the ideal situation where the better the player the better they do (and its less of a frustration) In these cases the player can see it was their error that trapped and killed them and so they can try again without feeling it to be a grind or unfair. I addition you can change it up by changing the monsters in the place (two melee, one melee one ranged or a melee and an ogre) or if you want to really do something interesting try the monster I call the Corruptor, its a reskined big herder that has an onMove hook

Code: Select all

onMove=function(monster)
      death_test.spawnCloud(monster)
   end

Calling the script entity

Code: Select all

function spawnCloud(monster)
   spawn("poison_cloud", monster.level, monster.x, monster.y, monster.facing)
end

This means you have a big herder that can trail poison behind it, you have to move around to avoid its poison cloud attacks and be careful of how it moves or risk filling the room with poison!
Anyway the thing with combat is your player should feel that any failure is because they should of done this or that rather than you forced them into a corner and beat the crap out of them.

Ultimately I know this is a remake and so has to be faithful to the source, but you should look at the dungeon and ask why is this here? do I need this? How is making my dungeon better and could I improve it? I know that can be hard, I've made many mistakes with my own dungeons and as the creator you see things differently from the player and it makes it harder to judge how a player will react to the dungeon. I always run into the problem with difficulty when making a dungeon, I know where all the good items are, where all the monsters and traps are and the answer to all the puzzles; so I can't really judge how hard it really is for others, Doe's the clue make sense? I found it often doesn't to others, are these monsters too hard to easy? I knew they were coming and was prepared, I knew what to do. So it helps to get player feedback and hopefully this can help some too, given all the updates you've put out I know you want to make the best possible mod and I'd like to see it get made so if need anything else just ask and I'm happy to help

Dr.Disaster wrote: You sure know this HHGTTG saying: "Always know where your towel is."
With and after Dungeon Master this saying got adopted by any dungeon crawler: "Always know where your rock is (or rocks are)."
When you follow it that item eating rock producing head will stay hungry.

Mystina Valeth wrote:I was just about to start playing this, but I have a question before I make my party. Are there any skulls in Eye of the Dragon? I wanted to make a Minotaur with the Head Hunter trait.