[Custom dungeon] Escape! - II [RTC] [Stuart "Mon Ful Ir" Marshall]

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Mon Ful Ir
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[Custom dungeon] Escape! - II [RTC] [Stuart "Mon Ful Ir" Marshall]

Post by Mon Ful Ir »

Version: V2.0 for RTC V0.46
Platform: RTC
Author: Stuart "Mon Ful Ir" Marshall
Date published: 2008, February 21
Date last updated: 2008, February 21

Notes:
Thanks to Beowuuf for the playtest!

This is a mini-dungeon. The playtester completed it in one evening with one character.

For casual players, it aims to recreate that first DM feeling, with the same linear layout, similar sorts of challenges, and familiar monsters and items.

For the more serious players, time yourself on the first play-through; I think the benchmark for hardcore players is to do it in under 4 hours. ;)

Story:
"Can you reach the exit?"

Image
Exit?

Image
BBBzzzzz BBzzzzzz

Download:
Download this dungeon from this Shared OneDrive (in the 'Custom Dungeons' folder)
Mon Ful Ir
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Post by Mon Ful Ir »

Edit: Ignore this!
Last edited by Mon Ful Ir on Wed May 27, 2009 1:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Sabreman
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Post by Sabreman »

Tremendous! I'll dive in tonight :)
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Post by linflas »

i've been standing here for an hour, trying to throw everything i have, casting all spells i can but...
Spoiler
what can make it stop ?
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Post by beowuuf »

Spoiler
One the level above, you could get an item of clothing close to the gem hole. This item by its name has the power to halt things :D
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Post by linflas »

this is probably the LAST thing i would use ! :D
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Post by Mon Ful Ir »

I'm sorry, I punned. :(
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Post by Sophia »

Oh no, the spoiler tags don't hide the :D !

You just about gave it away... :wink: :P
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Post by beowuuf »

That's right, you need Mophus in your party!
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Post by Gambit37 »

Sophia wrote:Oh no, the spoiler tags don't hide the :D
Hmm, that's weird, they should do. I'll have to check it out.

Do people like the spoliers as a big block or would you prefer them to be part of your normal text?
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Post by ChristopheF »

I prefer spoilers in blocks rather than inline.
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Post by beowuuf »

I don't mind the block either
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Post by linflas »

@monfulir : nevermind, that improves my english :)

EDIT : finished ! nice upgrade, pleasant dungeon to play :)

where do the boss bitmaps come from ?
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Post by Gambit37 »

OK, I fixed the problem with images in spoilers.
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Post by Parallax »

If the spoiler is inline, sandwiching it between two carriage returns will make a separate block. If the spoilers are a separate block and you want inline, you're out of luck.

EDIT: Sorry, I saw it only afterwards. Why can't we remove our own messages anymore? I liked that feature, it saved me from ridicule before. (It wouldn't have worked this time, obviously. Damn it Gambit, you're too fast!)
Last edited by Parallax on Fri Feb 29, 2008 5:50 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Gambit37 »

Mon Ful Ir
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Post by Mon Ful Ir »

Gambit37
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Eeek!
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Post by Sophia »

Hey, don't be scared... he's just misunderstood you see...
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Post by beowuuf »

Parallax wrote:Why can't we remove our own messages anymore?
Can't you do that? Or can you only do it is yours is the last post of the thread?
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Post by Gambit37 »

No idea, that may have been introduced by phpBB in any of the previous ten versions that we didn't update to...
Mon Ful Ir
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Post by Mon Ful Ir »

linflas wrote:where do the boss bitmaps come from ?
Here, actually. :)

Someone did a screen-grab of a few of the critters from another game--was it Dungeon Hack?--and I nabbed them.
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Post by Trantor »

Ok, about "making it stop": Like Linflas, I had a problem there, mostly because I didn't have the item in question. After all, getting that item is not mandatory at all. If you fall down the pit and save the game without having that item, you may start over. Luckily, I had an older savegame, or I never would have played this dungeon again. This potential dead-end should be removed, there needs to be a way out again in case you don't have the needed item.
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Post by Trantor »

I just finished the dungeon. It's a nice, short trip with rather simple puzzles (apart from "making it stop" I guess) and a tad too many fights for my tastes. All in all, it was alright.
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Post by Trantor »

Sorry for the triple post, but hey, here is a short review of Escape 2.0.

Gameplay: 6
It’s nothing we’ve never seen before - fight some monsters, avoid some traps, solve some puzzles and so on. For my personal taste, the balance is shifted a bit too much to the fighting aspect, and I already said much about the potential dead-end about “making it stop”, which I consider a major design flaw. Furthermore, there seems to be another dead-end, though you are warned about that. I don’t like that as I just hate dead-ends in general, but this one is announced clearly and early, so I won’t hold this against it.
The rest of the dungeon works and plays nicely. I especially liked the money-changing (something I stole for my dungeon - without actually knowing you did it first, though) and the pit-room. It’s just a bit useless to be able to “buy” some items directly in front of the boss fight, you cannot really use the nice equipment anymore.
Oh, and the gas chamber wasn’t funny.

Originality: 3
You are in a dungeon. You have to escape. But really, if we wanted originality, we wouldn’t be craving for anything looking like corridors with stone walls, would we?

Difficulty: 4
Apart from the slightly obscure “making it stop”-puzzle, there are no real problems. The puzzles are easy, the dungeon is generally very linear, and you usually have enough space to move around the monsters, with the exception of the pit room maybe and worms that may or may not regenerate quickly enough to get you into some trouble.

Puzzles: 6
The part with the Winged Keys is quite nice, especially the teleporter maze (though I found it annoying as hell at first, it wasn’t quite as bad once I started laying useless arrows and daggers around) and the lever room. Also, the timed puzzles (moving pits) work pretty well.

Size: 4
The dungeon is indeed quite small, I think I finished it in less than 4 hours. :wink: But then again, I didn’t bother fighting any monsters at the start of the game.

Replayability: 3
You can choose different characters and do some little parts of it in different ways, but that’s it. Not much reason to replay this dungeon really, but that goes for most of them.

Craft: 8
Shall I mention the potential dead-end again? :wink: Ok, apart from that, this is really good. The moving pits work especially well, some monster generators are placed very well, the money-changing is cool, basically, everything is fine. The Weird Walls were pretty impressive, as was the lever room with all the pits. What I like especially is the fact that you find shortcuts back up once you completed a level, making long back-tracking obsolete. I’m a huge fan of such shortcuts and thus very glad they are so excessively used.

Game Ending: 4
The boss looks nice, hits hard and moves quickly, but there are no other nuisances like pits, pillars or other monsters around. You don’t even get a hint that the boss is up ahead which is a bit sad, it’s like “Hey, who is this guy? Judging from the looks and his speed, he might be a boss… hey, does this mean I’m done in a minute?!” A bit more foreshadowing would be cool.

Atmosphere: 5
Something more of a plot, more scrolls or texts would have been nice. But the different areas do have a special feel to them, which I like.

Overall: 6
The dungeon does achieve what it is meant to do - provide a nice relaxation on a late evening that you can finish in one or two sessions. It’s short, linear, straight-forward and rather easy. You won’t have this dungeon eating your brain away like some of the heavyweights do, but if you want to simply rush through a small dungeon without getting stuck often, Escape is the right dungeon for you.


Best part:
The different paths you had to take for the Winged Keys.

Worst part:
The potential dead-end in “making it stop”.
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Post by Mon Ful Ir »

Thanks for playing, Trantor!

I'd agree with a lot of that, and some of it's by design--Escape 2.0 is supposed to be a mini-dungeon you can play though in one or two evenings. It's intended to let someone recreate the DM experience rather than the CSB one.

Escape 3.0, which I've virtually finished, is about offering more story, more content and more choices.

I've taken Escape 2.0 and replaced all the monsters with custom ones. They have new graphics and new stats and, in some cases, some new abilities too, and some music. Then I've added a whole lump of story, and I've added more alternative routes and paths, so you can still take the main route through, but there are other ways to go.

These other ways to go fix both the dead ends you mention.

There's a rudimentary alignment mechanism, so you can choose to play through the dungeon as a "good" or "evil" character and you'll get a different ending for each choice. So hopefully, it'll be worth replaying once. :)

Each of the existing levels is about 25% bigger, with the extra stuff being optional content. I've added one level that you HAVE to play through (which is the very first one), and if you kill that first boss, there's the option to go back up top and escape and end the game, or open the way into a deeper dungeon with several more levels and a steeper difficulty curve... though it's still not Conflux. :)

This means there's more chance to use the items you can buy and there are more items to buy, as well. I've about doubled the number of items in the game, with all the new ones being unique.

In fact, Escape 3.0 is quite cool. :) I just need to stop talking about it and get the last few hours' work in to finish it...
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Post by Kliber »

I just start this dungeon last night, looks very promising, some "deja-vu" since my wizard was killed and I rather than start over again, picked up the bones and resurrected him when I reach the altar, I like it; old fashioned and it does what you said it does: recreate the DM experience, I just miss the classic heroes: wutse, gotmogh, linflas, etc...

Great work, thanks for sharing; havent played a DM dungeon in years; let me see if I can finish it...
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Post by Kliber »

Stuck in the Blue Knight, dunno if this enemy can be beaten, he walks too fast and attacks are deadly, several full power fireballs seem to do nothing to him, cant find the key to "rust service" any hint here?
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Post by Mon Ful Ir »

The Blue Knight can be beaten, but he's relatively difficult compared to other monsters in the dungeon--he's the final boss of Escape 2. If you can kill him, you've won.

Some spells are more effective against him than others. Regardless of which spells you use you'll still end up fighting him in melee.

From memory, the key for the rust removal area is one of the rewards you get for keeping the dungeon tidy. You don't need to find it to complete the game, though.
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Post by Antman »

Hi there, Just finished escape 2 aswell. Cool dungeon with some frustrating pit puzzles. I never found the key to the rust removal either, but I did take down the blue knight, he didn't even touch me :twisted: Speed boots help, but just chop him to death while constantly dodging. Monsters in RTC suffer from the same 'always move in the same direction in at 4 by 4 area when fighting' syndrome as monsters is EOB2 which makes it much easier to fight. I never solved the 'show you obeisance' puzzle either. Lots of interesting puzzles, some which are frustrating and a bit repetitive but definitely satisfying to complete.
Mon Ful Ir wrote:For the more serious players, time yourself on the first play-through; I think the benchmark for hardcore players is to do it in under 4 hours. ;)
Got a time of 2 hour 15 minutes haha! :wink: It would be doable in a lot less though. I also apparently took over 6400 damage from pits while only managing to fall down 12. That's over 500 damage per pit! Which is clearly not right.
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Post by Mon Ful Ir »

Thanks for the feedback guys, you're inspiring me to get off my butt and finish Escape 3. :)

Glad to hear you enjoyed the puzzles, Antman.
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