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

[Trantor]

Any idea when 3.0 will be done? What you wrote about it a few weeks/months ago sounded quite interesting.

[Mon Ful Ir]

It's all roughed in. I want to run through it another couple of times playtesting and tweak some things before release.

[Jan]

Huh, anyone remembers this dungeon? I seem to be lost in the "Deja Vu" teleport / haze maze on the winged key level. I tried to map this area, but all the ways seem to end by a teleporter that returns me somewhere to the center of the maze. Thanks for any help.

[beowuuf]

My guess would be two separate rooms so there aren't the same centre?

I can't remember if I played this or not....

[Jan]

Hm, don't know if there were two rooms, but I've somehow find a button finally to get out of this annoying place.

Thank you anyhow, Mr. Beowise.

You probably won't remember it, but there's also an alcove on this level with a writing "Make your obeisance". Hm, strange. Reminds me only the "Only the penitent man will pass" from Indiana Jones... don't know what to do there, but I can go on.

[Jan]

OK, ignore me, finished.

The final score was impressive, as usually:
- total time: 3h 28m (includes ca 2h spent in the haze-maze place, damn!)
- walls bumped into: 189 (have you ever thought of decreasing wisdom of a character by 1 every e.g. 10 walls bumped into? My characters would have wisdom of a rock pile then!)

However, I didn't reveal all the secrets of the dungeon - e.g. the "Make your obeisance" alcove, and I didn't find the Thicket thief.

But I don't think anyone here can remember this dungeon, so these secrets will probably stay secret forever for me.

[beowuuf]

Heh, I only got this one at the time becaue I had done a pun similar:

Spoiler

Bow!

[Jan]

Doh! You're right! Thanks! I bow to your wisdom! All this head-bumping decreased my wisdom, not that of my character!

[Mon Ful Ir]

You can't and won't find the thicket thief, it's unreachable. (It's actually a part of the dungeon's engineering rather than a critter to fight).

[Mon Ful Ir]

My guess would be two separate rooms so there aren't the same centre?

I can't remember if I played this or not....

You were the playtester. The release version's slightly tweaked from the version you playtested, though.

[beowuuf]

LOL, well then, it must be perfect now!

Glad I was able to get time to play it then, a bit irritating my memory is so bad

[Jan]

Great dungeon, by the way, Mr. Fireball! Although it's a bit short and the teleport maze and the final boss are a bit irritating. But it's great! Thanks for it. Have you made any other dungeons?

[Mon Ful Ir]

Thank you Jan.

Yes, I've made two other dungeons, but one of them was Escape v1.00 (while I was learning, and if you've played Escape 2.00 then you've already solved the puzzles) and the other is Escape v3.00 (still under construction).

Escape 3 is Escape 2, except with the starve-to-death traps/dead ends removed, plenty of new graphics, new items, new monsters (about 90% of the monsters in the dungeon are new/unfamiliar types), each existing level about 50% larger, several new levels (deeper, tougher, and with richer rewards), lots of new puzzles, new wallsets, an alignment system (so you can play through as "Good", "Neutral" or "Evil" with different endings depending on how you act), new characters (and none of them come from mirrors--I've done away with the "mirror" character selection theme completely), a plot and some backstory, plot screens, new soundtracks with a complete new set of music, and, well, simply better in every possible way.

The reason I haven't released it yet is that I keep thinking of new cool things I can put in.

[Trantor]

Wow - that sounds really great! I'm looking forward to Escape 3.0 then!

[Mon Ful Ir]

Okay, so I've decided to stop boasting about it and upload a demo so you can start to see for yourself.

[beowuuf]

Just so everyone knows, the dungeon list is in order of authors, so you should be able to find all the dungeons by one person in the same place.

[ragge]

Can anyone tell me wich item youre supposed to use in the lightning room? make it stop! Can you make it stop? room.
im down there and saved ye im stupid

[Jan]

@Ragge: Partial spoiler:

Spoiler

It's the last item you would use to protect yourself. It's insane. It lies one level above. But if you didn't take it and saved your game down there, there's no way back for you, I'm afraid.

[ragge]

@Ragge: Partial spoiler:

Spoiler

It's the last item you would use to protect yourself. It's insane. It lies one level above. But if you didn't take it and saved your game down there, there's no way back for you, I'm afraid.

Hmm ok i replayed the whole thing now and have servral diffrent saves before i take the gem and fall down now
But if you say its 1 level above it must be in one of those coin slot doors. can you tell me wich one? think ive opend them all, and put all items in that alcove down the pit but nothing happens.

Sometimes the most easiest problem can be the hardest, but i feel pretty dumb anyway.

[Trantor]

If it's any comfort to you, I didn't get that puzzle either.
It's a pun. See the other thread for a more obvious clue...

[ragge]

i got it now, i dont see the logic in this, i discarded that on sight and was furios i just lost ..... nm

[Trantor]

Spoiler

It's a "halter", hence it can "halt" it, or, in other words, "stop" it.

I don't mind the puzzle (actually, I think it's rather funny), it is just terrible that you can go down the pit, save your game, and be stuck for all eternity if you don't carry the item in question with you. Dead-ends like this are the ultimate no-go in dungeon designing in my mind. I think this got fixed for Escape 3.0, though.

[Jan]

You're right, Trantor, death ends like this shouldn't be there.

But I've learned to back-up my saves, so that:
Save 1 - Main save (when I'm absolutely sure with my situation)
Save 2 - "Scouting save"
Save 3 and 4 - Back-ups every 2nd or 3rd level

So I saved my game to save 2 down there, and there restored it from 1 (at the 3 gems slots). The only challenge is not to forget which save is which.

[Trantor]

The only challenge is not to forget which save is which.

Exactly. Which is why I mostly use only two saves, with the innovative names of "game1" (the main save) and "hmmm" (whenever I'm not quite sure I did a good thing). But if I weren't so lazy, I could give the savegames appropriate names in RTC, which is a good thing to know.
In CSBWin, you don't have that luxury, so my Conflux efforts basically started with the question "Which savegame file was changed last?" One of these days, I'm going to devise a logical system just like you did Jan... maybe.

[ragge]

im more save all the time guy, and thats really bad, like this lightning pit its like whoho i found a new place, save before i die.

[Lunever]

I'm currently creating a list which custom dungeon works best with which engine version.

Escape 2 seems to be for RTC V0.46. Can you confirm this?

Also, I'm currently gathering all dungeon data in order to preserve them and prevent data loss.
Would you maybe be willing to provide source files for backup purposes? Of course you alone decide, whether they shall be released publicly or not.

[Mon Ful Ir]

Yes, it's for 0.46. I'm afraid I no longer have the source files.

[Lunever]

To bad - thanks for the information anyway.