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Puzzles

PostPosted: January 18th, 2014, 12:45 am
by Redav
What sort of puzzles do you put in your quests? I think I'd get some ideas from the Eye of the Beholder series. I'd have locked doors needing specific keys but that's hardly a puzzle. Maybe a pad that causes a door to open when a hero is on it removing a hero from one part of the map.

Re: Puzzles

PostPosted: January 18th, 2014, 3:42 am
by Goblin-King
A couple of years ago I wrote a quest with a mirror-line through the middle of the board. The players had to warp back and forth to solve puzzles. It's actually a pretty good quest :)
http://www.scribd.com/doc/79702691/The-Mirror-Maze

Re: Puzzles

PostPosted: January 18th, 2014, 4:28 am
by Sjeng
Just read your quest, it's awesome! I do have some questions about the mechanics though.
1. Do you move the Heroes from the top half to the bottom half of the board when they use the ring, or do you replace the monsters with statues and vice versa? You wrote that you move the Heroes, but if you replace the contents of the board all the time, it might be more of a puzzle. The first option is easiest, but also very obvious to the players. The second is more puzzling, but requires a lot of moving around stuff...
2. Do you remove the bottom monsters/statues when they are in the top half and vice versa?
3. Do they find both secret doors in the corridor?
4. One of the orcs in the first 2 rooms isn't in mirror position

Pretty cool puzzle indeed! I'm printing this one.

oh. Can't download it. Could you post it on the Inn?

Re: Puzzles

PostPosted: January 18th, 2014, 5:18 am
by Goblin-King
I just now realized that visitors can't download from that site! Uploaded to dropbox instead:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5167745/79702691-The-Mirror-Maze.pdf

Sadly I don't have the original files on my computer and some of the formatting seems to be permanently wrecked :(
I guess it's time for a remake soon... I would feel bad uploading this messy version to the inn...

1. Yes, you move the heroes. Some of the puzzles can only be solved this way.
2. Everything that has been discovered stays discovered according to standard rules.
3. Yes. These could might as well have been normal doors. I just wanted to recreate that feeling from the Labyrinth where Sarah can't even get in because its just a neverending empty corridor.
But actually it might be a good idea to make the door into room with the living orcs open by a mechanic in the statue room. That would force the players to see the statues before they are destroyed, showing them one of the basic mechanics of the puzzles.
4. That's an error. Use the position of the statue.

Redav wrote:What sort of puzzles do you put in your quests? I think I'd get some ideas from the Eye of the Beholder series. I'd have locked doors needing specific keys but that's hardly a puzzle. Maybe a pad that causes a door to open when a hero is on it removing a hero from one part of the map.

You can also expand the pressure pad puzzle by using a rolling boulder trap. He has to stay on the pad to allow the boulder to roll through the door, but step aside not to be crushed.
Only by getting the boulder to crash at the pressure pad can the last hero use the secret door.

Re: Puzzles

PostPosted: January 18th, 2014, 5:30 am
by Sotiris
I'm tired of quests with dozens of notes but this worths it and it's a great quest GK. The idea of using the symmetry of the board is almost inconceivable! And easy to run, perfect!
I especially like the way of entering the final wizard's room, you have to travel inside the mirror to reach there..

Re: Puzzles

PostPosted: February 16th, 2014, 10:33 pm
by StratosVX
Goblin-King wrote:Sadly I don't have the original files on my computer and some of the formatting seems to be permanently wrecked :(
I guess it's time for a remake soon... I would feel bad uploading this messy version to the inn...


I recently created a version for my use that I can send to you. I included tiles and cards at the end, but I can easily remove those pages. Because it was for my own use, I may have edited the text a bit though - I honestly don't remember. I can send it to you if you'd like to look at it. You may not need to recreate it.

Re: Puzzles

PostPosted: February 17th, 2014, 3:06 am
by IvenBach
I read it and that is a very clever idea. :cookie: I like.

I enjoy doing puzzles of varying complexity. Sadly I once had a game of D&D take 6+ hours because they wanted to get the 3 puzzles and spent a literal 2 hours on them :? . At that point I instituted time limits for puzzles or they forfeit them.

Re: Puzzles

PostPosted: February 17th, 2014, 4:33 am
by Goblin-King
StratosVX wrote:
Goblin-King wrote:Sadly I don't have the original files on my computer and some of the formatting seems to be permanently wrecked :(
I guess it's time for a remake soon... I would feel bad uploading this messy version to the inn...


I recently created a version for my use that I can send to you. I included tiles and cards at the end, but I can easily remove those pages. Because it was for my own use, I may have edited the text a bit though - I honestly don't remember. I can send it to you if you'd like to look at it. You may not need to recreate it.


If you have the HeroScribe map file I would very much like to get hold of that.

Re: Puzzles

PostPosted: February 17th, 2014, 7:59 am
by Teldurn
Goblin-King wrote:
StratosVX wrote:
Goblin-King wrote:Sadly I don't have the original files on my computer and some of the formatting seems to be permanently wrecked :(
I guess it's time for a remake soon... I would feel bad uploading this messy version to the inn...


I recently created a version for my use that I can send to you. I included tiles and cards at the end, but I can easily remove those pages. Because it was for my own use, I may have edited the text a bit though - I honestly don't remember. I can send it to you if you'd like to look at it. You may not need to recreate it.


If you have the HeroScribe map file I would very much like to get hold of that.

Me too!

Re: Puzzles

PostPosted: February 17th, 2014, 8:56 pm
by StratosVX
Goblin-King wrote:
StratosVX wrote:
Goblin-King wrote:Sadly I don't have the original files on my computer and some of the formatting seems to be permanently wrecked :(
I guess it's time for a remake soon... I would feel bad uploading this messy version to the inn...


I recently created a version for my use that I can send to you. I included tiles and cards at the end, but I can easily remove those pages. Because it was for my own use, I may have edited the text a bit though - I honestly don't remember. I can send it to you if you'd like to look at it. You may not need to recreate it.


If you have the HeroScribe map file I would very much like to get hold of that.


I don't have just the map any longer. All I have is the PDF I made of the complete quest. I can't create an .eps file of the map any longer because, for whatever reason, my HeroScribe will no longer export files in that format if they have any of the icons with blue in them like the ice trap you have in the center room. No idea why it all of a sudden stopped working properly. Unless what you were referring to was the .png or the .html file which I can do.