Puzzle Map: Jenga

[Arcady]

Greetings Creeper Community

First of all, I've been playing CW for quite some time, but have only just recently become active in the community and creating my own custom maps.

I have completed and uploaded my first map, 'Jenga', which is designed to be a moderately challenging puzzle map. This particular map started as an experiment to see what I could do with fields and to play with various game mechanics. Completing the map does require at least some knowledge of some mechanics that may not be well known. In any case, I invite anyone to give it a try and let me know what you think.

http://knucklecracker.com/forums/index.php?topic=10486.0

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[Arcady]

This has been an incredibly disappointing experience...

[Ebon Heart]

don't take it personally. People just suck. :P new players who barely know how to play the game try custom maps, then get pissed because they die, down vote it, and move on. No respect for the work that went into it. I have yet to see a map yet that has not been downvoted, even ATF1 had a decent number of people who down voted it. So I reiterate, people just suck.

[2b3o4o]

Yeah, 99% of the good custom maps have way more down-votes than up-votes.

[eudrick]

Ummm, it may be that being required to do a bit of research in the forums is beyond the skill set (or desire) of most.  Puzzle maps, especially, arouse the ire and acrimony of more than a few of the community.   At this posting, 592 downloads and only 19 scores would indicate that more than a few have had trouble with the puzzles presented.  None the less, it's a great map, more so because of the knowledge needed to complete it.

[Gabar]

Well, I find it very entertaining and satisfying when I discovered the various tricks to the map. Well done.
I agree with Ebon; a lot of people suck.

[Cavemaniac]

This has been an incredibly disappointing experience...

I feel your pain brother!

It's a terrific map, though I've not yet managed to post a score.

Don't give up. Don't take it to heart.

Make more maps!

Check this out for further insights.

http://knucklecracker.com/forums/index.php?topic=8901.0

[Arcady]

I appreciate the encouragement guys, for certain sure, and I'm glad that some people at least did enjoy the map.

I should note that I did expect a large number of negative votes though, so I'm not all that surprised about that. What I found disappointing more than anything is that no one seemed willing to even talk about it. Perhaps I just didn't allow enough time for that to happen, I don't know. In any case, I'm over it. And again, I do appreciate the responses. I'm also working on another map, though I only have a rough idea of what it's going to entail.

[Ebon Heart]

most people who rage vote thumbs down don't care enough to leave a comment. They're just like, "yup, can't beat it, this map sucks. Next."

[Wheatmidge]

I don't think you should assume that everyone who gave it a thumbs down didn't give it a try. I wouldn't call myself an inexperienced player and after wasting over an hour on the 2147 Million wall I just decided you deserve a thumbs down. Some puzzle and challenge is fun. but there needs to be some directions, not some wierd field that eats all of my creeper and ends up with -2147. Whatever that means.

[Arcady]

I don't think you should assume that everyone who gave it a thumbs down didn't give it a try. I wouldn't call myself an inexperienced player and after wasting over an hour on the 2147 Million wall I just decided you deserve a thumbs down. Some puzzle and challenge is fun. but there needs to be some directions, not some wierd field that eats all of my creeper and ends up with -2147. Whatever that means.

Greetings Wheatmidge,
I appreciate your feedback. I will note that the lack of direction is intentional. It's meant to be a puzzle map which requires some knowledge of some strange mechanics, as noted below, as well as a challenge to figure out. The fact that you reached to the point to run into the problem that you had indicates that you certainly have what it takes to solve it. I have noticed that you're not the only one to have a problem in this area, and I have to say, I'm not too proud of the particular challenge either. I may take the time to make some changes there to clear things up a bit, but it's probably better just to learn from it and take the lesson to future maps.

The short version: Charge/burst your maker instead of producing on the spot.

The long version: The problem that you experienced appears to be a bug, and one I've noticed a few times myself. I won't go into the fine details of storing numbers in binary, but it is the reason that you experience this. There's a good chance someone else can explain this better than I, but Creeper is stored as a positive number and anti-creeper is stored as a negative value. As such, when when the two join together in equal amounts, it reduces the over-all value to 0, which is how the two work within the game. When creeper (or anti-creeper) reaches it's maximum limit (maximum as defined by the largest value that the software can manipulate) it switches signs. That means that if you have a pool with maximum anti-creeper, then adding more anti-creeper will cause it to switch to normal creeper. If you take your maker and charge/burst it instead of just produce it, it will work correctly. When you only produce it, the sign still flips (hence the negative value) but the game does not recognize it as it's opposite (creeper or anti-creeper, depending).

That may be a longer explanation than is necessary, but there it is anyway.

Anyhow, give that a shot, and see how it goes.

Good luck!

[Wheatmidge]

If I charge bursted on the Creeper wall it just lowered the value, i was debating being persistent enough to just dig through the section by charge bursting. I don't understand how you expected people to figure it out. I bring two more complaints to the table. A puzzle should not require knowing about a glitch to solve and the title of the mission should not be Jenga if the first puzzle requires you to move quickly. Jenga is a slow moving game about steady hands.

[Fisherck]

If I charge bursted on the Creeper wall it just lowered the value, i was debating being persistent enough to just dig through the section by charge bursting. I don't understand how you expected people to figure it out. I bring two more complaints to the table. A puzzle should not require knowing about a glitch to solve and the title of the mission should not be Jenga if the first puzzle requires you to move quickly. Jenga is a slow moving game about steady hands.

That "glitch" is quite common knowledge among the forums. That being said, it might have been a good idea to tell those who don't know in the opening text of the map. :)

[Arcady]

If I charge bursted on the Creeper wall it just lowered the value, i was debating being persistent enough to just dig through the section by charge bursting.

You don't need to burst on the wall, but rather on the spot of anti-creeper. Bursting on the anti-creeper will change it to normal creeper which will in turn change the wall into anti-creeper and allow you to pass.

I opened this discussion for the sole purpose of locating points that most players have difficulty with, and possibly discussing some of the methods I used in designing the map. I'm more than happy to discuss these types of things and to answer any specific questions players may have pertaining to accomplishing specific goals.

That said, allow me to quote from the opening text:

"As the name may suggest, this map was designed as a puzzle and as such may not be well suited to the casual player. Completing this map does require knowledge of some game mechanics that may not be very well known."

Also, the original 'Jenga' is a game about moving pieces into the correct places, hence the name. Whether you think it fits precisely or not is irrelevant and complaining over my choice of the name is just plain silly. I more than welcome discussion over the map, but I won't indulge in any more silly complaints.

[stewbasic]

One problem with the fields is that if they move counterintuitively, sometimes you can't tell what they're doing without opening the map up in the editor (which I ended up doing when I got stuck on barrier 3). I think the ideal puzzle doesn't rely on withholding information to be difficult. For the same reason, I agree with Fisherck about putting in some information about the glitch.