GooRoo
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Post by GooRoo on Jan 31, 2024 10:19:06 GMT -8
I am certainly open to re-doing the difficulty of two (of my) Questz; the question is "What should be the difficulty ratings of the 'Rocky Roadz' (area 1) and the 'Gruntziclez' (area 2) Questz be, as swietymiki and grosserfluss see them?"
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GooRoo
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Post by GooRoo on Jan 30, 2024 20:57:14 GMT -8
The HTML walk-through is now up-to-date and (I believe) reasonably accurate to the way I designed things to happen.
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Post by GooRoo on Jan 30, 2024 16:16:49 GMT -8
I totally underestimated how difficult the level would be based on it's map. 8:55 in game completion time, 27 minutes actual completion time. This level is anything but easy. It uses the elements of bouncing your grunt and making him pass through normally unreachable tiles, but that isn't what makes this level what it is. Navigation is always fast paced, and you always have to be awake for dangers (for instance, the cruel time bomb booby traps)
The yellow toob grunt relies on awful luck as he has to go and press the blue toggle switch at least once, and then be in the range just enough to approach my grunt that is one tile south to the grabbable toobz. There are some instances where the yellow grunt stops moving while at least one of these two requirements are unsatisfied, killing the entire level. The toggle bridgez which make up the backbone of all the navigation in the level is designed in a way that you can safely go in one direction but have to time your movement really well to go in the other direction (and making navigating with springz really difficult). The secret is insanely difficult to get to for this reason.
The final silver-pyramid spiral is the climax, difficulty wise. There are so many things to do at the same time. You have to press the silver switch at a time so well that you will be able to avoid the bullets through the very short "breaks" that will kill the entire run because of the animation, be able to have the stamina needed to shoot the gunhat grunt (enough times that he will be dead by the time you get to the toggle blue switch). Also if you save while your grunt gets one of the coinz, he will hold the coin for a time slightly longer when you load the game and the next pyramids will already be lowered, killing the run again. At some point I simply gave up and killed the gunhat grunt before entering the pyramidz, waited for the entire sequence to finish and entered the pyramids without the enemy gunhat grunt (which is already difficult enough by itself). A direct upgrade to Medium+ is plausible. *
PS: Why is the level titled "Friendly Fire 6"? What's up with the sudden increase in the number
The original Friendly Fire was in "Rocky Roadz" (Area 1), while this one is in "Honey, I Shrunk The Gruntz" (Area 6).
P.S.: Disposing the enemy GunHat was the intended solution. Your removal of the enemy Toob Grunt was not even considered (by me).
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GooRoo
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Post by GooRoo on Jan 30, 2024 9:30:02 GMT -8
I replaced the USA flag's URL with various different flags and there seems to be many (most will not likely ever be used). Also I can't help but notice that the all green flag of Libya has been outdated since 2011 but I don't know if it's possible to obtain the same GIF with the newer one.
The world is ever changing (politically, at least) and I haven't been keeping up with the results of revolutions/elections/etc. that change 'little' things like national flags. But I can see about getting back to the source of flags and see about replacing Libya, at least.
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GooRoo
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Post by GooRoo on Jan 30, 2024 9:23:08 GMT -8
There are a few things wrong with the walkthrough page of this level. The about page is for "Happy New Year" The walkthrough page is for a HS level and not for this one. Same with Coinz. The megaphonez, warp letterz pages are also incorrect. Seems like only the Toolz page is correct.
It appears that the Walk-through was 'cloned' from the Questz' source ... the original "Friendly Fire" ... and I never completed the walk-through to make it right for this Quest. Since I have a boring project (non-Gruntz) going now, I will take a break from it,and see what I can do to fix these problems.
Edit: Definitely a lot of work to be done to make this W-T right! It is done in the very first format I had, when I was just beginning to teach myself HTML.
So I will "start from scratch" with the current HTML components, and use your video as a basis for how to actually solve the Quest. (
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GooRoo
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Post by GooRoo on Jan 30, 2024 9:13:56 GMT -8
There are a few things wrong with the walkthrough page of this level. The about page is for "Happy New Year" The walkthrough page is for a HS level and not for this one. Same with Coinz. The megaphonez, warp letterz pages are also incorrect. Seems like only the Toolz page is correct.
It appears that the Walk-through was 'cloned' from the Questz' source ... the original "Friendly Fire" ... and I never completed the walk-through to make it right for this Quest. Since I have a boring project (non-Gruntz) going now, I will take a break from it,and see what I can do to fix these problems.
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Post by GooRoo on Jan 29, 2024 9:27:51 GMT -8
Scanning through the Board, I found this thread started by Kevin Lambert, of Monolith Productions, Inc. and discovered the link (site) seems to have been hacked. Pity!
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GooRoo
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Post by GooRoo on Jan 28, 2024 13:16:02 GMT -8
There were requests (5 of them) with 3 being from Blacklisted IP addresses ... banned. One, I accepted as a new member; one I sent an email to requesting confirmation since neither the email address nor the IP address had any entries.
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GooRoo
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Post by GooRoo on Jan 27, 2024 19:57:17 GMT -8
Recently I deleted 'members' who were only SPAMmers ... who kept coming back with new (probably faked) email addresses, usually with 'handles' that bore no relationship to the so-called email address. After deleting those 'members' the person started creating accounts without posting, but with their SPAM now in their signature line: also deleted. That led to the requirement to request registration, so that staff could pass on whether to accept the membership, or decline (with reason).
Anyway, as part of the firewall effort there were a number of 'members' deleted under the 0 posts + 6 months since joining.
It will probably be at least a year before my next purging of inactive 'members'.
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GooRoo
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Post by GooRoo on Jan 27, 2024 12:55:42 GMT -8
I like the new version, especially the addition of red pyramids and the secret switch interactions throughout the level. However, I totally do not understand why this one received the Easy rating! It's definitely not easier than the original; if Gruntz Land 1 remains Medium, this version should not get a lower rating. My primary goal in making this one was to more closely adhere to the usual Monolith Productions, Inc. practice of Red Warp only there to get the Warp Letter. And that there be exactly ONE Secret Switch and ONE Red Warp. I realize that MOST of my Questz fail to adhere to those 'standards', probably because the first Custom Level Quest that made me think was "A World Of Sweetz" ... which violated just about every 'rule' of the Standard Questz; all 4 Warp Letterz, FIVE Red Warps and FIVE Secret Switches, "Magic Shovel" and (the one 'legal' special thing) multiple CoveredPowerUps on a single tile. So I picked up some bad habits by following "The Leader" (at that time), Paul. As grosserfluss mentioned to me, "everything is in plain sight" ... so the solver has an excellent idea of what is to be done ... and when. Gruntz Land (1) probably should have been down-rated to "Easy" ... perhaps with a (single) '+' for the Toy passing part. In this one, since I could make to the far northeast corner with time to spare (in the original), and the (second) Red Warp having nothing at all dangerous (so made collecting so many Coins easy) even my change adding Switchable and Toggling Bridge Tiles did not significantly add to the difficulty.[/b]
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Post by GooRoo on Jan 26, 2024 22:13:53 GMT -8
This is the second of the year 2000 Releases Questz (after my re-do) with a "Medium" difficulty rating. With all the enemy Gruntz and UFOs, maybe it actually deserves that rating in the original puzzle by @chrystien (The Kirby). Since my only 'contribution' was paring it down in size (and adding a PowerUp or two), I probably am the one guilty of rating it so.
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GooRoo
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Post by GooRoo on Jan 26, 2024 8:48:22 GMT -8
Whenever a thread has a new post, it moves toward the top of page 1 in the Board (moves older threads toward the bottom). I had occasion to search for a Quest that I knew had a certain puzzle element in it, but memory failed me (I forgot the name!). Worse, I forgot the graphics set!
Remedy: Search for any Quest or Battle quicker via the Alphabetical Listing.
Since you are in this Board, narrow it down further via the Gruntz In Space alphabetical order graphics set.
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GooRoo
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Post by GooRoo on Jan 26, 2024 8:46:06 GMT -8
Whenever a thread has a new post, it moves toward the top of page 1 in the Board (moves older threads toward the bottom). I had occasion to search for a Quest that I knew had a certain puzzle element in it, but memory failed me (I forgot the name!). Worse, I forgot the graphics set!
Remedy: Search for any Quest or Battle quicker via the Alphabetical Listing.
Since you are in this Board, narrow it down further via the The Miniature Masterz alphabetical order graphics set.
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GooRoo
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Post by GooRoo on Jan 26, 2024 8:44:51 GMT -8
Whenever a thread has a new post, it moves toward the top of page 1 in the Board (moves older threads toward the bottom). I had occasion to search for a Quest that I knew had a certain puzzle element in it, but memory failed me (I forgot the name!). Worse, I forgot the graphics set!
Remedy: Search for any Quest or Battle quicker via the Alphabetical Listing.
Since you are in this Board, narrow it down further via the Honey, I Shrunk The Gruntz alphabetical order graphics set.
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GooRoo
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Post by GooRoo on Jan 26, 2024 8:43:16 GMT -8
Whenever a thread has a new post, it moves toward the top of page 1 in the Board (moves older threads toward the bottom). I had occasion to search for a Quest that I knew had a certain puzzle element in it, but memory failed me (I forgot the name!). Worse, I forgot the graphics set!
Remedy: Search for any Quest or Battle quicker via the Alphabetical Listing.
Since you are in this Board, narrow it down further via the High On Sweetz alphabetical order graphics set.
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GooRoo
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Post by GooRoo on Jan 26, 2024 8:41:50 GMT -8
Whenever a thread has a new post, it moves toward the top of page 1 in the Board (moves older threads toward the bottom). I had occasion to search for a Quest that I knew had a certain puzzle element in it, but memory failed me (I forgot the name!). Worse, I forgot the graphics set!
Remedy: Search for any Quest or Battle quicker via the Alphabetical Listing.
Since you are in this Board, narrow it down further via the High On Sweetz alphabetical order graphics set.
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GooRoo
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Display Name: GooRoo
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Post by GooRoo on Jan 26, 2024 8:34:37 GMT -8
Whenever a thread has a new post, it moves toward the top of page 1 in the Board (moves older threads toward the bottom). I had occasion to search for a Quest that I knew had a certain puzzle element in it, but memory failed me (I forgot the name!). Worse, I forgot the graphics set!
Remedy: Search for any Quest or Battle quicker via the Alphabetical Listing.
Since you are in this Board, narrow it down further via the Trouble In The Tropicz alphabetical order graphics set.
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