SHOOBINATOR'S PROFILE

author=LockeZ
Those are... the same thing. Difficulty is inherently ALL ABOUT taking options away from the player. Like, if you think about it, that's all difficulty is. Removing some of the valid options, so some of the options that would have resulted in success now result in failure. I mean, "win without even trying" and "win by mashing the A button" are options that you want to remove, right?

By option, I mean a choice that the player can make. I see what you mean by 'valid option'. Yeah, difficulty is achieved by taking away 'valid' options because you must do something in a more particular way, but semantics aside, what I meant was that you shouldn't take away options/choices from the player as a means of achieving difficulty (e.g. level caps or perhaps another example: you HAVE to buy that ONE particular item from that ONE particular secret shop to beat the next boss with the new boost in difficulty). Ideally, the options/choices should still be available; it's just that some of them will no longer be as effective.

Edit: I don't think that previous example worked as well as I thought it did. Something perhaps a little more clear: you can't use weapons in the next boss fight.

While actually taking away options/choices is one way to increase difficulty, I would not advocate doing so very often. Although, on the flip side, it can spice things up in certain circumstances. So I guess do it sparingly.

Wow, I used a common event for an ice puzzle I just made, but I made it by turning on a switch at certain points on the map instead of using a different terrain. This would have made things even easier.

EDIT: Actually, my puzzle has an important element that this simpler solution doesn't account for, so I didn't waste as much time as I thought :)

2nd EDIT: ACTUALLY, this solution WILL makes things somewhat simpler and still work for me after making some slight adjustments.

author=alterego

author=Shoobinator
Ah, I'll make sure to post a bigger image next time then.

Or, you could just edit this one to show us what you want us to see, instead of waiting until "next time". =)

Oh, I already posted another closer up image here.
I'll leave this one here, so you can see an overall view of it.

author=Roy
Are we not supposed to be able to manipulate the rocks completely in the Secret Slime Cache until later in the game??

You can get all the way through the rocks, but you can only push each one once per map visit. That's how I designed it. However, I'm not sure where that puzzle will go exactly in future versions or if the "Secret Slime Cache" will exist at all =/

Hope that helps!

author=Clareain_Christopher
Why is the main character so evil?!
The map looks pretty involved.

Yeah, I was going for something moderately difficult, but it turns out there are a couple different ways to solve certain parts, so leaving those extra solutions in should help! :)