I downloaded the original Pillar Trials a month or so ago and loved it to death, but I found it extremely challenging for me. Maybe my brain was just fried at the time, but this one seems to be much more satisfying and the puzzles aren't overly hard. You just really have to think about them. The changes you've made are great. The puzzle still feels the same as the old version but functions and looks much better than the first. Great job Noxiw. Do you plan on doing an Act II?
I just spent several hours working on this mean, mean puzzle. I remember playing this back when you released the original but got nowhere. I have a few questions: Spoiler - What was the fixed camo in one of the first rooms for? - What was the hologram for? - What was the sprint for? - What do you do once you destroy the phased land mines? A PM or VM would probably be a good idea if you don't want to spoil the puzzle for people.
Hey man, so I just finished your puzzle (first puzzle I've ever beaten). It was so fun haha; the puzzles were all challenging but not overly hard. A few parts were sort of tedious (like the Evade/Plasma Grenade jump and the Armor Lock section). I did find a few breaks in your map that I didn't realize I used. Nothing too game changing but I figured I would let you know. Click below to view breaks Spoiler 1. At the challenge to get Evade, I went around to the back side of the whole structure by the Pillar rock wall. I jumped up onto a rock (A) and then there was a section where the your structure was merged into the rock wall, so I was able to just walk up that crevice (B) on top of it (C), only needing one grenade and basically rendering the Armor Lock section useless. I'll get you a picture of what I mean in a bit. 2. At the part where you push the fusion coil through the shield door, I didn't have to use the mongoose. Instead I got it in the small tunnel and was able to just use my sword to hit the edge of it, wedging it between me and the wall. Then I just pushed it straight through. No picture for this one because it doesn't really require one (unless you'd like one). 3. This was more of a misunderstanding on my part but if you had a Plasma from earlier, you could skip a small bit of this challenge. At the part where you revisit the dice room and get the Plasma's to jump up, I didn't realize that you had to get the dice across to the platform with the grenades. Instead, I thought you had to get the Plasmas, jump back down and work your way back up to the top, then grenade jump from A to B as shown in the picture. Nonetheless, the puzzle was absolutely amazing. I had a wonderful time with it and can't wait for Act II.
Thanks, Memento, I'll be sure to patch the first one, easy fix. The second and third I was aware of actually, I won't change those, however, ever time I tried to do it that way it took a lot more time than the correct way. And congrats on your first puzzle completion. Broc, I'm really curious what you did, we'll have to speak soon.
I f'n love you Noxi. Im not really much of a puzzle guy, sorry, but after watching the video and checking out the thousands of pictures, I can tell this is one sexy and unique puzzle you have going on. I am actaully going to download this and try it out next time i get on Reach. I tip you my hat sir. Also, i want to play a 1v1 with you sometime. I hope we get the chance. ♥
If we're both online I'll be happy to play a 1v1, though I'll most likely be owned. Thanks for the DL and attempt. Don't expect it soon, but I'll be sure to hit you up when testing is needed. Also: Update: Bug fix.
I got past 1ish puzzles... then got stumped. So I watched the walkthrough vid! Made it through 4ish more. Then, even with the walkthrough, was stuck. Then, months later, my friend wanted to play a map that I was "bad" at (he's not great at video games and plays CoD mostly.) We somehow came to this map. Idk if you changed something or what, but I swear I did it the same. I must just suck at puzzles. Great job Noxy. I really enjoyed this one. Sorry it took so long to post. Just saw the thread and remember that I hadn't commented.
This looks really interesting and well thought out.Im downloading for sure! Its crazy just how much effort that you put into this post... Never really tried a puzzle map,maybe i have, but if i did then it probly wasnt worth remembering..=/ This however looks really interesting and kinda reminds me of a game like Portal which is an amazing puzzle solving game. Ill have to check this out and see this for myself and get back to you for a review. But you've surely sparked my interest with this amazing an in depth post! Maybe after i play this,i just might be a huge fan of puzzle maps!
2 hours, 41 minutes, 23 seconds... I only used your walkthrough to find out what to do with the mongoose in the first part of red room. It's really good, except I broke the map with the Jetpack
This was a really great puzzle map, even though it was a single player, on our end we had 7 people working together and it was still enjoyable and challenging with 7 people, great work, id like to see more of these maps.
Hah, no problem, Erupt. Thanks for the comment and support. Thanks, Troy. If you need help you know how to get in contact with me. Unless you got the jetpack early, there's nothing to break with it, being it's only used on the last challenge. What did you do? 7 people? Yikes, I can't imagine you guys did it correctly, thanks for the support though.
I am stocked to see another puzzle out on Reach.. due to the fact I am a puzzle map maker. Besides the point, I really love this map with all of the forging techniques used, forging quality, originality, and awareness for the folks playing the map of making it easier for them to do. I also liked how you added the search party of FAQ's, Background-story, Read first type of deal, etc. I think that added a little reputation to your post good sir. Based on the post, I say you like to keep things neat and tightly around every map you come to forge upon. Every player likes a map that has good gameplay, forge quality/neatness, and a nice challenge with a twist. I will say this.. your map fits every part of this description and I have to say well done. I hope that you will make more of these maps soon because I have an itch to play some more puzzles coming from you. One more FAQ: "How many challenges and rooms that you have to complete before reaching the end of the map?" - A response would be AWESOME! lol
Remember when I said I would play this map? Bam, I finally popped in Halo Reach and gave this map a spin. Since I'd already played the original, naturally a lot of what I saw was very familiar, so I'll talk about some of the newer stuff. Using the Haloball gametype was a nice touch and helped avoid breaks while also introducing 1 or 2 new ideas. I also liked the new challenges you added; they were simple, logical, and effective - appealing to both novice and experienced puzzle solvers. Overall this was a great map, just like your original, but minus all the breaks! (You'll be glad to know I didn't find any major breaks with this version) Now, because I want to at least provide some constructive criticism, I will mention one issue I had with some of the puzzles. I felt that there were a couple of puzzles that just edged on the wrong side of frustration: - The first puzzle with the die was one of them due to the difficulty of the jump if the die wasn't perfectly positioned, plus the fact that it will then respawn and make you do it over again. The nook that the die has to slot into could've been altered to make this puzzle less frustrating. - The other puzzle I'll name and shame is the one where you have to plasma grenade the soccer ball up to the ledge above and then, once you're up there too, do a plasma grenade jump off of the soccer ball to get to another ledge, and then you have to make sure you've got your mongoose blocking the teleporter, which then puts you under a time limit to do all that before the mongoose respawns! There are two quick things I can think of to make that part less frustrating: one would be to move the receiver node much closer to where the mongoose spawns, making it less of a hassle to set yourself back up if you're too slow. The second thing you could do is add a barrier on the first ledge that you plasma grenade the soccer ball up to - the reason being that if you mess up the plasma grenade jump off of the soccer ball then it can sometimes launch backwards and fall back down off of the ledge, and a barrier would fix that. In the end though they're only minor issues and I don't intend for you to actually adjust those puzzles to my recommendations, but I feel it's important to provide some criticism so that you know how you can improve for next time. So when you make your next puzzle map, just remember to make sure each puzzle is smooth and penalises the player as little as possible.
Very nice, good work! Thank you for all the kind words; I'm glad you enjoyed this. As for the post, the way I look at it is that the more information you throw in their faces then it will be less likely that they spam the thread with posts asking about how to do stuff, wanting a walkthrough, etc. As for the FAQ thing, I would have to go play through it and count the various puzzles, which would actually be a bit difficult being that they kind of blend together. There is a part II in the works, but don't look for it soon. This puzzle has been a labor of love since November! :O I'm very excited (although I'm not going to lie, when I saw the most recent post in this thread was from you I instinctively thought to myself: "Crap, he probably broke it") to hear that the changes that I put into this helped avoid previous breaks, and helped with the overall experience definitely makes me happy. Also: @ Bolded part. Honestly, I believe you are the only one I've heard complain about that first room and the die; I'll definitely keep that kind of challenge in mind next time around. Also, note that for part II I'm trying to stray away from challenges that are jumping based, being that there were a considerable amount in this one. The Mongoose, golfball, teleporter challenge was definitely a bit controversial, I never did think to move the receiver node closer to the mongoose, that would definitely have helped make that challenge a bit less stressful. Again, I'll keep those kind of things in mind as I make the adventure through my next puzzle map. It's ironic, really, in my opinion it's actually more puzzling making a puzzle than it is solving one... Thanks again, Buddha.
Beautiful and put together by someone who REALLY knows how to forge, but some parts of it were infuriating. -The lateral jump after the first CPU. I tried that as you did in the video dozens of times, but I was never, ever, EVER able to see the grenade as I wasn't able to get far enough. -I, and I expect few, did not know about the "ride mongoose thru walls" trick without having seen or done it before That was as far as I got before being driven insane and had to forge my way around . Maybe puzzle maps aren't my thing, but...I suspect the solutions to these were a tad more obtuse than you were hoping :/