TOPIC: Reviews and feedback

When I am fully recovered, which may take a couple days - - I will post some thoughts I had about the dungeons and the TD experience for this year. Overall summary is that TD people = AWESOMESAUCE, most puzzles and combats = VERY KEWL, a couple things = FRUSTRATING, and one thing = PITA.

Let me know what you thought!

This was my first year doing TD. I tried a puzzle run and combat run with a fighter and druid. I was surprised and enjoyed some of the puzzles. Some of them baffled my group and I. I had a blast though and would love to try it again and try out other classes.

I did the puzzle run for Flight and enjoyed the female elf as our tour guide, she played her character really well.

3 runs of normal (ended up with parties of 1/2 new people), did not do a Viper puzzle run.

Viper combat was my favorite. I will say the room layout was a bit narrow in a few part and made combat a little tricky with a newer party. Some of the lighting was hard to see during the combat board area as the light was from behind where the DM would stand and cast a shadow over the board. So you could not actually see the numbers being hit (even if you were next to the board). Medusa standing at the end of the combat board was funny, but a bit of a pain. Overall a lot of fun.

Zephyr puzzle. Rooms were more open as a whole and this was great. We failed on both of the tube puzzles, but were getting the idea. Definitely doable. Last room was really "meh" to me for Puzzle. We only had a single DM for the run and he didn't explain what he needed volunteers 4. Then told us what we needed to do after we volunteered. Unfortunately we found out after the explanation that we were on the non combat side. This was bad as we were mostly the fighters with the decent ranged weapons.

Zephyr combat. Got both the puzzles we missed before. Did not kill the shielded combat as we were really one round short. (1 round to figure out we had to hit the line, 1 to take out first shield, 1 to take out 2nd, then 1 combat round to try and kill it (just shy). For a normal run it seemed timing wise the 2 shields threw it off a bit. The final room had 2 DM's this time and they explained what the volunteers were for. Which helped the group as a whole a lot.

The only negative for this run was the construct room. Once that thing animated, it took 1/4 of the room. Combat was slowed due to the flow of everything having to go on the one side. Which had the spell casters working with the DM. I was standing beside the end of the table where you slid, and the construct kept hitting me in the back. We had to crawl on the floor to get tokens that had fallen off the side near the construct. Very cool idea. However, if you are going to set something like that up, use the whole room. We were all crammed into 1/3 of the room, and half of that was taken up by a animated prop.

I love the runs and will keep going, but wanted to post in the feed back thread.

My son and I did one of each (puzzle and combat). First of all of the support personnel, characters, coaches and the DMs on our Runs were excellent. Our 5 favorite rooms were in descending order were: 1)Viper Combat final room. Drow assassin, high priest and BBBBIIIIIGGG Snake!!!!!!!!!!! The Shadow effect was great coming toward it. 2) the Zephyr autopilot puppet room. The combat effects were interesting and the construct was cool, I disagree with the first post as the space it took up did not seem distruptive 3)Viper Sand table. Possibly the best visual puzzle ever;4)Zephyr "ball puzzle" The little guy was cute and after we figured out how to get him in the center spot it was fun watching it roll up; 5)Viper skeleton/crypt. First massed monsters we have run into and they were handled well The Crypt target board was a very interesting target. We also lover the visual and the mechanics of the Zephyr final room (every one liked the controls) but the combat seemed very difficult (attacking a giant gasbag is unfair) especially for newer players who lost 4 damage sources. Strangely on nightmare and hard core it was easier (6 well equipted characters can do a lot of damage)

The only down issue I would have is the darkness in the entry area. Understand need for lower lights but this year was just short of pitch black.

The final comment I have is to note the honesty and dilligence of TD personnel and community. We misplaced a bag with significant tokens and it was found and very promptly returned. Again thanks to all

Can anyone give me the name of the girl who played the femal elf from the 9:24 Sunday zephyr combat? Since her character was lost I never got to say thank you to her.

Don, Natasha, Steven(Hulio), Joe (vacuum puzzle room), and Chris M (medusa), and all of the medusas and corresponding DM who I forget his name. Dennis Burdick and the all DMs of the Blood sand room in combat. ALL did such a fantastic job at DMing this year!! We love you guys! Thanks for doing all that you do!!!

No elves - they were hawk-kin.

The Viper puzzles were awesome. Although on Sunday, the eggs seemed buggy. We solved that one on Thursday with no problem. On Sunday, the eggs did not seem to be responding to the wand consistently.

That sand table was a work of art!

The final room in Viper was great. The giant snake creature was outstanding.


Am I right that two of the stamp rooms on Viper Combat were puzzle rooms? If so, I do not like that. I really, really do not like that. One is fine, but on Combat the majority of the stamps should be Combat.

Overall, it was a great four days. Looking forward to next year.

For the most part, I loved the dungeons. I liked Viper better than Zephyr, but that may have been because I have been focused on the Zephyr dungeon for weeks and weeks as an adventure coordinator.

I liked the egg puzzle b/c it was really visually striking. The effects of the sand puzzle were impressive - as another TD person said, Jeff is now going to have to build an actual holodeck soon to top what he has been doing. The medusa and the final monsters in the combat room were impressive. I loved the skeletons and how they kept appearing out of their sarcophagus. I cast a spell at them, and when I had to go to do the planes check, booth skeletons came over and pointed at different planes to try to mess me up - I laughed out loud at that. The floor puzzle was cool, but hard for us to do, b/c that was our double-down run, and we only had five people.

I liked the monodrones and the mechadroid, and I loved the concept of the final Zephyr room and the wyvern attack (I've always said WI-verns, but I heard most people saying WHY-verns). Having some people drive the ship while others fought the swarm was really interesting. That was the room where my wizard did 144 points of damage in two rounds, with some awesome help from the cleric. The room 1 puzzle felt like a classic team TD puzzle. The vacuum puzzles were tough to finish within the time slotted, although I spoke to someone who had some great advice on how to do the liftonium puzzle in room 6. The hawk-kins were all pretty great. The one puzzle I didn't like was the one with all the switches. Thankfully I didn't face it as a player, but it was a very difficult puzzle technologically to keep working.

The coaches end epilogue people we interacted with were great. Overall, I have to give this year an great big exhausting thumbs up!

Yes two of the treasures in Viper combat were puzzles. I agree with Harlax that majority from a combat run should not be from puzzle rooms.

galandros wrote: Yes two of the treasures in Viper combat were puzzles. I agree with Harlax that majority from a combat run should not be from puzzle rooms.

True dat.

Great job by Drake on his first puzzle design!