[Contest] Sneak Thief

G'zok steal all Bratwurstshire's treasure!
G'zok not stupid.
G'zok not rush in and attack everyone.
G'zok sneaky.
G'zok know guards away for 3 minutes.
G'zok smart!
G'zok know about the magic alarms.
G'zok have magic too!
Amulet make alarms glow like gold.
G'zok take all Bratwurstshire's shinies!

(Dedicated to Sir Knight, of course; I finally got one of my "clever" ideas to work.)
[And thanks again to Mega for uploading the files.]

 

Boom.

 

Ha ha! I get the premise. I also get the joke. I never knew that Lord Bratwurstford had his own "shire."

With that in mind, now we just need some hobbit-like figures for him to oppress . . .

 

Hah, this is clever. I enjoyed it.

 

Yami! <3 Loving it

 

Well done. I started my custom scenario foray with this one and I was not disappointed in the least.

Spoiler

At first I didn't understand why I had lost since I was on a victory square, but it quickly became clear how to proceed here... At least that's what I thought. After looping my way down in a frenzied rush I ran smack into a veritable wall of junk that was impassable. Okay, third time's the charm I need speed and precision clicking... After setting myself up to rush across I sat and rained down blow after blow on that door. I won with 20 seconds to spare because of the draws chock full of movement (later than I'd have liked XD). Overall a very fun game and I see why it was listed as stretching the boundaries of what the game can do. Thumbs up from me for sure!

 

I regretfully have to disagree with the playability of the module - This leaves entirely too much up to chance than skill. The draws seem to be lacking fighting ability near the end as well (played though 9 times) and they only way to really get ahead is to rapidly click though the status banners that pop up so as to not waist precious time. I feel the goblin is too ill equipped martially to effectively take down a door. He should have a lock-pick draw to open it instead.

 

What is your animation speed setting? I have max speed animation and I have easily finished it every single time. Last time I had bad luck and drew almost no attack cards, and when I did draw them, they were blocked by armor. I think I fought 25+ rounds and still had something like 30+ seconds left in the clock when the door finally died. I cannot imagine a scenario where you would lose unless you have slow animation, slow clicking, etc.

I liked the scenario for its creativity but unfortunately it has zero re-playability. When you figure out the trick and finish it once, doing it again becomes a boring clickfest. In this sense the first two scenarios are better.

 

I have been playing on the default settings - at 5. I've beaten it, and will give it another go with a higher setting to test the animation speed. However, the luck factor was more of a concern for my experiences. In 6 out of the 9 games, I got to the door with approximately 1:20/1:30 remaining but would draw nothing but blocks and running - with a singular weak chop or bash thrown in. I am just disheartened that fortune plays so much into the scenario.

 

Kalin, how simple was the trick to cause VP to score against you? I had an idea for another map that could take advantage of this mode, and I wanted to bounce it off of you. I think there's probably a lot of milage that we could get out of a VP that gives your enemy a point if you're standing in it. Just consider any attacks that have push or slide back, and these squares would function much like an "out of bounds" or "ring out".

A silly example of it's use could be something like one of these fights:


A more serious use could be for reproducing things like schlager duels:


There are a lot of types of battles where it's part of the rules that you can't back down or retreat without losing score.

 

Yeah, the penny is what got me thinking, it would be interesting to see enemies trying to bash me into the VP instead of out of it... but then that would get kind of interesting against AI, since they'd need a new sort of instruction set to avoid the VP instead of moving onto it. Setting "normal" terrain as a technical VPs, and setting the new "anti-vp" as open terrain sounds like a good start, because the AI would want to get to the perceived open terrain and avoid the bad stuff (although enemy groups seem to also enjoy ignoring the VPs after they have control established, so it's still maybe not perfect), but then there's still score building up when you're standing on the designated "open" terrain, so that's where the trick Kalin used starts to lose me. Was this posted by Megadestructo because it required a bit of dev tweaking? Is this something I could also ask a dev to do for me relatively easily?
Even if the AI aren't smart enough to behave properly on such a map, they still would probably behave well enough in a one-on-one duel, and for a MP map with two human players there shouldn't be any confusion at all.
I'd eventually love to make a map where the object is to bash your opponent into a "hazard" for points, or throw them "out of the ring".

Edit: Oh duh, I bet that door is just on another hidden victory square. I'm not thinking right. I Think I've got a plan now.

 

It sounds like you've already figured out my trick. But for anyone else interested, all I did was put the square yellow highlight decal (from the Treasure palette) on Open tiles instead of Victory tiles. Here's the actual terrain layer:

 

I'm sorry but this really doesnt work for me at all. I've tried doing it correctly 15 times now (the first attempt involved figuring it out, the remaining 14 involve doing it correctly and running out of time), and while I keep reaching the end section by the door with about 1:25 on the clock, I cant batter my way through, I either draw nothing or the door stops me. Sure I could keep going until I eventually get a decent run of cards, but whats that proving? Its a neat trick, but I figured it out a while ago .

Edit - make that 21 attempts. Its not unusual - especially when I move to the right of the door to not draw any attack cards in 10-14 draws.

 

Do you have your animation turned up to maximum? If not, do so.

Getting to the door is rather easy:
Round 1: Run to the spot between the 3 alarms.
Round 2: Save your run and pass.
Round 3: Use both your runs to make it to the safe area that is two squares to the left of the door.
Round 4: Save your run and pass.
Round 5: Save both runs and pass.
Round 6: Use all 3 runs to get to the safe area to the right of the door.
Rest of the game: Attack door with every melee card you draw.

 

Exactly what I've done for 20 attempts. How do you change the animation speed? Surely the encounter should be beatable on the default settings.

 

In the Options Menu there is a slider at the bottom left.

 

Done first time, with 2 minutes to spare! Thanks.