Rooms with a maneuverability challenge.

[Professor Paul1290]

Are there any plans to include rooms which are difficult or challenging to traverse in some way?

I think the game needs something other than boss fights for a challenge. It would be nice if there were trapped rooms in overlord towers or even ruins that are intentionally challenging to get through.

Perhaps a vertical room that fills with something bad (acid, lava, or whatever) that requires the player to platform fast enough to stay ahead. Maybe there could be an obstacle course that is only wide enough for a bat or a fish and requires getting past timed traps and enemies as well.

With the way some of the towers work these could be used in addition to or perhaps even an alternative to a boss fight, like allowing a player to skip some bosses if he can make it through the furnace without getting cooked. That way, the player won't be stuck doing one or the other just in case maybe their spells don't work well against the boss or they don't have the dash or jump needed to get through the obstacle room.

[x4000]

Oh yes, you bet.  We're just scratching the surface of what we're able to do with the engine we've got here, and bosses are kind of overused at the moment because they are easy to plop into a room and have function as a good challenge.  But that's by no means where we want to just leave things forever.  This is one of those games where we have like ten hojillion ideas, and it's such a challenge to get them all in there in a reasonable timeframe, heh.

[x4000]

But I'd not thought of the water/lava filling the room idea, by the way -- I like that a lot, and think that should go in mantis so we don't forget.

[BobTheJanitor]

Rooms filling with lava brings back flashbacks of Super Meat Boy. Eeeep! Actually SMB is an good example of platforming challenge done well. Just... tone it down like 95%.

[Nice Save]

I was thinking of the tower in VVVVVV. I died so many times on that one.

[BobTheJanitor]

I was thinking of the tower in VVVVVV. I died so many times on that one.

The tower was crazy, but let's not forget the grandpappy of ridiculous in VVVVVV: Veni, Vidi, Vici. When I finally finished that, I felt like I had just won a marathon. I'll probably never be able to do it again.

[Underfot]

If there were several different varieties of 'challenge room' it would be great to have them as part of an overlord/lieutenant fight.  An overlord could retreat sequentially through four randomly chosen rooms before the final showdown; a lieutenant could go through two.  I'm envisioning something like a crate/platform room that you have to climb through while the overlord hurls fire and abuse at you.  When you get to the top he retreats to the next random challenge room.  This could also serve as a way to chip down their health without the battle being one long dodge-and-shoot.
 - heading to mantis to enter some challenge room ideas -

[Dizzard]

It would be neat if there were puzzle rooms too.

Even something like a door to a dungeon needing you to slot in some kind of key artifact into a hole that you got from another dungeon (which would be spawned in a dungeon in a tile in the surrounding area)

[KDR_11k]

I don't like puzzle rooms, those only work when they're hand designed.

[x4000]

I think puzzle rooms could be made to work well procedurally -- I do plan to do something like that at some point.  Not everywhere, so if you don't like them you can avoid them, but creating procedural puzzles of various sorts is something I've been thinking about for a while.

[Itchykobu]

Even outdoor sections with such a challenge would be great. Has anybody ever played Kid Chameleon? (Sega Genesis). There were a couple of levels in  that one: Hills of the Warrior, Forced Entry, et al. where a giant wall of blades would pursue you from one side and you had to run to the other end to survive.

An example of practical application for AVWW: Something like that for the pylon towers maybe, where a giant wall of insta-kill chases you until you can reach the pylon and deactivate it.

[BobTheJanitor]

I think puzzle rooms could be made to work well procedurally -- I do plan to do something like that at some point.  Not everywhere, so if you don't like them you can avoid them, but creating procedural puzzles of various sorts is something I've been thinking about for a while.

At a basic level you could just hand design some challenges and then just let the room generator randomly stick them together end to end. For something more complex than that, I'd actually be quite interested to hear how it would work.

[zebramatt]

Is this idea in mantis? I'd vote for it!

[Hyfrydle]

Don't forget the permadeath mechanic if these challenges were too difficult it would be a real pain. Also please don't add any timed challenges I hate time limits in games. Much prefer puzzle or strategic challenges.

[Nalgas]

I was thinking of the tower in VVVVVV. I died so many times on that one.

The tower was crazy, but let's not forget the grandpappy of ridiculous in VVVVVV: Veni, Vidi, Vici. When I finally finished that, I felt like I had just won a marathon. I'll probably never be able to do it again.

You'd be surprised.  After you've done it the first time, it's significantly easier to do it again, especially in the first few days afterward when your fingers still remember what to do.  The dozens/hundreds of deaths that go into getting the timing down really do make it stick with you for a while.