The Castle Doctrine Forums

oh, i see it now. thank you!

doesn't look like the button ever receives power as the inverted switch at the bottom is triggered at step 0.

isn't this effect accomplished by the use of one dog or cat? and especially compact when combined with screen scroll. i.e. dog sees you when you step on trap door after turning on button and dog kills power next step.

thanks, i just found it

i do both of these all the time. 

this, too.

let's see.  this one's pretty tame but when i'm finishing up an upgrade, i like to walk my safe path while still in build mode when everything's lit up and try to self check without going through the trouble of switching to indicator lights and chihuahuas. because that means two safe-runs for every upgrade. and, terrifying as they are, i'll take just one run per upgrade tyvm.  usually i die scouting before i die proving.  not last time tho...or the time before. but still.

what else, i like to rob cheap weak houses with none or bare min tools.  like real cheap houses, <400 fresh strarts. or really any fresh starts provided they look weak.  just now i walked to a vault without passing any commits for, idk...$190. it's nothing but it's fun. and educational for me and my victims.

it's not a dumb question.  it is a fairly sneaky exploitation of metagame knowledge about how and when the camera shifts occur.  the key tidbit of metagame info here is that when you scroll the screen all the way to the bottom of the map, your views will be 1 tile north of where they were originally until you scroll the screen back up to the top. 

So.

walk up and scare the cat down.  stutter step a handful to give the cat a good head start.  the cat will jump in the pit in front of the first dog which will freeze him there.  the screen scrolls to the bottom of the map 2 tiles above the dog's starting position.  so without the cat in the pit, the first screenscroll halfway down will reveal the dog (out of meat range) who will chase you and prevent you (without a club) from getting the screen to scroll to the bottom.

with cat in pit, walk down till the screen scrolls to the bottom and then when you walk back up to the electric floor trap, the screen will not scroll back down and reveal the chihuahua until you are one step from the safe indicator light. 

thank you for indulging me

thought it might have been you, blip.

i added the power doors in the top left that gave the formerly dummy sticky switch something to do, which i could switch out for trap doors when you figured out running the cat into the sticky room was bad. and the new chihuahua surf through the ocean of doors is modable (i think), which may have slowed you down a day or two. the front half of the house was meant to confound the shit out of the less experienced and entertain the veterans who could enjoy the surfing and camera shift metaknowledge rewards and also entertain me who could enjoy the tapes of people actually making it past trap #1.  The dog dance at the end was tricky to execute sans tools (obviously, as it got me killed) but required only 2 ladders to waltz up to the vault (the upgrade i died testing would have required 3 ladders but w/e).  I had never designed a dance that involved the dog snaking in this manner.  I had fun designing it and running it but i'm doubtful it justifies all the space-cost when it's still relatively cheap to beat.  i still like the idea though.

even though it's only 6 trap doors long from the point you see the dog, my safe route was: D,U,3D,U,D,U,3D,U,D,4U,5D, for a total of 22 steps. note that some of the steps are interchangeable, namely while the dog is walking toward the right wall, it shouldn't matter if you step D,U or U,D

thanks to all who tried and died.  my goal is to build a house that will be challenging and entertaining to map and rob. and then actually survive long enough to see that happen--the robbing, that is

i remember this house.  there wasn't enough money in it to warrant a serious look-see but i do have a few notes for you.  The cat in the opening electric floor trap directly above the front door is visible so it is unlikely anyone will try this route.  even if the cat were not visible, though, both the top and bottom opening electric floor options look like traps to most robbers and they will check the other routes first.  The cat behind the doors that are straight ahead is a good idea in principle as it leads one to assume that they wanted to go up and as it leaves a safe exit they have the option to leave and come back and try the up path (which will kill anyone without cutter or saw plus h2o's.) The problems with this are 1. starter kit robbers would rather try to use the tools they have than abandon them and return empty handed on a hunch and 2 the path that the decoy cat lights up is easily investigated with 4 waters and the path on the left investigated for one more water.  this leaves only the dog-pit commit path.  there is only one dog and he is easy enough to find, and a starter kit robber who has nothing to lose will try this path. this commits him to your safe room where if he opens the first of only two doors and presses the button, he can't lose.  If he does not press the button before looking at the cat, one brick will keep him safe and at your vault. 

The opening of your house has some clever misdirections (and some not so clever ones), but cheap tools will illuminate the correct path. 

your wife could definitely use more protection, but if your value is low, when people see one dog they assume there may be more and usually a shotgun as well, and therefore will not return with a wife kill kit until it is likely to be worth it, i.e. when the house is worth 10K+.

thanks for the share

nice to see you still alive and thriving Gerald Thomas Crowe

oooh yeah i'm the death.  I was hunting through the 2k-15k range for new names.  didn't recognize yours at 7300 (i think).  I often have success picking off weak houses that managed to grab a few starter kits overnight before their owners can check on them and reset and improve in the morning.  I wanted to keep the investment to a minimum, which explains my stupid death at the cost of one more cutter or a few more saws, but if i can double my money or close to it, i'm happy with that because robbing is 1. fun 2. makes be a better builder.

i'm sure if you'd had time to reset even before my death you would have added more steel walls and power doors and even moved your vault past an entirely new trap system. 

i do feel bad and already posted about this but i did freak out (obviously) as i lost my 80k house, 4 paintings i didn't mind, and my #2 position on the board, and I called my friend and told him what I THOUGHT he would need to get to your vault and what i KNEW he would need to escape if he failed.

he took it upon himself to act on this limited information, and he was successful.  Bad luck, though, seems if he had waited just a few more minutes you would have returned home to a nice surprise