What is your earliest house?

ventuswings · 2014-03-10 21:16:47

While clearing out some of my old documents on the computer, I happened to find the castledraft code that happened to be one of my earliest finalized house (purchased during the earn real money contest).

http://castledraft.com/editor/88N36y

I look at this now and think - man, I wouldn't build house like this again

Look at all the obvious traps (taken straight from the stickied Common Traps thread) and unnecessary waste of space. Fortunately after some foolish deaths, later version of this design had two more distinct traps added onto it which were sufficient to tide me over 'til the end.

Regardless, now my houses generally tend to be more compact and consist of several branching separated segments ala current meta of hiding the vault location.

Do you still happen to remember your earliest house design, embarrassing flaws you missed on the retrospect, and how your design preference has changed since then?

iceman · 2014-03-10 22:07:11

I love how the final electric floors are powered by an easy to reach toggle switch =P

I remember that I build my first house in the top right corner (it took up about 1/5 of the map), and it was pretty much a box combo lock. 4 buttons, where the right buttons turned off different parts of the trap. I think it had an EF commit, and then 2 dogs which cut you off from the vault in plain sight if you hadn't pressed the buttons. Needless to say, it didn't end up being very effective, but I wish I had kept the map somehow.

My second map, on the other hand, is much funner:
http://castledraft.com/editor/bPGGca
I suppose this is another variation of a combo lock, but the trap just seems much funner. If you go up and *aren't* on the far right, the dog will see you and chase you. No matter where you are, though, when you go down it will see you as well. I think the combo is to press the top left, run down and press the bottom right, then go through with the dog on your tail. If you press the other two, or if you press them in the wrong order, the electric floors get latched on. I remember going crazy trying to fix the sightlines for the buttons when Jason changed vision around corners (around v23, I think?), since the rest of the house depended on the dog following me.

There's a thread about rotary toggle switch uses, and I think that this is a clever implementation (if only because I designed it =P). When you press the one connected to the pit, the pit is powered. The pit and electric floors after it are actually a giant doggie commit gate, which (again) I'm a bit proud of for designing by myself. If the dog doesn't cut power to the pit the same turn you step on the EF's, they're latched shut again.

I had dreams of expanding it to have to either go up or down, one of which had you turn around the dog somehow, then go *back* through the hallway, up into where the wife was, do a little dance to get by her (which would require a dog *still* following you), and then have the safe behind her. Unfortunately, A) I knew it'd always be *really* susceptible to people trying to kill the wife, since by necessity there'd only be 1 dog protecting her, and B)I wasn't *nearly* smart enough to make a trap where you could even get past the first hallway with a dog still alive, much less one that let you go *back* with it staying alive. But I had dreams =P

My next house was actually my favorite house:
http://castledraft.com/editor/SMQgFn

You'd have to get all switches pressed in a certain amount of steps. I liked it because it's a "puzzle house", where the robber can get all the info to rob it in 1 scout (although it would almost certainly be a suicide scout) and then figure out the "dance", and because the tapes were hilarious, with the robbers pressing buttons when suddenly the dogs would *pour* in. I wish I didn't have to add a 2nd trapdoor, because it had to be on a timer which took away the "puzzle" aspect of it, but I did it for security.

Anyways, like you, I've definitely changed how I try to design my house. Not so much "Vault is that way -->", more "Vault is this way... this way... nope, just kidding! Have fun petting those cats!" Not to mention actually using my whole house =P I still seem to have kept my love for electronics, though.

42dustman · 2014-03-10 23:03:31

This was my first one:

http://castledraft.com/editor/4g9U8C

Needless to say that it didn't hold out for very long, still a lot noob burglars managed to get themselves shot by the wife and many more went back running to the house's entrance as soon as they spotted her. I think a lot of players back at the Steam launch overestimated the shotgun's range and thought that the wife chased them in the same manner as the pitbull.

Cylence · 2014-03-11 01:31:29

My first complete house pulled from the archives:
-Redacted for security-

It was a puzzle house. Not meant to stop brute force attempts. It actually gave as much vision as possible.

The whole bottom 3 rows was spent telling you how to get to the vault. I used panic buttons as a number system and used lights to indicate which buttons should be on and which ones should be off. The lights were also in specific orientation (i.e. lights vertical and on the left, etc)
It also had a demonstration of how to move the dog using the cat in the final section.

Unfortunately, no one ever picked up on the clues. Although they did like interacting with that dog/cat demo in the corner.

I made as much wiring visible as possible and you only really committed when you opened the door (on the south) to see the cat and dogs. The dogs would block your exit, and the cat would turn the electric floor off after two steps, then back on after 4 more steps. Sadly, most deaths would occur from a robber stepping on the false button, thinking he turned off the grates, only to walk on to the grates and die. The player base is more educated now though.

The house would eventually fall to being worth too much money and having someone brute force through it.

Last edited by Cylence (2014-03-19 20:25:50)

HardKor · 2014-03-11 02:40:32

All I remember from my early houses is all my 'commit' gates were toggle switches instead of sticky, so robbers could just turn off the traps after setting them off.

RevealingGekco · 2014-03-11 08:41:10

My early houses were all 'dance around the wife-with-a-shotgun' type setups. The wife had to hit buttons to open the vault room, but to activate her you basically had to get right in front of her and let her chase you all over the house.

It was pretty decent at the time.... inevitably someone kills your wife and the vault room gets locked down.

FreeLove · 2014-03-12 11:42:10

I've been WAITING for this thread!

This will probably get lost in the cyrillic whirlwind, but here is my beloved first house:
http://www.castledraft.com/editor/mtnuUV

When I started out, I was really more into learning about robbing, which meant much death, which meant less house. But I built this one night before I went to bed, and I'm SO glad I did. No house yet has yielded such entertaining security tapes (I even got a couple high bounties, which of course immediately attracted a sensible robber with 4 meat and a club).

Really simple, and the only 'trick' is that you need the dogs to catch up to you, so that they don't slide east along the wall to cut you off... and a lot of people thought the vault would be in one of the two far corners. Teehee.

The Castle Doctrine Forums

#1 2014-03-10 21:16:47

What is your earliest house?

#2 2014-03-10 22:07:11

Re: What is your earliest house?

#3 2014-03-10 23:03:31

Re: What is your earliest house?

#4 2014-03-11 01:31:29

Re: What is your earliest house?

#5 2014-03-11 02:40:32

Re: What is your earliest house?

#6 2014-03-11 08:41:10

Re: What is your earliest house?

#7 2014-03-12 11:42:10

Re: What is your earliest house?

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