Show me yours I'll show you mine.

bey bey · 2013-06-28 16:16:14

Since I learned a lot from what others shared in previous threads of this sort and since the abolition of blueprints meant that a lot of stuff remains unseen now, I thought it might be nice to revive the sharing of retired designs. I'm curious what people came up with.

Starting: http://castlefortify.com/c/f701fb0

nathan · 2013-06-28 17:45:08

I had this one design I really liked, where there were a bunch of little "modules" around the room (Maze, walk of faith, chihuahua-powered death traps, etc) that unlocked powered trapdoors by the vault, so you needed to go through every trap to go through the vault. Of course, someone just brought a lot of ladders and got entry, and then I died so I can't show you the design any more. Now, I'll make backups with CastleFortify. Edit: How do you make backups with CastleFortify? There's no way to upload maps, and I can't find the location of my house map.

P.S: So that was YOUR house! I had no idea how to solve it, and kept finding it, so eventually I just ignored it. How did it "fall"?

Last edited by nathan (2013-06-28 17:48:54)

bey bey · 2013-06-28 18:01:06

You can take the unencrypted bits out of your STDOUT, the house maps only have numbers and those are yours. Maybe you'll still be able to pull it out of there. Just go to the "Code" bit on Castlefortify and select castlefortify as format, input it and go back to the map thingee. (Sb had to explain it to me, too.)

The solution to my house was hop on the first switch twice (activates trapdoor but not floor in the mechanics), step on doormat and dance a bit to get the cat to activate the switch, then step twice more on the switch. That fries the chihuahua who'll switch off the trapdoors permanently if you go beyond the middle (which more than 50% did first because of the shiny, thus breaking it irreparably).

Then reset the switches with the top button and press the lower switch twice more. Voilà.

I think only Jere figured out how it worked and I was really impressed by that since it only got laddered before. But then again, I think the electrics were a cheap ripoff of what he and blip showed on this forum so I am the grasshoppa here.

My current one is the one with three trapdoor entrances where the middle one kills most people. It's not finished yet and every self-test gives me the creeps because so many things can go wrong.

edit: It "fell" because a mixture of botched graphics drivers and a background update made the game crash while I was in another house. Sad, really, I miss that thing and this is my "send-off". The current one is a hommage to Mr Steele's house from v9 which had really sweet backdoor mechanics which I liked for the feel of "not-there-yet" but v10 hasn't really gotten to the stage where people make it past part one.

Last edited by bey bey (2013-06-28 18:06:10)

nathan · 2013-06-28 19:34:09

Great! When I die, I'll post the link here.

largestherb · 2013-06-29 03:29:17

here are a few of mine from v8 to v9

http://imgur.com/a/m8QgX

bey bey · 2013-06-29 04:22:41

Oh yeah! I recall properly solving the 10th one of those with a good hour of solid brooding over the blueprint. Half an hour for the electronics and another half hour until I realised how to use the cat to get the third dog. Brilliant!

nathan · 2013-06-29 08:24:50

Mine sucks compared to yours, but I'm a newb at the whole "House Building" thing. I died, so here's my house. http://castlefortify.com/c/307cde9

zed · 2013-06-29 08:38:31

I think this is my favourite so far, from way back in v5:

http://castlefortify.com/c/280fd51

I'll be impressed if anyone can figure out a solution just by staring at it!

No-one even came close in the game... I lost the house to the v6 world reset.

Blip · 2013-06-29 09:02:26

This is one of my v10 houses, which I just died repairing. It wasn't an incredible house, but managed to stack up a bunch of kills (over 25 by the time I died) in its various incarnations this past week, the most important being my good friend with a $40,000 house trying to rob me for a measly $500. It's designed around killing robbers, which, with chills added, is a really good form of defense for many houses that can't afford (or, like me, refuse on principle) to adopt the "guess my magic dance or pay your way across these pits" design. http://castlefortify.com/c/648d5e2

Seeing your house, bey bey, I find it ironic that, as the inventor of the button-press counter that your house utilizes, I had no idea that it had one. I assumed it was simply about hitting the switch at the right times to let a chihuahua down a course of pits and floors.

bey bey · 2013-06-29 09:47:21

That is indeed ironic.

And that's one simplistic interesting death trap on your part much in the spirit of v10!

I feel kind of out of place at the moment. I built a new house with v9 still on my mind (actually started a day before the update or so), assuming that a 10 deep trapdoor thing will be bridged in no time, so I built something that has a lot of stuff deep down (like Mr Steele's house in v9) which is still interesting even after bringing a few tools and bypassing the initial hurdles to get into the gear-work. And I even finally gave in to some magic dance security since the electronics take up so much space. Yet these days nobody can afford 10 ladders and a few more things anyways so it's rather pointless. At least, a lot of people run to their deaths, I guess that's something.

Still, if I should meet my demise, I'll go for something simpler along those lines as well instead of scraping together those vast amounts of money for a concrete block. In the new economy, two or three trapdoors suffice again.

ukuko · 2013-06-30 03:54:02

Here's a few that I managed to get to some degree of completion before dying:

v5

http://castlefortify.com/c/daabf0f

v6

http://castlefortify.com/c/5c97e9d

v7

http://castlefortify.com/c/a01e3f0

v8

http://castlefortify.com/c/d3e74a1

dalleck · 2013-06-30 05:42:42

Ok, here is my 'retrospective'.

Part 1 : Version 5

v.5 Magical Doors of Death
http://castlefortify.com/c/f382356
I really liked this house design, and it is probably still one of my favourites. Although it is completely useless now.

v.5 - Doggie Deathtrap
http://castlefortify.com/c/ed6633d
This one was a fun ol' run for yer life house, and quite risky to test.

v.5 - Running the Gauntlet
http://castlefortify.com/c/9d043cc
Also one of my faves, and was pretty much an impenetrable "combo-lock/run from the dogs/leap-o-faith" house. I also loved testing this one, especially the final section with the leaps of faith/leaps of death. Funny story, I died testing this house when I walked onto the bottom right tile, instead of going up, and was caught between the metal wall and a doggie. I did fix that issue in a later iteration of this house however, but still, it was probably my cruellest testing death.

v.5 Rube Golderg-esque
http://castlefortify.com/c/595f32d
This one stood for a long, long time, and was my final house in version 5. It depended on the cat running off to hit a one-turn switch, which triggered a trapdoor to kill one of the dogs as they travelled downwards to hit the switch to de-power the trapdoor, killing the pit bull behind the door. The funny was, it could essentially be solved in very few steps!

Blip · 2013-06-30 09:34:18

I remember robbing your "Doors of Death" house, dalleck. I couldn't figure out how to shut the powered doors and let me get to the vault, so I used two explosives to get the chihuahua at my feet. Then, when I walked through the doors at the bottom, the chihuahua stopped the pit bull, allowing me to crowbar it and take your money.

Ludicrosity · 2013-06-30 21:04:19

I've only had a couple houses since I started in v9. The first image was my very first house. The second and third are two different versions of a more streamlined/simplified version of the same thing. They're all pretty boring. Currently I'm working on a doggy maze... if I can just stop dying for long enough to actually get it built.

The%2520Castle%2520Doctrine%25201.PNG

The%2520Castle%2520Doctrine%25202.PNG

The%2520Castle%2520Doctrine%25203.PNG

dalleck · 2013-07-01 05:55:12

Blip wrote:

I remember robbing your "Doors of Death" house, dalleck. I couldn't figure out how to shut the powered doors and let me get to the vault, so I used two explosives to get the chihuahua at my feet. Then, when I walked through the doors at the bottom, the chihuahua stopped the pit bull, allowing me to crowbar it and take your money.

I remember that!

I blame myself for being so cocky(or is that creative?), and dropping that chihuahua-trapdoor-fancypants-shinanigan-noreturn-thingamy just for laughs.

Served me right.

Still, it was better than the guy who death-sploded on my electric floor and shorted it with water from his jerking-electrified fingers.

(and if you can't tell, I dig hyphens today!)

Last edited by dalleck (2013-07-01 05:57:33)

Ludicrosity · 2013-07-01 06:55:23

Ok, so I finally finished my dog-maze, but much to my chagrin somebody managed to get through using a whole bunch of drugged meat and a single well placed set of explosives. Here's what the maze looked like:

I designed it to trap people who come in with a bunch of drugged meats. Without using explosives, you must lure the dog at the bottom center (next to the door) away and run around the loop in the section to the right. You must run around it counter-clockwise or else you'll be trapped by dogs (can you tell why that is? It takes some thinking!). After looping around, you can go back into the corridor from which the dog came (so if you just drugged the dog in the first place the house would be impossible without explosives). Here is what it looks like:

So long as you drug every dog immediately, before he leaves his niche, you can always backtrack. This was something I planned on fixing next, but alas... I died again.

I think I may give up on the dog maze. It's too much work and just not as secure. I did have an idea to wire up the whole maze and put in switches so that you must run through in exactly the correct sequence in order for power to be delivered to the very last part, which would be the safe surrounded by a huge pit and trap doors. This partly solves the problem of people using explosives to bypass parts of the maze, and if they destroy some of the steel walls or clip a wire, then they'll need a bunch of ladders at the end.

I started to implement this, but died testing it. The thing that made it really tricky was that not only do you have to account for every time you step over a switch as you navigate the maze, but you must also account for all of the dogs trailing you as well. I screwed that part up and died.

Last edited by Ludicrosity (2013-07-01 07:02:44)

dalleck · 2013-07-01 07:01:06

Ludicrosity wrote:

Ok, so I finally finished my dog-maze, but much to my chagrin somebody managed to get through using a whole bunch of drugged meat and a single well placed set of explosives.

That was me. I got lucky. Decided to bring the explosive on a hunch.

Ludicrosity wrote:

I started to implement this, but died testing it. The thing that made it really tricky was that not only do you have to account for every time you step over a switch as you navigate the maze, but you must also account for all of the dogs trailing you as well. I screwed that part up and died.

It's a neat idea if you can get it working. Try to mock it up in castle forty and then maybe build it piece by piece.

Ludicrosity · 2013-07-01 07:07:07

Well done! I was wondering who it was.

Somebody came in a while back when I was building an earlier version of the maze and similarly got through. I wonder if that was you as well?

Anyway, I'm not sure if I'll stick with this sort of thing mainly because it is so dangerous to test.

Last edited by Ludicrosity (2013-07-01 07:08:00)

bey bey · 2013-07-01 07:10:54

My take on v10 is that the first thing you need is an entrance-trap that takes more than 2k to circumvent. That might be three trapdoors, or four concrete, or two well-placed dogs. Psychology is important, not all electric floors have to be powered, they only have to appear to be. Make a ten-deep corridor of electric floors leading to the safe and a few death corridors and watch what happens. I wouldn't step on electric floors until all other directions killed me.

If the broke people die on entrance and the rich fear too much for their lives to go on, you have a lot of security already.

Labyrinths just didn't seem worth the hazzle to me whenever I did some. They're way easier to survive with a few tools than to design and self-test. As you said: Drugged meat and some cutters (of the sort required) will get you out.

The safest v10 house is probably one with 3x3 different compartmentalised traps (each 10x10 tiles roughly), built one after the other and NOT interacting(!!) where some are just to kill you and some can be passed. Only the first of them really need the more-than-2k security. At least that's what my house is showing me: three-deep trapdoors plus x would have sufficed easily. The compartmentalisation can easily be done taking into account the field of view, and the comparmentalisation should also allow for it to be built under v10's financial restraints.

Blip · 2013-07-01 13:01:48

Good point, bey bey. Often, my v9 and v10 traps feature multiple routes, some simply being "kill routes" and some being survivable. My better houses, however, are usually well-designed death traps; Traps like the one I posted earlier (http://castlefortify.com/c/648d5e2) function well because of psychology. Players will often go down and to the right, dooming themselves to the hungry maw of the pit bull above them. The first person who successfully robbed me did so by luck, because they went upwards instead of down-right and happened to trigger the trap properly.

My next house, the second incarnation of which fell recently, fixed this problem by killing any way the player goes. It got over 30 kills total in the first day, and a few more the next morning before I died stupidly after a successful robbery of my house. I rebuilt, and got a bunch more kills before my cat killed me my jumping on the keyboard, hurling the poor little collection of pixels that was me into one of my own dogs: http://castlefortify.com/c/3e1031e

The point I'm getting at is that a house that turns non-committment moves (like checking the bottom-right corridor on my first house, or going either way too early on my second) into commitment moves without the robber knowing until it's too late is a viable strategy. A house like this is also very hard to scout without bringing expensive tools, like a gun, to get your way out alive. My second house finally got cracked over a long period of time by some player cutting walls, scouting, and dying, before coming back later to make similar cuts.

I'm also trying to work on some new house designs to kill smarter players. These would use electronics to turn things on that logically shouldn't be able to without v8-style complexities in the wiring. A good example would be 4 doors, all off, with a rotary switch in the middle. Hitting the rotary switch causes all the doors to close, trapping the player; most players, however, wouldn't expect this to happen, and it would hopefully get some kills that way. Another idea I have involves an important mechanic that differentiates powered doors from pits and zap-floors. I won't say what it is yet, as I might use it in an upcoming house.

bey bey · 2013-07-01 14:32:39

Blip wrote:

My next house, the second incarnation of which fell recently, fixed this problem by killing any way the player goes. It got over 30 kills total in the first day, and a few more the next morning before I died stupidly after a successful robbery of my house. I rebuilt, and got a bunch more kills before my cat killed me my jumping on the keyboard, hurling the poor little collection of pixels that was me into one of my own dogs: http://castlefortify.com/c/3e1031e

Again with the irony!! (considering your cat operated kill switch)

Solid thoughts! I'll be intrigued what kind of cunning death traps you can come up with.

I never would have expected that one in three people assumed they guessed an internal switch system correctly by walking up and down once or twice and then just walk onto the trapdoor deathtrap in the middle corridor. Over 50 dead and counting, it is rather odd...

nathan · 2013-07-01 17:55:11

bey bey wrote:

Make a ten-deep corridor of electric floors leading to the safe and a few death corridors and watch what happens. I wouldn't step on electric floors until all other directions killed me.

What happens is that the person brings ten water bottles. Not quite the reaction I expected.

largestherb · 2013-07-01 18:11:11

nathan wrote:

bey bey wrote:
Make a ten-deep corridor of electric floors leading to the safe and a few death corridors and watch what happens. I wouldn't step on electric floors until all other directions killed me.
What happens is that the person brings ten water bottles. Not quite the reaction I expected.

don't have them turned on 10 wire cutters is a lot more expensive

dalleck · 2013-07-08 07:24:34

Here it is. It burned briefly but brightly.

http://castlefortify.com/c/9b4d991

Last edited by dalleck (2013-07-08 07:29:17)

jere · 2013-07-08 07:42:20

The magic dance is dead, long live the magic dance!

The Castle Doctrine Forums

#1 2013-06-28 16:16:14

Show me yours I'll show you mine.

#2 2013-06-28 17:45:08

Re: Show me yours I'll show you mine.

#3 2013-06-28 18:01:06

Re: Show me yours I'll show you mine.

#4 2013-06-28 19:34:09

Re: Show me yours I'll show you mine.

#5 2013-06-29 03:29:17

Re: Show me yours I'll show you mine.

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Re: Show me yours I'll show you mine.

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