Challenge #01656-D195: Amazing How it Works

[Name]’s job description is less Indiana Jones and more “disarming multi-millennia old nuclear weapons without an instruction manual”. - of an action archaeologist in a fantasy realm – @recklessprudence

Elbi was classed as a Rogue. Technically. It was her job to detect and disarm millenia-old deathtraps so that the rest of her team could safely document and investigate archaeological curiosities. And what never ceased to amaze was the fact that, despite eons of neglect, every single one of these traps was in perfect working order.

Without a preservation spell. Without any kind of maintenance. Without lubrication. And without anyone to check if the springs still sprang.

Metallurgists and ivaologists[1] were frantic to discover the secrets of these traps, and descended the second that Elbi breathed a sigh of relief. Taking the trap into careful pieces to study with every trick they knew. One day, they promised, they would rediscover the secret of steel that didn’t rust, and rope that didn’t decay for tens of thousands of years.

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“Ah,” he said. And, “Hm.” Shuffle shuffle shuffle. “Camouflaged base camp. Camouflaged hide. Camouflaged clothing?”

“All the better to avoid any predators, should they be present,” she sang.

“Mrrmmph…” shuffle shuffle. “Hu'lu'a is sending most of this nonsense anyway. For science,” pronounced, something hated I must tolerate for the greater good. “We will deploy the basics and send clean food by drone. You will record all aspects of life on Toxic Island bar the normal,” eating, ablution, and assorted waste disposal, “and you will refrain from any and all forms of vainglory.”

“Understood and obeyed,” T'reka bobbed. She would only refer to herself as T'reka the Inquisitive in her private and personal journal. For everything else, she was T'reka the Mad.

She watched with bated breath as he lined up the papers anew. And only breathed out when the stamp of approval descended on each and every page.

“You may go forth and commit science,” pronounced, disgusting thing I no longer have to be involved with. “We will send the details to your domicile.”

T'reka only dared breathe properly after she shut the door behind herself.

Cleared!

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[WARNING: Owing to time constraints, you may only be able to get the version with a pending ISBN. I apologise for this lapse and shall endeavour not to cut it so darn close next time.]

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I FINISHED!

I wrapped up the adventure map. I put the final punctuation mark in the last in-game text file.

I’ve written the teacher’s supplements.

I’ve transformed the map from Creative to Survival.

I’ve included the map, the texts, the supplements, the specialised texture pack and some bits of trivia, and put it all into a 43MB package on a stick drive that is currently residing with my house keys.

Tomorrow, I deliver the whole benighted package!

The day after tomorrow….

MWA-HAHAHAHAHAHAHA(coughcoughcough)

The day after tomorrow, I shall be sharing a 14.3MB zip file containing all of the above with the entire world. I’ll be giving all my loyal fans the URL to download.

And now that it’s all done…

I don’t know what to do with myself. There’s only so much housework to do before it becomes mundane maintenance. I could throw myself back at my writing and see what happens, I suppose. I could learn how to handle Meteor and make Realm of the InterNutter a free app or something. Apps are apparently in.

This whole thing is a huge personal accomplishment. I spent months of my time making this map, engineering traps, building set pieces and, more often than not, breaking something I’d been trying to make the heck down and starting all over again.

My personal deadline was September. I’m over the moon to have finished by July.

So when this comes out on Tuesday(My Tuesday, possibly your Monday), have a go at it. Post some videos. Have fun.

And let me know what you think. Feedback is important to me.

A few highlights from my completed rooms.

I will share new rooms as they happen.

I had to do an ice-based jumping puzzle because they’re almost obligatory in Minecraft adventure maps.

…of course, if the player melts or breaks the ice, the whole set-up is ruined… And monsters float.

Progress at last!

After one computer broke down, got replaced with another [Best. Easter present. EVAR!], had the data transferred, re-set up Minecraft, had that holiday in Thailand, and figured out how to install an old save… I’m back in business.

Hu-freakin’-zah.

I know, last time I posted about this, I swore I’d never talk about the sewer level again, but whilst I was making the area level, some mob tripped the circuitry off and fried my processors in the first place. Laborious process above later, I discovered that well over half of my crap dispensers didn’t contain any crap. So along with re-setting the circuitry, picking up the dispensed crap and topping up the dispensers, I had to go around and make sure every last dispenser was full of crap. Fun.

I have since done quite a bit since then, including finally surpassing the point at which I forced myself to re-make the goddamn math puzzle room set.

Why didn’t I just keep building upwards? Why?

Well, the beta rooms have neater circuitry now that I understand redstone a mite better. I included some lanterns as a “wrongness” indicator in the early rooms and got downright mean to my poor players in later levels.

I don’t recall there being an original perimeter room, but now there is one. Hooray.

And, since my kind, loving relatives threw out the one piece of paper I needed to finish the dang adventure map, I now have a good excuse to completely destroy the alpha draft rooms.

Theraputalicious.

I leave the ceiling for last, since it’s the floor of the next level. All the better to prevent dynamite-style cheating, my dear.

Last of the sewer level pix, I swear.

The finishing touch on the third floor is an array of randomly flickering lights in the ceiling.

Three concentric redstone repeater circles make a random signal generator. The rest of it is to take the signal to the lights.

When I finally moved on to build the next chamber, an asshat mob went and stepped on the triggering pressure plate, and damn near killed my computer. I’ve stopped all the circuitry, but I have to fix the dang doors in the startup area on the bottom floor.

I’ve got the fog set to “Tiny”, the graphics to “Fast” and everything that could make my poor computer wheeze turned down or completely off. And I *STILL* have framerate issues.

Not helped by my computer spontaneously turning itself off at random moments. Ugh.

I’m taking my time with the sewer level.

It’s almost a month later, and I’m still working on this thing. As I write this [24 Mar] I am STILL stuffing dispensers with brownish objects and occasional representative junk.

And by “representative junk”, I mean: leather for dead animals, raw fish for fish, empty bottles, string, lilly pads, grass, iron fences, gravel, slime balls and pieces  of paper. Because it’s not just poo and wee that winds up in our drains, ya know.

Oh, and the odd stack of silverfish eggs ‘cause I want this sewer to be overrun with “rats”.

In the process of building this thing, I up and decided to add some interesting titbits about sewers and sanitation into the entire labyrinth. I now know more about such things than a mere mortal really should.

Except for one thing. As an Aussie, I felt I had to add a bit of trivia concerning sanitation in our fair country. As an internet dweller, I could not find one crumb of such info. I asked MeMum [Hi!] who is old enough to remember life before television(ghasp), and also recalls a few things about when sewers actually came in.

I picked on Sydney because it’s the one city in Australia everyone knows about. That also doesn’t possess an identically-named city somewhere else in the world. I know from movies that “night soil carts” [look it up] were employed in Sydney and other Australian cities as late as the 1960’s, and my fellow Brisbanites were joking about sewering certain suburbs in the '70’s.

The closest she could guess [in between repeated enquiries as to whether I’d looked EVERYWHERE - and Yes, I have.] was the 1970’s.

Does anyone similarly fecaly fascinated have a firmer date[Full credit is all I can offer, alas]?

More progress pix on my adventure map.

Slowly making my way back to the part where I was starting to desperately need math from Mayhem’s teacher. I haven’t taken any of these pix recently, ‘cause I’m still working on the sewer level a week later 9_9

It’s really complicated to make a sewer level! I’m still working out where to put all the dispensers and whether I should make another random signal generator or where to put it. Gah.

The lengths I go to for scatological humour.

More on the sewer, next post.

I call this one the “mining chamber” and tried to create a labyrinthine cavern of twists, turns, nooks, crannies and, of course, mine-ables.

And lava.

Can’t forget the lava.

Reasons why I want user-controlled spawner blocks, even if it’s just in creative mode:

1) Squids de-spawn when you’re not looking at them
2) I want a room full of squids
3) Even if I add a cubic metric butt-ton of them before the last save, I’m scared they’ll go away before my adventurers get there
4) There are other creatures I want in my chambers that de-spawn at the slightest provocation.