Hey guys.

Felt like sharing I just achieved my 2nd win on escape/easy. After the first one (which took me 45 hours worth of tries), I tought "damn I got this."

But no I didnt. It took me another few dozens hours and a lot of improvement to score my 2nd vic.

(I know, i know, lots of more peeps done it before and way better, but give me a break, im an old guy )

Congratulations!

Nice to see people who persist. And nice to see persistance pay off

thanks melkathi. I love hard games since I began playing my 4-bit intelevision set. Well, on hindsight, maybe thats because no one knew how to make easy or normal games back then.

But I really think that games that makes you persist and deal with failure and loss are tremendously beneficial to any individual. Cheap thrill games are nice too, but those which stand out for me are these which force me to think harder and harder.

really loved DoE

Congratulations. You will find that many that play multiplayer share your sentiment about difficulty. The game has a good community, imo. Very patient and friendly.

The problem, I think, is that there is no key to beating the game. It's not about how you learn various aspects of the game and utilize them. It's about how lucky you'll get in the last few floors. If you get lucky, you'll get dust and youll get easy path to elevator. If you're unlucky, you're screwed, no matter how good you did on the previous floors. That's a bummer, really.

Not really,



If you have a huge cache of industry you can build dust generators in every room where you can and it makes the last levels much easier. You can have a strong operator working the merchant for 3-4 dust per turn. You can have Max open doors for an extra 3 dust per room.



Yes you are luck dependent, but with experience and the right setup and strategies you can reduce its impact.

MapMan wrote:
The problem, I think, is that there is no key to beating the game. It's not about how you learn various aspects of the game and utilize them. It's about how lucky you'll get in the last few floors. If you get lucky, you'll get dust and youll get easy path to elevator. If you're unlucky, you're screwed, no matter how good you did on the previous floors. That's a bummer, really.

I respectfully disagree. I played a lot of beta, and then on release a ton of multiplayer before playing a single player. There was a point after reading forums and doing some thinking at work that I came home, fired up a multiplayer game with my better half and we experimented with some things and talked tactics and strategy. Something just clicked then. I am not sure whether it was just realizing the many ways you can solve problems or what, but since then I have not lost a single player game (on easy, I have played 1 game on very easy and won but then moved on). My record single player at this point on easy is 3 wins (in a row) and 4 losses.



There can be obstacles to make things difficult. Very difficult. But there usually is a solution to the problem. I am not a great awesome uber player, and I am an old guy like the OP, but I think there is almost always a way to solve a problem in the game.



The game does seem to punish you harshly though for mistakes. My last run I was doing the library (which so far I think is the easiest pod) and on floor 10, door 17 and I did not notice I left a room dark 2 away from the crystal. This was a critical mistake as my defenses were light and in that room spawned a few of the crystal monsters that like to hit majors and the crystal. they went right in to my crystal and while i managed to kill that wave i had 26 dust and 17 open rooms. To compound that mistake I had just spent a lot of industry banking on opening at least 8 more doors, so I only had enough to put in 1 emergency generator. So I lined up 3 of my heroes in dark rooms on the path to the exit, picked it up and ran. I spent a lot of food on healing but got out with all 4.



My first win on easy I lost Sara on floor 1 and escaped out with max level 2 with 4 food to spare. I thought there was no way I could pull off the escape due to how crippled i was, but i managed.



The game gives you setbacks and sometimes presents incredibly hard problems. Like floor 1, low dust, and a straight path to the exit meaning you gotta run through a lot of dark. I tend to horde food on level 1 in case of this until I see where the exit is. I used to think some of these were unfair but after playing more of the game they are just situations I have to be wary of.



I have yet to win a game on multiplayer. Got to floor 10 and thought we had it in the bag before a mistake was compounded by no pause and we went down for the count. I also have not won a game without pausing. I thought I would with the library win because i was doing so well, but that critical mistake had me pause to assess.



Anyway to the OP. Congrats. It's not an easy game to get a grip on. Especially for us old guys. At least there is a pause in there so our arthritic fingers have less of a chance to fumble and hit the wrong key.



Here is a screen cap of my library end. On my floor 12 crystal run all 4 heroes were level 15, and I had every room lit or a hero standing in it to avoid spawns. My personal high score, but I really feel library is a lot easier than the others.