Finished !

Place: 5 overall and 3/20 as a Mage.

In my opinion this was the funniest one !! :D

And that's it, i spent everything i had on last boss and couldn't defeat it, there is no way i can gather all the resources again... thanks for a big "fuck you" to my face. To gather resources you need to kill monsters and to kill monsters you need resources.

any hint on the mirror riddle, besides googling?

Would appreciate a hint on the mirror too :D

EDIT: Nvm solved it, I had the right answer from the beginning but only 1 correct way of input. I got the idea as I went off to bed and completed it in the morning.

So few giveaways this time though.. almost felt like it wasn't worth the effort, even though it was entertaining as usual.

14 overall, 9/20 as a Mage. YES I GOT IN THE TOP 10 MAGES WOO :]

15 overall, 10/20 as a Mage, pumpkin pie has been made!

Edit: a lot of very good treasures, well worth it

Since my last post i got quite lucky finally. For some reason i've had only the weakest encounters which dropped some good weapons. Then i killed and robbed a guy (Silent) and with 1100hp and his money i managed to kill the last boss.
This game was a disaster for me, i barely had any bright moments.
It wasn't a good idea to riddle the dungeon with traps, at least with no way to avoid them other than luck or stepping on them and then knowing that they are there.
The last boss fatness AND cursing ability is a bit too much.
People seem to dislike the 3 ability, it hurts the experience of others, it can be used so rarely, maybe just make it deal 75% of current HP of the target if it really has to hurt other players.
Other than that rarer events are better in my opinion, first of all more time to make one so it will be the best quality possible, secondly it won't be "oh, yet another of those" rather than excitement, lastly each event will be remembered more fondly as frustration gets blurred with time rather than getting into the game with fresh wounds.

Finally finished brute forcing my way through this dungeon! I really liked the map design and some of the little tricks and puzzles it had (the memory orb would've been terrible if I wasn't paying attention or if I didn't remember where the witch was), however this was by a decent margin my worst overall experience in sWords.

As best I can tell, I was pretty unlucky. Checks and monsters yielded very little of value, especially early on, so I got into a major hole that was outrageously difficult to climb out of. I distinctly remember being level 4 (barbarian) with a starter weapon and a bow with 1 dmg more than my melee, gear that added up to +4 agi and +1 wizardry, no health or energy potions and no bandages. I was trying to be smart about escaping dangerous battles and conserving whatever I could but even if I got a streak of enemies I could handle, I was dying to attrition over and over. Late in level 4 I got my first melee weapon upgrade which was great for a couple levels of progression but I didn't see another one until after I had the pumpkin and was heading for the exit (level 10). I had 2 decent stretches after level 4 where I was able to make good map and level progress but both times I ended up back to being without any potions or bandages and just waiting for the inevitable bleed to kill me. All said and done I died 13 times. 3 of those were to players and of the remaining 10, I'd say 2 maybe could have been avoided by running, though I'd probably just die on a later enemy. Judging by the death totals I've seen on the leaderboards, a bunch of people have had it as bad as me or worse and I have nothing but sympathy for them.

I've already lamented barbs having a much slower/lower completion rate, so I don't want to get into all the balance issues, but one thing I'd like to note is that the barb's moves have much more potential to irritate other players. A rogue will steal some coins but that generally isn't much of an issue and with mining, you can exchange energy/time to get more money. Their other move converts coins to energy, so no negative effect on anyone. A mage will steal some energy but that just means you have to wait a while. Their resurrection move has just as much positive (don't need to wait for the 1 hour timer) as negative (2 debuffs) and is arguably helpful if the player brought back to life has curative items. A barb steals health and/or removes morale. Health is generally more difficult to restore and lowered morale means more time and worse results in combat which leads to even more health/energy loss. I got a number of messages from frustrated players during this run. I'm not sure how to fix this, or if it even needs fixing, but I think it's noteworthy.

I'm also interested in people's opinion on the player kill moves. Personally, I would like to see them reworked/removed. The change that only allowed a player to be killed by 1 of each class per quest was nice but I don't really think the moves promote a positive attitude toward the game. Getting killed is decidedly not fun and is especially not fun if there is no defense against it aside from having been killed 3 times before. The complete loss of health, energy and morale combined with the hour timer is brutal and after the hour, energy still needs to regenerate, so it's potentially the equivalent of upwards of a 3 hour loss. That said, the buffs are great, so it's almost always in your best interest to ruin someone else's time and enjoyment. I guess there is something to be said for the competition aspect of it and trying to beat people to the end and there is always the portion of the population who just enjoys trolling but it seems to me that most people are interested in helping each others and the market skews the competition anyway. It can certainly be satisfying to get instant revenge on someone who just stole something from you by killing them - I know DonutBig certainly gave me the business when I demoralized him this run - but that's really the only situation I can see where the surprise death is kind of warranted.

The last major thing I want to say is to please, please, please alter bleeding. Having endless duration and ticking on checks, moves and every combat move is brutal. I know it risks just becoming poison-lite with a duration but when every other debuff has one, bleed feels out of place. At very least, change the wording. A scratch shouldn't be the scariest thing in the game.

Last note: The ghost was awesome and I don't even want to know how much longer this would have taken me without it.

Thanks for another game, only in the end i realized the map shape ha ha.

In the way out i helped some low level barbarians, the difficult curve is high but i think thats fine.
This was the first game i felt bad about killing people.

I'm 10 passes away from the exit, with the pumpkin, and the site doesn't work anymore. Google says it is not available; is it happening only to me? :s
EDIT: it fixed by itself

Thanks for another adventure, it was fun! I had a really bad start, and when I got the orb, I had almost none useful supplies. Luckily I found a gems collector and sold him some gems I had. Then, I was lucky again because the merchants announced an hour of mixed prices and the price for ressurection scrolls dropped below 200 coins, so I bought like 15 of them, so lack of HP/EP potions was not a problem any longer, I just allowed monsters to kill me and then used a scroll. Eventually, after exactly 30 deaths I managed to get that pumpkin.

Found my way out to finally start making the pie...
I did learn some talents along the way.
Of the 3 latest dungeons, I have been every class and I found playing the barbarian the most fun.
The mage was the only one that used his class weapon as main. Barbarian used ranged and thief used magic(no arrows)

View attached image.

I picked up the orb before encountering the hallowitch - am I screwed?

Aaaaand... it's done. It has taken me way too long to finish, but I made some serious mistakes that prolonged the game. The beginning was quite easy, I almost believed the whole quest would be a walk. Nothing farther from the truth: as soon as I stepped on the second floor I started to die over and over, due to a consequence of bad luck, horrible decisions and sheer difficulty of the game. The spike traps section, together with the teleport tiles that returned me there, was absolutely taxing, depleting all my resources and resulting in an accumulation of deaths as the only way to stop the bleeding. The brain eaters, which I could not defeat easily at the time, did not make my life easier.

Eventually, I managed to escape that scary place and I levelled up sufficiently to avoid traps with scrolls. When I thought the worst was over, I got the orb of memory. For just a moment I considered giving up, but the damn game is too addictive, so I continued. It also helped knowing the whereabouts of the witch, not because I had explored the firsdt floor completely, but thanks to a comment on this thread. So I went on to creating my own map of the dungeon, and somehow I managed to find the witch blindly. Ironically, that part of the game was perhaps the funniest: not only did I stop dying, but travelling blindly was challenging without being too frustrating; still, I felt completely relived when the mini-map came back. From then on, it was relatively straightforward, and not even the final boss posed any signiicant problems - something I feared based on some messages here.

All in all, it has been another good adventure of Game of sWords, though in my opinion inferior to the previous ones. I understand it was a special event, so the focus was put on the unique elements of the dungeon rather than its complexity, and it's fine. If I had to change something, that would definitely be the fact that bleeding does not eventually stop; I seem to recall it was not like this in the early editions of the game. Also, it could be nice to have some kind of secret or alternative boss, since the player is usually at the peak of its might when it reaches the end, and after defeating the final boss all that power and resources are no longer useful.

And that's all, thank you again! :)

Finished as barbarian (7º place as barb). I have a lot of problems because my very very bad luck with items, i couldnt find the third brain eater too and i wasted a lot of time and resources to find it, with the riddle (not the riddle but yes with the answer because 1 char) and i have a lot of bad luck with the last boss, i killed it in my third try :( but was funny :)

Is there some hint with mirror? I have all 3 candies but can't do anything with this goddamn mirror

number 40/60 11/20 as barbarian. The beginning was really rough this time. Still trying to think of suggestions to bring barbarians in line with other classes. All I've thought of so far is remove the energy penalty for various weapons, dual wielding and/or shields. Also it seems to be effective in the end barbarians require wizardry (up to acceleration scroll use), accuracy, strength and defense. Pretty sure mages just pump wizardry mostly and no clue on thieves.

edit: just learned # at the beginning of a post is interesting...

That took way too long.GG

I don't quite understand how anyone managed to survive the dungeon while only dying once! I'm far from done but I've died more in this one than in all of the previous ones combined :)

And yes, was there devil on the level? I had 7 souls and didn't find any place to sell. Evil plan just failed.

View attached image.

Late bump for finished, 39 overall and 10/20 as a Barbarian.

It was a more difficult game than the last for me, even the map being simpler than the last game. It took me a long time to figure out what I had to do in the mirror -_-, sadly I have not seen many barbarians using Encourage skill during the game, and the combo to demoralize + encourage.

Thanks for the game : )

Ha! I finished it! I love the map designs. It was generally fun - too much bleeding though :P This was my first time as a barbarian - it's generally ok, though much slower than the thief: I love the encourage ability, the rest not so much - one thing is that I don't like hurting others much, the other thing is that I never find anyone to use them on.
The ghost was the best :D

Thanks for the game, it was fun :)

Awww, I'll not be able to finish this one -_-'

At the beginning, I was too confident, it was almost too easy...
But once arrived downstairs.
Oh my god, down...stairs... I...
I...
I... dont... want to talk about it anymore !

28 death, in the dark and bleeding with no pots&coins, I've no time left to complete the quest.
The map design was cool, but the too many traps got me crazy XD
And, next time I'll have a pen and a paper. Definitely.

My barbarian will become a Thief or a Mage next time, to try different things ^^

Don't think I'll be able to complete this quest this time. Such a shame when the only thing I have left is defeating the pumpkinhead. :(

my experience and a reflection

• first time barbarian
• Favourite weapon : Rapier of Frost
• pumpkin & cat floor design was pretty cool
• orb memory delivery wasn't too hard. i had a pretty good memory.
• didn't note down where spike traps were, probably should have
• reached pumpkinhead for the first time at ~ lvl 6 (must've been extremely tired at the time because i swear it's health was like less than 500 at the start)
• then made a horrible mistake of replacing my resistance armour because i actually thought the above was true and i wanted +4 magic (i was going for 1 magic only for the whole game)
• pain and suffering continues when i went for try #2 and saw it was actually 1575HP.
• got my morale up to brilliant
• then another barbarian uses Demoralizing Roar and my morale dropped to terrible. thats when i also felt terrible, because honestly i didnt realise the skill dropped someone's morale so much. felt guilty for all the times i used it.
• was so sure i was gonna eventually finish then realised the dungeon was ending soon (thanks to AKnightToRemember for pointing out)
• demoralised. guess i wont be finishing.
• potions seemed very hard to come by after all walls checked and i swear the one at x11y3 cat floor didnt even bother stocking hp pots.

for the next dungeon, i'll definitely note down things as well as read the text more
i didnt even realise the sign at the start telling me there was a beholder but i went that way any lmao
i'll also try to die less (39 deaths lmao). i get real impatient and should probably wait for my energy to recover
also didnt realise market closes when dungeon starts, couldve spent my sWord coins haha.