Mod: Secrets of the Citadel

talpa
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Re: Mod: Secrets of the Citadel

Post by talpa »

I think I found the solution, I don't know if I have to laugh at myself or be angry at myself. I had all wrong from the beginning. Please let me know if the following is the way you intended or it's an alternate solution... Surely it flows very simple. If it's right, I suspect you were slightly misleading me ;)
Spoiler: show
Go to the room on the left of the starting one.
Ignore the guard and all the raise button, just have the loose floor fall and go down. You can avoid to ever come back here!
There you can drink the green potion, which opens the first of the three gates on the far right of the level. Exit this room and never care to come back!

Pass the chompers by simply walking and "falling" down; a raise button opens the gate on the left. Follow all the path up, killing the green guard. Now it starts the sequence of opening the gates and jumping left and right. If you care to repeat, you can get the LP. But, straight to exit:
- press the upper button in the higher-left room
- in the same room, press the lower button, this allows you to jump right
- run under the gate to the raise button there, then quickly run back and jump left
- (if you jump at the right moment) you will land two floors down (through the gate in front of the chompers), so you will lose a life and be stuck for a while
- slide on the left to gain momentum, then jump right through the chompers, run right to press the raise button, the run back and jump back left
- jump a second time left (and down) to where the feather potion is
- drink it and press the raise button there
- go right, then up to where you have just entered (the gate in front of the chompers), jump right before exiting the room, this way you won't go at the chomper level, but to the lower one, where the second green potion is.

drink it and now, two of the three gates on the far right of the level will be open.

Here is the key to the level I found. Jump right avoiding the drop button. Go up (now the gate will close behind your back).
Jump right, climb up, let the right loose floor on your head drop, this will open the right gate of the room.
Climb up, AND DON'T WORRY if doing so you have to press the drop button. You can simply have the second loose tile drop after, re-opening the gate.
Using the last loose floor to slide and gain momentum, you can jump right avoiding the drop button and pass through the gates.

Now, you will face the last green potion, that opens the third and final gate that allows you to go to the button that raises the level door.

From there on, it's straight forward. Go back, climb up, go to the room on the right of the starting one and you will face Jaffar. Defeat him, and the gate will re-open automatically and exiting you will be in another room, all the way to the left to the ending sequence :D
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Re: Mod: Secrets of the Citadel

Post by Falcury »

Argh, I totally missed that possibility! :P
Spoiler: show
talpa wrote:Climb up, AND DON'T WORRY if doing so you have to press the drop button. You can simply have the second loose tile drop after, re-opening the gate.
I was considering whether to leave that second loose floor in place, or remove it (the one above the raise tile). It seemed to be nice to have there, and I thought I'd covered all the possibilities... Clearly not! Very nice find indeed.

I was not misleading you regarding the solution I originally envisioned...
Here's a hint for that solution: regarding that gate to the right of the raise button, where you seemingly would get trapped: what if the loose floor there is not the problem, but in fact a great help?

And about "knocking down that one tile from below": I was referring to a different approach for getting that tile to fall... Think back to how you got the bottom-most green potion... And think about the duration of the feather effect...
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Re: Mod: Secrets of the Citadel

Post by talpa »

Even with you hints, I still can't get your intended path :(
Maybe you can tell me if all that I noticed works as you intended or there is some errata, or (if I am missing something) at which point my ideas start to go wrong...

Or should I know something I clearly don't, like, is it possible that drop buttons don't work while on feather effect, or some other "craziness" of that kind?
Spoiler: show
Regarding the "other way" to have those tile fall, if the idea is that you go down from the starting room, doesn't seem a problem. The only problem seems how to get back after drinking the potion. Possibly, if you manage to exit the two gates where the green potion is, you could have those floor fall at the end, while exiting that room.

Let's follow the possible paths for going down. There is the one I shown, that drives you directly to the first potion. Or there is going down directly from the starting room (possibly doing some other things before).

If you plan to ever go back in the room on the left of the starting one, then you have to kill the guard on the raise button, since by default he isn't pressing it, so if you don't do that, you can't enter coming from the left. By the way, if you plan on using his dead body in other rooms, you can't, because if you drag him on the left, he will also fall down one level, and the programs seems to have him disappear without pressing any buttons.

Once you entered that room (coming from the starting one) you have three way out:
1) the way you came
2) going down by the loose floor
3) from the left, past the guard

if you follow the 3) then you get stuck. True, you can exit from the loose floor on the right side of the gate. But doing so, if you haven't drunk the potion yet, the loose floor will erase the potion. So I would exclude that path.

If you go for the second path, I would then follow my previous solution :P but let's say you can't.
Both going 1 or 2, you have no way to avoid pressing a drop button that closes
- the gate you used to enter the room on the left of the starting one
- the two gates where the green potion is
In fact, if you choose to go back where you started, there is a drop button you have to press in order to climb up.
If you choose to go down and drink the potion (a thing that you have to do sooner or later, even if going for the path 1) then you find yourself with a drop button on the left and one on the right, both closing the same gates, and you have to climb up one way or the other.

Conclusions: it seems unavoidable that:
A) the room on the left of the starting one remains accessible only from the left (if you killed the guard)
B) you have to find raise buttons for the two gates where the potion was, since they get closed.

If that holds, the loose floor on the right of the gate in this very central rooms seems useless. True, you can use it to go down passing through the gate. If you are arriving here after getting the potion (let's assume you already drinked the other one too) you can't simply go down otherwise you will again find yourself with a drop button both on the left and on the right.
You could think you could use the hole to go down, trying to land on the right (or at least grabbing the floor avoiding the drop button): I have tried it, you can't. If you are arriving from the only place where it seems possible to open that gate, which is to say, the room on the left of the starting one, when you arrive here, the gate is already almost close, so you can't jump right starting from the left of the gate. And if you pass the gate, it seems there is no way to avoid falling on a drop button: I tried jumping, walking, going down and also having the kid grab the upper floor till he looses the grab, still, he doesn't seem able to grab the down floor without pressing a drop button.

Going back to fact (B), it seems there is only one raise button for the left gate and two of them for the right one. This is the only thing that leaves me dubious at the moment, until you say where is my reasoning wrong, I mean :D
The button that raises the left gate is in between of them. If so, assuming you already drank the potion, which means you closed the gates, you have to make the floor fall onto it. Which means, you had to go down not "my way" but directly under the starting room, leaving "alive" the loose floor in the room on the left of the starting one; you had to go back in the latter and have this floor fall. If so, you can go down with the floor, jump over the drop buttons, and try some other acrobacy, which is where I was originally, but I found them all too slow. If we are going through this, we can assume the left gate stays open forever, from now on. (And, we haven't used the hole for now).

There are two raise buttons for the right gate. Past it, on the right, there is a loose floor that falls down onto a raise button. But to make it fall, you should have already passed the gate. Or, you could have it fall while going down directly under the starting room. But then, you wouldn't have drink the upper potion yet, so you would press a drop button after the raising one, so it would be completely useless to have this loose floor drop before. Conclusion: it seems there isn't any use for this button and this loose floor. Maybe here is something I am missing, but having said what I said, it seems there aren't any "holes in the plot" too :P

The second raise button is just on the left of the upper gate near the hole. This is the acrobacy I described before, you can't manage to make it in time. The other acrobacy I tried is open the upper gate by pressing the button in the room on the left of the starting one, then go through the chompers and all the way under until you arrive to the gate and pass it and you find yourself near the hole; but as I said, I always landed on a drop button even with this path.

Am I missing something?
Or is something working in a different way then you intended (for example, the guard should open the door without having to kill him before)?
Here's a hint for that solution: regarding that gate to the right of the raise button, where you seemingly would get trapped: what if the loose floor there is not the problem, but in fact a great help?
I'm even no more sure we are speaking of the same hole :D
Are we speaking about the loose floor in the roome with the upper potion, where there are the gates and two drop buttons? If so, as I said before, It doesn't seem to be a way to go down through that hole.
And about "knocking down that one tile from below": I was referring to a different approach for getting that tile to fall... Think back to how you got the bottom-most green potion... And think about the duration of the feather effect...
Now are we speaking about the two loose floors, one of which I referred to as "don't worry"?
I see there could be a trick: if you have the right tile drop down from below, then you can have also the left one drop without having to pass above it. I just discovered a trick where if you try a jump up-left while holding shift, the kid grab the floor, which then falls. But:
- Doesn't seem important (as I said, you could even run on it while exiting from the room with the two gates where the upper potion was)
- the problem of exiting from the room with the drop buttons, the gates, (and where the upper potion was) remains untouched. That's my main problem, it seems.
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Re: Mod: Secrets of the Citadel

Post by Falcury »

Your reasoning is correct and you got nearly everything spot on! :)
Spoiler: show
talpa wrote:You could think you could use the hole to go down, trying to land on the right (or at least grabbing the floor avoiding the drop button): I have tried it, you can't.
I know of two ways in which it can be done (using the loose floor). One is a more obscure and counter-intuitive trick (but easy to do if you know how); the other way is more intuitive, but a bit harder (and this trick is not yet on the list of tricks, so you would have to figure it out by yourself :P)

I at first wondered if this design would be too obscure, but... you are at a disadvantage, because if I'm right you haven't yet done the level 10 bonus potion, right? In fact, the steps needed to get that potion would 'teach' you that second trick (you need it, to be able to get the level 10 bonus potion). So my idea was that players who reach the bonus level would 'recognize' that you could do that same trick at that spot, because they had done it earlier already. Because you did the levels in a different order, you couldn't have known yet... sorry ;)
Edit:
Spoiler: show
talpa wrote:Now are we speaking about the two loose floors, one of which I referred to as "don't worry"?
I see there could be a trick: if you have the right tile drop down from below, then you can have also the left one drop without having to pass above it. I just discovered a trick where if you try a jump up-left while holding shift, the kid grab the floor, which then falls. But:
- Doesn't seem important (as I said, you could even run on it while exiting from the room with the two gates where the upper potion was)
- the problem of exiting from the room with the drop buttons, the gates, (and where the upper potion was) remains untouched. That's my main problem, it seems.
Yes, it is indeed not important for solving that problem. I confused you with this hint... I should attempt to clarify this (indeed unrelated) alternative route a bit further:
sotc-14-1.png
sotc-14-1.png (7.65 KiB) Viewed 5948 times
Suppose that in the room to the right of this one, the rightmost raise button has not yet been triggered by a loose floor. Then from this position, it is possible make it across the gap without causing the gate to close.
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Re: Mod: Secrets of the Citadel

Post by talpa »

Spoiler: show
I know of two ways in which it can be done (using the loose floor). One is a more obscure and counter-intuitive trick (but easy to do if you know how); the other way is more intuitive, but a bit harder (and this trick is not yet on the list of tricks, so you would have to figure it out by yourself :P)
(...) if I'm right you haven't yet done the level 10 bonus potion, right? In fact, the steps needed to get that potion would 'teach' you that second trick (you need it, to be able to get the level 10 bonus potion)
You are right, I completed level 10 without the bonus potion, and in order to get to the bonus level on the other hand I took the bonus potion on level 10 without completing it :D
Are you referring to this?
To be fast enough: jump to hit the loose tile, do a standing jump, get hit by the tile and land on the debris below
I haven't understood exactly how it works, still seems different from the situation in the room with the green potion, the gates and the two drop buttons.
Can't you clarify? and/or describe the "obscure" trick?

As for the unrelated question:
Suppose that in the room to the right of this one, the rightmost raise button has not yet been triggered by a loose floor. Then from this position, it is possible make it across the gap without causing the gate to close
Yes of course, if the feather potion is still active, you can jump and grab avoiding the drop button. Accomplished :D
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Re: Mod: Secrets of the Citadel

Post by Falcury »

Spoiler: show
talpa wrote:Are you referring to this?
Ah, I see now that the walkthrough is not clear on how one should proceed after reaching the room with the exit door in level 10. From that point onwards, the idea is that you should not go back the way you came, but go left, then down.

Regarding the trick that must be learned in order to be able to get to the bonus potion, I specifically meant this bit:
However, there is also a close button in the room to the right, where the bonus potion is, which makes it harder.
Because you need to press that close button to get back to the left side, don't drop the loose tile at first!
(Avoiding touching that tile while still surviving is difficult, but possible with crouch-hops.)
Hm, my explanation here is still too vague (it was a bit hard to explain...)
I should maybe have written, "don't drop the loose tile above the raise button at first"
(the reason that you need to keep that tile intact for a while, is because you need to be able to 'safely' press that close button in order to drop down into the room where the level started)
Hopefully this clears things up a bit?
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Re: Mod: Secrets of the Citadel

Post by talpa »

Hopefully this clears things up a bit?
Not quite.
Why are we now speaking of not having floors fall on a raise button when you still have to pass on a drop one? Wasn't that already discussed, and didn't we agreed that the question was another?

Weren't we discussing this?
Spoiler: show
Referring to the room with the upper green potion, two drop buttons, two gates on the right, and a gate on the upper level, on the right of which there is a loose floor
You could think you could use the hole to go down, trying to land on the right (or at least grabbing the floor avoiding the drop button): I have tried it, you can't
I know of two ways in which it can be done (using the loose floor). One is a more obscure and counter-intuitive trick (but easy to do if you know how); the other way is more intuitive, but a bit harder (and this trick is not yet on the list of tricks, so you would have to figure it out by yourself :P)
English isn't my mother language, so I can't understand what "crouch-hops" means.

Can't we please settle for a clear explanation of what is the "intuitive" but difficult trick, and possibly also that counterintuitive but easy one? :D :D
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Re: Mod: Secrets of the Citadel

Post by Falcury »

With "crouch-hop", for lack of a better term, I mean the move where you duck down/crouch, then press forward (you 'hop'). I don't know what else I should call it.
My previous post was about level 10 mainly... You asked about things I wrote in the solutions document, so I tried to clarify that a bit.
Spoiler: show
Counterintuitive trick, easy to do if you move as close as possible to the closing/closed gate: run forward onto the loose tile, then immediately do a safe step forward. As you fall, you'll move forward a bit so you can grab the ledge.
By correctly aligning and timing the "crouch-hop" manoever, you can get a similar effect (you'll gain forward speed, which allows you to grab the lower floor). This is the trick you need in level 10 as well.
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Re: Mod: Secrets of the Citadel

Post by talpa »

Thank You, I'll try them.
EDIT: done, both in level 14 and in level 10.
Maybe when I have time I'll record also the originally intended way of level 14.

On a different topic, level 10, can't you also go back by the far right arriving to the starting room?
EDIT: no you can't.
Still haven't got the bonus potion in level 10 since being so fast to press the raise button and pass back under the gate is more difficult than the stunt we were speaking about ;)
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Re: Mod: Secrets of the Citadel

Post by David »

I began to play this mod last weekend.
I could reach level 4.
There I can either open the exit, or get to the exit, but not both. :?
That mirror severely hurts my ability to drop down alive.
(No help, please, I like to figure out things myself.)

I could get the big potion on level 1,2,4, but not on 3.
I see the level 3 one is considered hard: viewtopic.php?p=20393#p20393
(Why is a sword there, anyway?)
I guess that gate puzzles are one of those things that can make PoP mods challenging...

Level 3 also has a grey potion, but I could not get there alive.
But the readme says it's an extra time potion, and I'm playing in normal (untimed) mode, so I guess it's not that important.

And what's this thing with all those useless hurt and flip potions? :)

And I found a funny/interesting thing:
If a skeleton sees that the prince is chomped, it walks back a bit, as if it was frightened of what happened. :)
(Hm, it does not happen if I play the mod with the original PoP. Is this some kind of addition?)
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Re: Mod: Secrets of the Citadel

Post by Norbert »

David wrote:And I found a funny/interesting thing:
If a skeleton sees that the prince is chomped, it walks back a bit, as if it was frightened of what happened. :)
(Hm, it does not happen if I play the mod with the original PoP. Is this some kind of addition?)
Funny, I noticed the exact same guard behavior not too long ago when I was playing around with the Mega Drive version.
The guards take 1 step back there after killing the prince. (If the prince was using his sword.)
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Re: Mod: Secrets of the Citadel

Post by talpa »

David wrote:I began to play this mod last weekend.
I could reach level 4.
There I can either open the exit, or get to the exit, but not both. :?
That mirror severely hurts my ability to drop down alive.
(No help, please, I like to figure out things myself.)
I guess you are missing something...
Spoiler: show
Are you sure you are trying exiting from the right door?
I could get the big potion on level 1,2,4, but not on 3.
I see the level 3 one is considered hard: viewtopic.php?p=20393#p20393
(Why is a sword there, anyway?)
That is the question!
I found hard just one stunt of this level, then realized there are many ways to perform it, some of them simpler than others.
Level 3 also has a grey potion, but I could not get there alive.
But the readme says it's an extra time potion, and I'm playing in normal (untimed) mode, so I guess it's not that important
I strongly suggest you to NOT leave behind any grey potions
Spoiler: show
Something different happens at the end of the game if you collect ALL of them, that you will miss this way.
Also I don't understand why you find it difficult getting this one, I am not an expert of the many tricks of the game, but this one I found easy...

Regards
Last edited by talpa on January 9th, 2017, 3:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Mod: Secrets of the Citadel

Post by Falcury »

Don't worry about it, talpa :) David said he wants to figure things out without help.

Maybe you could edit your last points so those are enclosed in a spoiler tag as well?
Spoiler: show
Maybe in hindsight it was not the best idea for me to announce right up front that there was special secret stuff like an alternate ending... If I had kept it secret a bit longer, it would have been an interesting discovery later on. I did not intend the alternate ending to be the "one and only one". My idea was that it should be possible to complete the levels without any prior knowledge. Then after that, there would be hidden layers ;)
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Re: Mod: Secrets of the Citadel

Post by Falcury »

David wrote:And what's this thing with all those useless hurt and flip potions? :)
Thinking about it now, I probably should not have left that flip potion there... It's only confusing. It's even extra annoying because it disturbs the flow of the level (one needs to be careful not to accidentally drink it...)
David wrote:And I found a funny/interesting thing:
If a skeleton sees that the prince is chomped, it walks back a bit, as if it was frightened of what happened. :)
(Hm, it does not happen if I play the mod with the original PoP. Is this some kind of addition?)
No, nothing changed I think...
It's interesting though. Skeletons in level 3 always tend to behave slightly strangely, compared to normal guards. (hm, maybe they are "simply misunderstood" creatures)
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Re: Mod: Secrets of the Citadel

Post by David »

About level 4:
Spoiler: show
talpa wrote:Are you sure you are trying exiting from the right door?
Now that you say, I think I saw another exit...
Falcury wrote:It's interesting though. Skeletons in level 3 always tend to behave slightly strangely, compared to normal guards. (hm, maybe they are "simply misunderstood" creatures)
I'm not sure what you meant by the parenthesized sentence, but it reminds me of Undertale...
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