What are your best tips to not get ambushed by the all-mighty boulder traps?

[The creator]

Around the hours i played barony i learned my mistakes and tried to master all the possible obstacles that could got on my ass (Even somehow dominating the gnome mines at least 2 times currently)

Yet the one thing that i feel that i still need to master is the art of avoiding boulder traps that arent seen until they see you first.

So masters of hamlet and the depths. what you can give me as advice on avoiding boulders?

[happygiggi]

Get used to look up. Else with good hearing, boulder hole make a wind sound, like the spike traps.

[mistersneak]

For me it's three things:
1. Understanding how random boulder traps work
2. Having your sound turned up
3. Never trust a high ceiling transition

Light spoilers.

To start, how boulder traps work: When a random boulder trap spawns, the trap casts out a series of 5 trigger tiles in the direction it's going to roll. From this you can deduce that boulders will be triggered from 5 tiles away when you enter a space with at least that much distance to travel. So if it's very dark, or there's a door between you and the trap, these are the situations where a "surprise" boulder trap can get the drop on you from straight ahead.

However a boulder will always make noise when it's about to drop.
So, if you hear a boulder, and you don't know where it's going to come from, you can deduce that it's likely that you stepped on one of the 5 trigger tiles, and that it very well could be coming straight at you from behind a closed door.
If unburdened, a player can move fast enough to (turn around, and) backtrack the other way, and turn to get out of the boulder's path. You just need to react quickly. Important not to slow yourself down with too much inventory!
If it turns out it was a boulder triggered by a monster somewhere else in a level, then that's fine, but whenever I hear that sound unexpectedly, I try to rapidly retreat to a previously-cleared corner where a boulder could surely not roll into.

The last bit of advice involves the type of trap that I still get killed by due to complacency: The dreaded two-tile high ceiling transition. It's always wise to carefully edge up to a ceiling transition and check for a boulder hole.
If you're moving quickly and you have a lot of open space to move, this tile isn't usually a death sentence. Boulders take a moment to drop, and so as long as you keep moving, you can slip right under a high-ceiling boulder trap and just keep moving to stay out of its way. But in tight spaces and dead ends, playing boldly like this can easily end in your demise. So especially if you don't have protective headwear or 85HP, slow down when walking into these ceiling transition spaces.

I'm commenting for fun and just to try and be helpful to a fellow player. Other members of the community are often more skilled than myself, so maybe somebody else has more advice!

[Eternal President Uncle Slam]

You turn off random traps. Doesn't disable achievements, so unless you enjoy scanning the ceiling for holes, just turn it off. It makes the game easier no doubt, but it makes it easier by removing something that forces you to play in an unfun way. I just don't wanna slowly creep down every hall and stare at the ceiling, simple as. Anyone could do that, but is it worth doing? Is that fun for you? Thats what you need to ask yourself.

[Morsealworth]

Originally posted by Eternal President Uncle Slam:

You turn off random traps. Doesn't disable achievements, so unless you enjoy scanning the ceiling for holes, just turn it off. It makes the game easier no doubt, but it makes it easier by removing something that forces you to play in an unfun way. I just don't wanna slowly creep down every hall and stare at the ceiling, simple as. Anyone could do that, but is it worth doing? Is that fun for you? Thats what you need to ask yourself.

Doesn't that also disable mimics? Those are hilarious.

[Eternal President Uncle Slam]

Originally posted by Morsealworth:

Originally posted by Eternal President Uncle Slam:

You turn off random traps. Doesn't disable achievements, so unless you enjoy scanning the ceiling for holes, just turn it off. It makes the game easier no doubt, but it makes it easier by removing something that forces you to play in an unfun way. I just don't wanna slowly creep down every hall and stare at the ceiling, simple as. Anyone could do that, but is it worth doing? Is that fun for you? Thats what you need to ask yourself.

Doesn't that also disable mimics? Those are hilarious.

Yeah it does and I don't like it. Mimics are fun to fight when the show up, but boulders force you to play most of the run in an unfun way so its still worth it to me.

[GridLost]

Originally posted by mistersneak:

For me it's three things:
1. Understanding how random boulder traps work
2. Having your sound turned up
3. Never trust a high ceiling transition

Light spoilers.

To start, how boulder traps work: When a random boulder trap spawns, the trap casts out a series of 5 trigger tiles in the direction it's going to roll. From this you can deduce that boulders will be triggered from 5 tiles away when you enter a space with at least that much distance to travel. So if it's very dark, or there's a door between you and the trap, these are the situations where a "surprise" boulder trap can get the drop on you from straight ahead.

However a boulder will always make noise when it's about to drop.
So, if you hear a boulder, and you don't know where it's going to come from, you can deduce that it's likely that you stepped on one of the 5 trigger tiles, and that it very well could be coming straight at you from behind a closed door.
If unburdened, a player can move fast enough to (turn around, and) backtrack the other way, and turn to get out of the boulder's path. You just need to react quickly. Important not to slow yourself down with too much inventory!
If it turns out it was a boulder triggered by a monster somewhere else in a level, then that's fine, but whenever I hear that sound unexpectedly, I try to rapidly retreat to a previously-cleared corner where a boulder could surely not roll into.

The last bit of advice involves the type of trap that I still get killed by due to complacency: The dreaded two-tile high ceiling transition. It's always wise to carefully edge up to a ceiling transition and check for a boulder hole.
If you're moving quickly and you have a lot of open space to move, this tile isn't usually a death sentence. Boulders take a moment to drop, and so as long as you keep moving, you can slip right under a high-ceiling boulder trap and just keep moving to stay out of its way. But in tight spaces and dead ends, playing boldly like this can easily end in your demise. So especially if you don't have protective headwear or 85HP, slow down when walking into these ceiling transition spaces.

I'm commenting for fun and just to try and be helpful to a fellow player. Other members of the community are often more skilled than myself, so maybe somebody else has more advice!

I find it refreshing that a dev enjoys playing his own creation. That's my aim as well. I am Creating the game I want to play and will play. I plan on proc gen for maps as well, using hand crafted modules. If I may ask, what engine did you go with. UE5 is my best option. I'm not a coder.

[The creator]

Originally posted by mistersneak:

For me it's three things:
1. Understanding how random boulder traps work
2. Having your sound turned up
3. Never trust a high ceiling transition

Light spoilers.

To start, how boulder traps work: When a random boulder trap spawns, the trap casts out a series of 5 trigger tiles in the direction it's going to roll. From this you can deduce that boulders will be triggered from 5 tiles away when you enter a space with at least that much distance to travel. So if it's very dark, or there's a door between you and the trap, these are the situations where a "surprise" boulder trap can get the drop on you from straight ahead.

However a boulder will always make noise when it's about to drop.
So, if you hear a boulder, and you don't know where it's going to come from, you can deduce that it's likely that you stepped on one of the 5 trigger tiles, and that it very well could be coming straight at you from behind a closed door.
If unburdened, a player can move fast enough to (turn around, and) backtrack the other way, and turn to get out of the boulder's path. You just need to react quickly. Important not to slow yourself down with too much inventory!
If it turns out it was a boulder triggered by a monster somewhere else in a level, then that's fine, but whenever I hear that sound unexpectedly, I try to rapidly retreat to a previously-cleared corner where a boulder could surely not roll into.

The last bit of advice involves the type of trap that I still get killed by due to complacency: The dreaded two-tile high ceiling transition. It's always wise to carefully edge up to a ceiling transition and check for a boulder hole.
If you're moving quickly and you have a lot of open space to move, this tile isn't usually a death sentence. Boulders take a moment to drop, and so as long as you keep moving, you can slip right under a high-ceiling boulder trap and just keep moving to stay out of its way. But in tight spaces and dead ends, playing boldly like this can easily end in your demise. So especially if you don't have protective headwear or 85HP, slow down when walking into these ceiling transition spaces.

I'm commenting for fun and just to try and be helpful to a fellow player. Other members of the community are often more skilled than myself, so maybe somebody else has more advice!

Devs,first of all.

You all created one of the best games out there for people who love pain and who want to modify their experience to their bes

Second.

Thanks for the details about some things i didnt knew about (Mostly the fact that having 85 hp or more could help you thank one)

I just hope that we see more goodies in the future and we get more interesting stuff to discover (This last part may be only me,i have a ton more to discover)

[Grandpa Crack Pipe]

Advanced paranoia.

[Speed Malus]

Use this mechanic called sixth sense, it's kind of like a cheat code in humans.

[Cheggf]

Originally posted by Eternal President Uncle Slam:

You turn off random traps. Doesn't disable achievements, so unless you enjoy scanning the ceiling for holes, just turn it off. It makes the game easier no doubt, but it makes it easier by removing something that forces you to play in an unfun way. I just don't wanna slowly creep down every hall and stare at the ceiling, simple as. Anyone could do that, but is it worth doing? Is that fun for you? Thats what you need to ask yourself.

I don't think I've ever once looked at the ceiling for boulders and I almost never die to them. They make a really loud noise for a really long time before they hit you, if you just move a single tile diagonally when you hear that noise you are guaranteed to dodge the boulder in 99.999% of cases (technically it's theoretically possible that an enemy could trigger a distant boulder that coincidentally is going to head to the tile you just moved onto, but you'd be able to see it coming since it's so far away and easily step out of the way).

[dorpenguin]

disable random traps

[Dreaming Prince]

Originally posted by Eternal President Uncle Slam:

Originally posted by Morsealworth:

Doesn't that also disable mimics? Those are hilarious.

Yeah it does and I don't like it. Mimics are fun to fight when the show up, but boulders force you to play most of the run in an unfun way so its still worth it to me.

after dying to boulders in my first couple runs when starting out, i turned off the traps n never looked back. too bad about the mimics, ive seen exactly 1 lol

wish there were a setting to just turn off the boulders..