05-17-2010, 08:09 PM
Magma Peak - Normal (87 playable rooms/9 secrets)
I finished this mansion with over 100% secrets found - the mansion options have 8 secrets set, though it really has 9. I also saw the same flickering glitch in room 16096 that I mentioned for the Easy version.
There were a few minor layer issues (I hate to call them issues because they don't interfere with the game):
One extremely minor thing I've noticed is inconsistency in how the ceiling layering is done. In one room, Jack will appear to jump in front of the ceiling tiles, and in the next he will be behind them.
A few examples:
16697 => 16698
15892 => 15893
16297 Look at the ceiling in this room, especially near the columns. Now compare this to room 16298. The second room feels more polished.
Anyway.. when someone's nitpicking to this degree, it must mean that all the big stuff's already been resolved
. Other than that, I couldn't find anything wrong with the mansion. It was a solid mansion.
Thoughts on relative difficulty levels:
I spent a lot of time on this one, and took lots of notes to compare it to the Easy version.
I spent a lot of time thinking about the differences between the bottom section in both Easy and Normal. I think the reason it feels a little easier is because the maze is mostly unchanged. In the easy version, the main challenges are non-monster obstacles. Keys and Doors increase the back and forth that's necessary to get through, and increase the time it takes to finish. In the Normal version, the keys and doors are gone, replaced with more monsters, and generally less treasure. I did use up more shields in the lower section in Normal, but I got through it faster and it felt easier because of familiarity.
Playing the top section of the mansion, I was struck by how much like the Easy mansion it felt, so I tried an experiment which ended up being more work than I expected. I tried keeping notes on major differences between each room in Easy and Normal version.
I was able to loosely break the rooms into a few categories:
- No Difference (or undetectable to casual inspection) - 36 rooms
- Slight difference (solely due to additional or different monsters) - 31 rooms
- Redesign (which may or may not include monster changes) - 7 Rooms
- Minor redesign (like above, but small changes less likely to result in death) - 13 rooms.
What I found is that most of the changes were applied to the bottom portions of the mansion. Of the 36 rooms I labeled as No difference, 28 of them were in the top six levels.
Instead of getting rid of the bottom section in Easy, you might consider focusing on those rooms where there was no or very little difference (1 additional monster in a room where there were none before). Perhaps some of these rooms might be made more easy in the Easy version.
Possible candidates:
- 15889
- 15892
- 15893
- 16291
I finished this mansion with over 100% secrets found - the mansion options have 8 secrets set, though it really has 9. I also saw the same flickering glitch in room 16096 that I mentioned for the Easy version.
There were a few minor layer issues (I hate to call them issues because they don't interfere with the game):
One extremely minor thing I've noticed is inconsistency in how the ceiling layering is done. In one room, Jack will appear to jump in front of the ceiling tiles, and in the next he will be behind them.
A few examples:
16697 => 16698
15892 => 15893
16297 Look at the ceiling in this room, especially near the columns. Now compare this to room 16298. The second room feels more polished.
Anyway.. when someone's nitpicking to this degree, it must mean that all the big stuff's already been resolved
. Other than that, I couldn't find anything wrong with the mansion. It was a solid mansion.Thoughts on relative difficulty levels:
I spent a lot of time on this one, and took lots of notes to compare it to the Easy version.
I spent a lot of time thinking about the differences between the bottom section in both Easy and Normal. I think the reason it feels a little easier is because the maze is mostly unchanged. In the easy version, the main challenges are non-monster obstacles. Keys and Doors increase the back and forth that's necessary to get through, and increase the time it takes to finish. In the Normal version, the keys and doors are gone, replaced with more monsters, and generally less treasure. I did use up more shields in the lower section in Normal, but I got through it faster and it felt easier because of familiarity.
Playing the top section of the mansion, I was struck by how much like the Easy mansion it felt, so I tried an experiment which ended up being more work than I expected. I tried keeping notes on major differences between each room in Easy and Normal version.
I was able to loosely break the rooms into a few categories:
- No Difference (or undetectable to casual inspection) - 36 rooms
- Slight difference (solely due to additional or different monsters) - 31 rooms
- Redesign (which may or may not include monster changes) - 7 Rooms
- Minor redesign (like above, but small changes less likely to result in death) - 13 rooms.
What I found is that most of the changes were applied to the bottom portions of the mansion. Of the 36 rooms I labeled as No difference, 28 of them were in the top six levels.
Instead of getting rid of the bottom section in Easy, you might consider focusing on those rooms where there was no or very little difference (1 additional monster in a room where there were none before). Perhaps some of these rooms might be made more easy in the Easy version.
Possible candidates:
- 15889
- 15892
- 15893
- 16291