It seems pre-announcing is encouraged, so here I am, announcing my next mansion before it's done!

"In the cleft between a hill and a dale, far off the beaten path, there stands an ancient, dignified house. A man named Coine built the first of it together with his family, centuries ago, and their descendants have gone on, building a bit at a time, until the capstone was laid at last some fifty years ago.

The last lord of the house, Eastman Coine, was an eccentric and mysterious collector of coins. He threw open the doors to the public to showcase the house's fine history and his extensive collection of money. He also held competitions to see who could beat the bizarre series of obstacles and traps his paranoid ancestors had built into the place over the years.

One day several years ago, Coine disappeared mysteriously. This was, of course, in accordance with tradition; after all, what good is being mysterious and eccentric if you can't disappear mysteriously? And so, his disappearance went little remarked upon, and the House of Coine was subsequently ransacked by many a midnight adventurer and stripped of its former wealth and glory.

The once-proud house now stands as little more than a dangerous attraction for thrill-seeking college students. But rumors persist that Coine had far more wealth than he ever let on, and nobody has really plumbed the depths of the house to see what he may have left behind..."

House of Coine will be about 40 (+-10) rooms. As of now, I've done 11 of them. I hope to have this done before (or slightly after ;)) the start of the contest. I've got to practice, right?

As I'm building it, I occasionally get this nagging sense of deja-vu, as though I've seen what I'm building before. But I've played so many mansions I couldn't tell you where. I find it likely that my subconscious may just regurgitate something I've seen before.

Here is one of those rooms that gave me that feeling. Does it look familiar to anyone else?

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Nice to know that someone is still building "unaware" of the contest. Sometimes I have the feeling thar everyone got paralysed.

Your screenshot reminds me of aquaMat, but only because of the use of those dirty mud-bricks.

Anyway, I am looking forward. :)

Freddy wrote on 20.04.2007 at 08:36:49:

Nice to know that someone is still building "unaware" of the contest. Sometimes I have the feeling thar everyone got paralysed.

Well, I'm sort of in the unique position of having entered the contest with no experience in building mansions. I don't really expect to win anything (and that's not why I'm doing it; I like a fun challenge is all), but I do want to give it my best shot.

So, I need to practice! I made eavesdropping to learn how the editor works, and now I'm making a "real" mansion to practice that aspect thereof. It's nothing ambitious, but like Eavesdropping, it should still be fun all the same.

Ooo a first timer... here's a hint: When I made my first mansion, it was alright. (Wingy's small mansion) Don't make bricks be alone*. Like, aquamat usualy uses alone bricks. That's ok, but Jacob didn't like it. You used alone bricks in your picture up there. I kinda liked that, but it needs more,, bricks!  ;) It will get your score up abit... maybe you have a gift for designing which I might have, if I win 1st, but if you do, that's going to be a problem for me. :P

*Bricks that don't have any other bricks near, and stands out abit.
Cheers,
Wingy

Whaaat ??

I'm hearing a bit too much of "Don't do this, don't do that" on these boards lately.....

Every designer should be able to do whatever he wants, as long he doesn't crash the user's computers or offends anyone....
if there are more and more "rules" introduced this will stop being fun.

You know, ryos, you don't have to do want I said to do. But it would make it look abit better, if I say so myself.  ;)

I liked "messy" style mansions where there is stuff just scattered in places, kinda like a junkyard. The mind mines was a great example of this, not saying it's bad, I'm just saying I like it where there are layer 6 bricks where you're walking. Gives the mansion a nice cave feel or something along the lines of that... ;D

Don't worry, Wingy...I'm not even sure what you're talking about!  :o

I don't know what you mean by "alone" bricks. Which bricks in the shot look "alone" to you?

Either way, I like the way the room looks. But if there's simple change I could make that would make it look better, I'm open to trying.

I think the answer on this issue is rather simple.

Speaking for myself, I never made a "regular" mansion. I was always experimenting with very small "crazy" houses and my two major mansions were, or extremely huge, or contained an extremely difficult puzzle. The only "normal" things that I did were: a section in Catacombs and the unfinished A deserted holiday village. What I want to say, is that aquaMat is right about "swimming in free style" as long as we are talking about custom mansions. So, Ryos, please go on. Since neither Jacob Vann or Wingy do not NEED to like it! ;)

The contest with its rules is the other side of the story. And that is very clear as well. Participating means accepting the rules. And believe me, I will have BIG TROUBLES. ::)0

Thanks Freddy. I haven't made a "normal" mansion either! ;D

I will continue as I had planned. Fortunately, the room I posted is not representative of the mansion's overall style anyway. :)

In other news, I've decided to lift the rope graphics from Mummy's Revenge. Thanks Joe! They look fantastic!  [smiley=tekst-toppie.gif]

House of Coine will be done in a few days. I'm anxious to get it done--I haven't even looked at the expansion pack yet, for fear that I'll get into that and lose interest in building a mansion in the old style.

Anyway, I'll need a couple of testers. I'm trying something a little different here, and I want to make sure it works. Any takers?

Thanks!  :D

Ho, ho! I am here to test your mansion! Need my mail address?

Ryos,
normally I'd be glad to help you....  but I'm so "behind" with my contest mansion (having not even laid out any idea or plan, let alone started building earnestly).... so sorry, but I have to pass !!

(Unless you tell me it's only a very small mansion, say 20 rooms or less.... then I'd be able to squeeze it in...!)

I could take a look at it since I'm ahead at my mansion in the contest. (35% done already!) My e-mail is: mwingy@hotmail.com

Looking forward to beta-test it, since I'm sure I have lots of time.
Cheers,
Wingy

Thanks for volunteering you two. I have all the help I need now. :)

It'll be done...Sunday. Or Monday. Or, heck, maybe even next Saturday. But whenever it is, it'll be done soon...Real Soon Now™ ;D.

So, uh, 10 days later, HoC has entered beta testing. Hooray! ;D

Really looking forward to it! It's been way too long since we've had a new mansion to play.
8-)

I'm looking forward to see what you came up with, ryos......!!

I just sent the finished product off to the administrators. Hope you enjoy it...

House of Coine is now downloadable.

W00T! Thanks brell!

My dear Ryos.....

you once accused me of "quirkyness"....but I have to say House Of Coine is (so far) the QUIRKIEST, weirdest place I ever visited  :D ;) !!!
What with being killed by a zillion of squirrels in the (ca.) third room...not once, but -like - 4 times etc.
What IS this ???? (The epitome of a cheap death room ??  ;))  
Looking forward to the "really strange" rooms which I'm sure will lay ahead of me.....

But progress is really slow....

BTW, I found a first Jack-stuck in room 16901... I had to abort the game:  I climbed higher and higher from the room middle until that little caveat near the top center.... ended stuck there.
Remember: every route that is "possible", someone will find and take it !

aquaMat wrote on 26.05.2007 at 00:42:27:

My dear Ryos..... you once accused me of "quirkyness"....but I have to say House Of Coine is (so far) the QUIRKIEST, weirdest place I ever visited  :D ;) !!!

Hmm...quirky, you say? In a good way, right? ;D


Quote:

What with being killed by a zillion of squirrels in the (ca.) third room...not once, but -like - 4 times etc. What IS this ???? (The epitome of a cheap death room ??  ;))   Looking forward to the "really strange" rooms which I'm sure will lay ahead of me.....

Cheap?? Me? NEVER! :P

No, really, I tried not to make it cheap. Well...the very beginning is a little cheap, but I feel the storyline calls for it. I never loose a life in this room - I thought it was pretty easy actually... :-[

Tell me honestly - where was it cheap? Maybe I can fix it.


Quote:

But progress is really slow.... BTW, I found a first Jack-stuck in room 16901... I had to abort the game:  I climbed higher and higher from the room middle until that little caveat near the top center.... ended stuck there. Remember: every route that is "possible", someone will find and take it !

I can't reproduce this. Can you post a movie or screen shot?

Thanks for your comments so far!

P.S. Here's a movie of the 'squirrel' room in case you didn't believe me when I said you could beat it without loosing a life.  8-)

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Oh, and...I'm a fan of walkthroughs myself. Not that I use them unless I absolutely need to, but sometimes it's better to cheat and get through than remain stuck.

But, being too lazy to write one, I recorded one instead. :D

Warning: This video shows all secrets, as well as the way through the mansion. Contents may have settled during shipping. Ride at own risk.

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Finished in twelve or so minutes, 100% secrets. I enjoyed it, but it is a very unforgiving mansion, mainly due to the total lack of treasure. Every zapper beam accident or fall is a permanent death, so a lot of rooms are way tenser than they otherwise would be. That's not a bad thing for a short, linear mansion like this one, though, and the story justifies it. I did appreciate the shields scattered about.

I got all the way through on my second try, but that first scorpion room massacred me on my first attempt, just because I didn't key into the logic until I had thrown away a few lives. Now it's easy, of course, but I think it would have been a stronger design if there were an introduction to the concept. Even just putting a single scorpion cage in the previous room would have worked, so the player could see what was going on and have a legitimate chance at deciphering the hard room without getting ripped apart. Those things ambush you pretty quickly.

I really enjoyed the atrium with the giant multi-room background picture, although I'm confused by your choice to use rope graphics when the vines would have looked so good there. I really like vertical movement in this game. It's a game that's unusually well suited to vertical level design, so I'm always happy to see it in a mansion.

Good job on your first big mansion. As always, I wish it were less linear and less focused on ultra-precise jumps, but it's definitely fun for what it is, and the graphic choices are very nice in a number of areas. And it's well written, of course. I find it strange to see so much text on a single sign, somehow. It seems like a segmented comic strip approach might feel more natural for this game. It breaks the flow of the action to stop and read a single sign for so long. But the signs themselves were entertaining. Just felt odd.

EDIT: You know, come to think of it, the mansion isn't really that linear. I just somehow never had the feeling that I was free to explore very often. But it's hard to say why I had that impression, since there are plenty of branches and different nooks and crannies with keys tucked away in them. I guess it's because I had to do each branch in order. Anyway, my favorite parts were always when the design opened up (like in the atrium) and let me look around, and I dig that there's a mix of those kinds of areas and the more tight, challenging stuff.

In the meantime I've b eaten HOC too (see pic below).
Once you're after the first save pedestal (which comes too late for my taste, especially compared to the distance(s) between later save points) and get accustomed to its weirdness, it gets quite enjoyable and much more manageable.

In the meantime I can survive the "1000 squirrels room" too, without losing a little life. However until one finds out how that works, one loses at least a handful of lives, and that was what I referred to as a little "cheap". Although I have to say, once you know how it works, the room becomes quite fun.

The whole thing, with its wild style, reminds me a bit of Sam's style, but together with the funny storyline (and the pun with the absence of money in a place called "House Of Coins") it has quite a unique style of its own.

As some of you know, I'm not too much of a fan of these "wild style mansions" (the sort where rooms stop being "logical" and feature doors in strange places and too much colors etc.), but in this case I think the border is only occasionally crossed, and overall I enjoyed it !

I missed secrets though (guess there were only about three) and I have seen many a spot where I suspected one (which didn't come). However I understand it's not easy to plant secrets in a mansion that has the absence of money as a concept.  ;)
And I, too, felt it could have been a tiny bit less linear.

As for the Jack-stuck, I'll try to make a movie of it tomorrow.

Congratulations on your first mansion.

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Thanks for the comments, guys!

Re: it feels linear: I think that's mostly because each non-linear section is fairly small, and there's a linear connection between such sections. Or something.

Re: The rope graphics: When I chose to use the rope graphics so kindly provided by joeb, I was only planning to do one room in the "background mosaic" style. But then I tried it, and realized it could only really work (or it would work much better) if the mural spanned a whole tower. I still like the way the ropes look better than the vines though, and think that they make more sense in a mansion setting.


Quote:

As some of you know, I'm not too much of a fan of these "wild style mansions" (the sort where rooms stop being "logical" and feature doors in strange places and too much colors etc.), but in this case I think the border is only occasionally crossed, and overall I enjoyed it !

This from the creator of Discoteque of Doom! :P No, really Aquamat, coming from you this means a lot (you calling me unique that is).

Never mind about the movie, I found it. Fix on its way...later...right now, I'm going to bed. :)

Thanks once again for the comments. Now...I'd better get started on my contest mansion!

Nice mansion, Ryos. Sorry I couldn't report any bugs I found during the beta-testing, I was alitte busy with school, and I had no access the computer with MM on it! Also, I had to go work with my dad somewhere, and earned about $180 CAN! :) Now I might beable to get out of dept, and pay money to fix my computer...

I played the first 10 rooms, though. Liked your style, abit like AquaMats. (Abit, not completly!) Some of my puzzles from my old mansions where in there, but they where used differantly. Such as, to survive a fall from very high, theres alittle ledge infront of the pit, and you have to jump over the ledge to survive, and another room I think had a zapper problem where you had to go somewhere, wait for the zappers to turn off, go somewhere els, wait, go, wait, then exit room, that sorta thing.

I'm not angry, because you did make my puzzles that I used abit better then when I made them. I remember someone asked me how to get over that ledge without dying... think it was Falcon/Alan.

Anyways... rooms 16301 was abit crazy, lots afew Jacks there. :( I didn't play the final version thats on the forums now, I only have the first version you sent me.

Anthony wrote on 29.05.2007 at 00:47:03:

I played the first 10 rooms, though. Liked your style, abit like AquaMats. (Abit, not completly!) Some of my puzzles from my old mansions where in there, but they where used differantly. Such as, to survive a fall from very high, theres alittle ledge infront of the pit, and you have to jump over the ledge to survive, and another room I think had a zapper problem where you had to go somewhere, wait for the zappers to turn off, go somewhere els, wait, go, wait, then exit room, that sorta thing. I'm not angry, because you did make my puzzles that I used abit better then when I made them. I remember someone asked me how to get over that ledge without dying... think it was Falcon/Alan.

Thanks for the comments. I must say I'm glad you're not upset that I used "your" puzzles. That would be a bit like getting upset that someone made a mansion using tiles (just like I did in my first mansions!), or Vern getting mad because we copied that concept of Jack running through the mansion to get to the end.

I said earlier in this thread that I felt a sense of deja-vu when designing many rooms. I've played so many mansions that it wouldn't surprise me if my subconscious copied other things I've seen. It was not deliberate. Any resemblance it may bear to other mansions is entirely coincidental.

Good points ryos!
A lot of what I've built has been inspired by something I've seen in a mansion. As a matter of fact I think I mentioned blatantly to you I was going to borrow a couple of things I've seen in HoC. I also know that several things I've done have inspired others and in some form or another have been copied. Heck, I have posted entire sets of graphics that have taken considerable time to generate. Good inspiration is where you find it and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. If you want to be protective of ideas go patent them, although it's darned expensive and time consuming. Otherwise accept the fact that we ALL use what we've seen.

OK House of Coine master, give me a hint on how to proceed past room 16902.
I'm stuck!

Thank you!

Hint: the skull warns of death.

If you want more than a hint I'd be happy to oblige. :)

Well I guess I need more of a hint than that, I've tried jumping from the skull but it doesn't work!
Thanks!!

Never mind, that was enough of a hint after all.
Thanks!!

You're welcome. :)

Just finished House of Coine. Very nice mansion to get in the MM-mood again. Really liked the odd feature of the absence of dollars. Forced me to stay very concentrated. And made the existence of shields (for once) very important. Good spread of the saving pedestals! Reaching some of them was close to the edge. My "Sir Jack" ended with everything found.

Nice first big mansion, Ryos. :)

Nice work finding everything! (Not that I hid them very well ;)).