Since beta testing a mansion is not the same as playing a mansion, here are some guidelines for beta testers.  Experienced testers may want to add to this list.

1. Check overall playability.  Can the player get all stuff in the room (treasures, keys, etc.) and go between rooms without any complications regardless of whether it is an easy, normal or hard mansion?

2. Check for Jack-stucks, half Jack-stucks and cheap deaths.

a) A Jack-stuck (JS) occurs when Jack cannot go anywhere and cannot commit a suicide.  The player has to restart the mansion or from last saving point.
b) A half Jack-stuck (HJS) happens when the player must sacrifice one life in order to continue.
c) A cheap death (cd) when Jack is killed by a monster or a zapper beam without any control of the situation.  Examples are when monsters are too close to an entrance to a room, a moving platform goes right through a zapper beam, a monter appears out of the blue too close to Jack to react upon etc.

3. Make any kind of weird moves you can think about to check whether they can lead to situations not intended by the builder.  Like what happens if Jack does NOT use a key to open a (optional) door (will it lead to JS later on), can Jack jump on the top of a door and thus skip the key, unintended ladderjumps, etc.

4. Check overall layout, expecially the use of layer 6.  Is it enough or perhaps too much?  Also whether a wrong layer is used unintentionally.

When I test, I play in windowed mode so I can quickly switch out and take notes. Whenever I notice something, I stick it into an email to the builder. When I finish the testing session, I send the email.

Thx for these beta-testing suggestions, brell.  :) While your 4 points give very good and practical information, your introduction is maybe even more important.

Being volunteer to beta-test a mansion is not a trick to play a new custom mansion earlier than other forummembers. And at the end of the mansion only telling that it was a tough one and that you missed 17 % of the secrets. Or that a jump in room X was difficult, while you knew in advance that you were testing a hard mansion. Serious beta-testing is IMO pleasant, but hard work. With your eyes wide open for all kinds of possible complications.

When beta-testing I work in exactly the same way as ryos: windowed mode (left) and email and/or texteditor (right). Just want to add that for some types of mansion at least one test with full screen is needed. When there are "slow" rooms in a mansion, there is a remarkable difference in frames per second. Full screen makes Jack even more slackening.  :'(

When I beta test, I don't play in window mode, I play full screen.... But I take notes on paper and then email. And yes, I deliberately try to get Jack stuck to look for problems.

8-)

This is a wonderful idea for a thread, with some great information. :-)  

I tend to play full screen when testing because you can miss some important graphical glitches otherwise.  So this means that I have a pad of paper and a pen handy, and I try to jot down room numbers and general notes which I flesh out when typing the feedback to give the designer.  I also will sometimes circle a room number, which is a note to myself to go back and look at the room in the editor, either because there is something really cool and I want to find out how it was done, or because I just want to have another look at something.

On a general note, Jack-Stucks are really tough things to spot in some cases.  In particular, anytime you have doors closing, zapper beams turning on, or gold/silver bricks changing, you have to remember to try and find creative ways to die after making the change so you can test whether Jack "teleporting" back to the start of the room can cause a Jack-Stuck.  I found a Jack-Stuck the other day in Falcon Manor Hard near the end because I died in a room while testing in a spot where I had never died before, and found myself on the wrong side of a door I could no longer open.  Thankfully, it was easy to fix. :-)

Alan Falcon wrote on 02.02.2008 at 17:38:03:

On a general note, Jack-Stucks are really tough things to spot in some cases.  In particular, anytime you have doors closing, zapper beams turning on, or gold/silver bricks changing, you have to remember to try and find creative ways to die after making the change so you can test whether Jack "teleporting" back to the start of the room can cause a Jack-Stuck.  I found a Jack-Stuck the other day in Falcon Manor Hard near the end because I died in a room while testing in a spot where I had never died before, and found myself on the wrong side of a door I could no longer open.  Thankfully, it was easy to fix. :-)

A very good point Alan.  I guess most builders/testers have encountered this.

I need to know how to show room number when testing. I can't see it.

2 Loons wrote on 11.07.2011 at 06:03:13:

I need to know how to show room number when testing. I can't see it.

Command + D

Where is the list of commands that make it easier to beta test? 
ie:  extra lives; show secrets; reveal map; etc. 

I can't remember where it is. 

Do you mean the cheating commands? Weren't they in a Read me file comming with the MM?

rose wrote on 25.11.2012 at 03:57:43:

Do you mean the cheating commands? Weren't they in a Read me file comming with the MM?

Hi Rose,

Yes they were in MM1 normal, but I don't have that version anymore.  I only have the MM2 HD and it did not come with anything but the game.  No Mansion Level Builder, Read Me, Custom Mansions (I had to download that separately). 

So where would I find the list of cheat commands?  Also, my notification is not sending me emails.  Hmm?  I only found your reply bcos I was in my notification folder trying to figure out why I am not getting notification emails.  Any suggestions.  I have been away for so long that I have forgotten so many things.

Missy wrote on 25.11.2012 at 10:25:29:

Yes they were in MM1 normal, but I don't have that version anymore.  I only have the MM2 HD and it did not come with anything but the game.  No Mansion Level Builder, Read Me, Custom Mansions (I had to download that separately).

If you no longer have the original game, then you will not be able to use the builder that you downloaded separately. I found my file, and I will email it to you.

Missy, to avoid confusion, you and others should refer to the HD version as MM1 HD.  There are now 2 versions of MM1:

The original with mansion builder.  An example of an included mansion is "Cathedral towers".  An example of a custom mansion is "Midnight mazes and monsters".  Not playable in Lion or Mountain Lion.

The HD without mansion builder.  A HD version of the original game. It has the same included mansions as the original MM1 above plus two more.  Most but not all of the custom mansions that were designed for the original run in it after a conversion to the HD format. Playable in most versions of OS X and Windows


Then there is MM2, which you, among many others, tested.  It comes with mansion builder and is not playable in Lion or Mountain Lion.  That is the sequel to the original with new monsters (trolls etc.), platforms that go between rooms etc.  An example of an included mansion is "Dr. Demented's Den".  An example of a custom mansion is "A fine mess".

The "cheating" commands you are talking about are the "command-D" combination.