Hey everyone! It's high time I updated you all on the state of ActionSoft and its future.

For many years, I have had visions of turning ActionSoft into a successful business. When I first released Midnight Mansion in 2005, I made close to $37,000 from it that year (although had to pay $6000 in business expenses, and this is all pre-tax), with residual income continuing (to a lesser extent) in later years. This was a bit better than I expected, and I figured that if I could release about one game per year, and have similar results, I could continue to increase my income and turn ActionSoft into a sustaintable business.

In 2005 and 2006 I finished college, and in 2007 began working full-time on Insectoid. Insectoid took longer to develop than expected. I discovered I was not as good at game design as I thought I was, and struggled to come up with a game that the beta testers were happy with. Level designers kept quitting on me, and I ended up having to finish a lot of level design myself, on top of programming. Additionally, I paid for all artwork and level-design up-front, totaling welll over $10,000 in out-of-pocket expenses (funded from Midnight Mansions' success, and frugal living).

When I released Insectoid in 2009, it was a complete failure. To date, it has sold 362 copies on the Mac, and 95 copies on Windows, plus a few more sales from affiliate sites. Some of these were sold at $20, others sold at the lower price of $9.95. I'm guessing I made maybe $7,500 from the game, if that, minux taxes. This means Insectoid brought ActionSoft a net loss of probably around $4,000, not to mention over two years invested working on it.

This was very hard for me to recover from. I figured it was time to throw in the towel, but my friends encouraged me to persevere. Everyone has at least one failure, right? So I decided to finish Midnight Mansion 2: The Haunted Hills. It had already been 80% completed, but I had put it on hold in 2006 to give level designers a chance to finish mansions for it. So in late 2009, I resumed work in MM2: THH.

I was able to finish this in a reasonable amount of time, and in 2010 released Midnight Mansion 2: The Haunted Hills. It sold semi-decently, definitely better than Insectoid, but definitely not nearly as well as the original Midnight Mansion had in 2005. (To date it has sold barely over 1/7th the number of copies as the original Midnight Mansion.)

During the time, my residual income from ActionSoft products has continued to go down. Back in 2006, I made close to $1800 a month, prior to paying business expenses and taxes. But in recent years, it has dropped below $1000 a month, despite the fact that I now have more products out. For those of you under the age of 18, this might sound like a lot. For those of you living in the real world, you know that this isn't enough to make a living, particularly in L.A.

I decided to come up with a final plan of attack. Do or die. I would port Midnight Mansion to run natively on the latest Intel Macs (long overdue), and also port it to Windows. I had talked to other programmers who had said the Windows ports of their games were definitely worth it, selling about as many on that platform as their Mac games had. This would be Phase 1. Phase 2 would be to port Midnight Mansion to iPod and iPhone. If, after both of these phases, I was still struggling to pay bills each month, I would have to get a day job and focus on that instead of ActionSoft.

It became apparent even before finishing the iPhone / iPad ports of Midnight Mansion that it would be prudent to get a job. Lately I've been getting less than 1 sale per day. The past 2 and 1/2 months I've totaled about 44 sales from all products combined. When you consider the price of most of my Intel-native games are $7.99, $9.99, and $14.99, it should be obvious that less than one sale a day is not enough to live on.

So several months ago I started looking, and about a month and a half ago landed a GREAT job at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Beverly Hills, where I am joining the Artificial Intelligence in Medicine department. They do cardiac perfusion imaging, which is where radioactive isotopes are injected into the bloodstream, and then picked up with special cameras, and my group's software renders and analyzes those images to help doctors determine if there are problems with the patient's heart or not. Pretty amazing stuff, and I get to help the team out with programming jobs they need done. I have really friendly coworkers, a great working environment, great benefits, and a great salary. I'm making right off the bat the amount I once would've considered "very successful" if I had ever built ActionSoft into a really successful business, and yet it's just a fairly standard salary in the programming world. I'm not rich, but in comparison with how poor I was before, it feels like I'm rich. It's also nice to finally have medical coverage... I simply couldn't afford it before.

So what's the plan now, you ask?

Well, I'm 92% or so finished with the iPad / iPhone port of Midnight Mansion HD, so I want to finish that. After that, I want to get Midnight Mansion 2: The Haunted Hills upgraded to HD, and then later get that released on Windows and iPhone / iPad. These are very easy tasks because both games use the same codebase, so not a lot of time will be involved. (I just need HD graphics from Jacob for MM2: THH, which I'm still waiting on to be completed. He also has a full-time day job and limited free time.)

Those are my only plans right now. It would make no business sense for me to port the Level Builder to run natively, as this would likely be a 3-6 week project working full-time, so that'd take up a lot of weekends if I were to try to do it while working a full-time job.

I'm very involved in my church and that's my #1 priority outside of work, so it uses up most of my free time.

I'd really *like* to port the Level Builder. There is still a very small (5%) chance I'll port it someday, but given how long it'll take, it's unlikely. I really truly wish I could support you all, the fans, better and keep the level building community alive! It's a great community and I'd love to see it keep going. But I'm just not likely able to be the one to port the Level Builder.

That being said, I'd be more than happy to release the Level Builder source code as Open Source, so some other programmer could port it if they desired. I'm not sure though that any other qualified programmers with free time on their hands frequent these forums, but if anyone is interested, shoot me an email. I'd be happy to provide you with source code to tinker with.

If I do port the level builder, it'll be Mac-only (not Windows, not iPad / iPhone), as that'd be a much easier port than doing a full cross-platform port, which would be a VERY big project (i'd say 3-6 months work minimum).

As for the other projects, such as the iPad/iPhone versions of Midnight Mansion, please keep in mind that progress will be much slower to finish this than before I had a full-time job. In addition to my job and church involvement, I am also continuing to teach a few piano students, so my schedule is pretty busy. It will be a challenge to find the time to finish the iOS port, but I'm sure I'll find it sometime.

I hope none of you, the fans, feel betrayed that there won't be an official HD Level Builder. I really wish I could provide this.

Also, as some of you have noticed, I'm sometimes a lot slower now in answering ActionSoft support emails. I'll try to get better, but I'll probably have to update the website to reflect this. Lately I've been MUCH slower, because I injured my back on July 4th, and a couple of weeks ago it got SO bad I couldn't even sit at a computer chair for 2 minutes without extreme pain. Four days ago I started seeing a very good chiropractor who has done miracles, and I'm mostly better now, but this is why I'm several weeks behind in support email at the moment.

I'll follow this thread so if you have any questions or comments, feel free to post. It is with some measure of sadness that I leave the ActionSoft dream behind, but also with a great amount of happiness that I pursue this new career venture. I have great coworkers, a great job that I love, and it's also so good to not have to worry about whether all the work I'm doing for the next year will result in making money, or *losing* money once the product is released! I hope you all will be happy for me, although sadness that ActionSoft will not continue as it has in the past is understandable.

-Vern

By the way, I'm going to modify one of the forum rules ("don't ask Vern when it'll be released -- it'll be released when it's done!") to say you CAN ask -- but through Rob. Because I don't want lots of emails of the same question. ;-)

So Rob can ask me once every couple months if the port has made any progress, and can post updates on the forums. IF he wishes to. (If he doesn't, that's up to him!)

It never hurts to have friendly reminders -- from ONE person -- and on occasion -- to motivate me to want to make some free time in my schedule to finish a project some fans are looking forward to being finished. ;-)

Wow, a sad day indeed.

Thanks Vern for the manymanymany hours of fun all the MMs have provided (the best game money I ever spent!) and will continue to provide (they are are still my go-to games.) Good luck with your new endeavors.

Hey, any programmers out there??  8-)

Thank you so much, Vern, for the detailed update on what's been happening with you. It's very sad indeed that you haven't had more success with sales, and it's so hard to understand because MM is one of the absolute best games out there for those of us who enjoy this genre.

Best of luck in the future, both with your health and new job, and I sure hope a programmer steps in to take over the HD level builder.

:'(

VernJensen wrote on 07.08.2012 at 13:54:12:

By the way, I'm going to modify one of the forum rules ("don't ask Vern when it'll be released -- it'll be released when it's done!") to say you CAN ask -- but through Rob. Because I don't want lots of emails of the same question. ;-)

LOL - thanks... I think. :)

Sure, we'll see how it goes. Maybe the level of interest will help get me back into development mode. My own work schedule tends to be a little erratic though, so if you don't get an immediate response, please be patient. I may be at training (often), on vacation, or in the middle of some work project. Usually, if I can't respond at length, I will at least try to acknowledge the email and promise a better response later. Also, if you do send me a request for Vern, please understand that we don't typically exchange email every day, and it's not always about Midnight Mansions. Email can actually be infrequent with a month or more between a short flurry of them.  Most likely, I will pass on whatever is the latest news I happen to have at the time. Any significant news will be posted on the forum.

Ahhh, what I meant Rob, was that folks could ask you *here*, on the forums, for an update, and you could email me. I didn't intend to imply folks should email you directly. ;-) I doubt you'd want lots of duplicate emails asking the same question any more than I would. ;-)

I suggested you simply because you're here on the forums, and might pick up if people are starting to wonder again what progress has been made.

VernJensen wrote on 08.08.2012 at 11:33:22:

Ahhh, what I meant Rob, was that folks could ask you *here*, on the forums, for an update, and you could email me. I didn't intend to imply folks should email you directly. ;-) I doubt you'd want lots of duplicate emails asking the same question any more than I would. ;-) I suggested you simply because you're here on the forums, and might pick up if people are starting to wonder again what progress has been made.

It's all good, Vern.  I was mostly kidding, anyway. Traffic is way down on the board, so I doubt that it will be too much trouble.

A good chunk of the traffic has always been linked to custom mansions in any case, except when a game is being tested or released. I'm eagerly waiting the HD version of MM2 even though it's probably a ways off. I prefer some of the new game possibilities in that version of the game over the original.

Vern, I am so very sorry that you, like most artists, (and I do consider you an artist) couldn't generate a dependable sustaining income from your game developing.  Congratulations on securing an interesting and worthy job in your field. The way job-hunting goes for many folks, I'd bet that your new employers recognized your value and snapped you right up.

I'm as disappointed as anyone else that there isn't going to be a Mansion Level Builder in the foreseeable future, but I'll remind folks (just as Rob did in another recent post) that we Mac users can still use Snow Leopard and the MLB included with the original MM1 and MM2. I play around with MLB after booting an external drive with S. Leopard, then use Rezycle to convert and see if it will play on MM HD. So far, no problems.

No, I'm not working on a Custom Mansion for "primetime". I'm really bad at it, but it's fun.

Take care of your health, get plenty of rest, and I hope some day soon you can enjoy what time you do spend on the MM HD conversions  (eg iOS). When doing something you love turns into a dreary chore, it's a heartbreaker.

My best wishes for you.  As for how it is in LA....  you gotta be tough to live in the west, right?

:-*

I'm terribly sorry to hear that, Vern. I just wonder if- Maybe after raising a little extra money- if you might consider investing in advertisement for the games you've made. They're all fantastic- Well programmed, very aesthetic, and fun to play. I think if you just got it out there, you'd start to really see some good income. Granted, I'm not sure how you'd get it out there, but I'd really love to see your games flourish as I think they should be. Porting MM to an ipod/ipad is an excellent move, I think. I'll certainly pass the word next time someone asks me for advice on what to buy for their iPod.

I hope someday these games find a way to larger audiences, they definitely deserve more attention. The only reason I found it to begin with was because, as a kid, I'd rip through every page of Mac Update's list of games and download any that looked interesting and free. And then when I downloaded MM, I liked it so much I just had to buy it.


I'm not sure how this works, exactly, but is there any way you could get your game on that "Steam" program? That has  all those video games you can buy? I think that would be another way to help get it noticed, I've noticed that becoming very popular with people who play video games on their computer.


Overall, though, I'm very happy you found a more stable job and like it, that's great news!

Vern- you will be missed.  It must be TRUE that all good things must come to an end.  Have not ever enjoyed a game so much.  You should have made your million from it.  The forum created a great following of interesting people and contributors.  Will miss all of them.

Thank you for many entertaining and interesting hours of enjoyment.

.........cw

Amplifyed wrote on 10.08.2012 at 22:20:45:

I'm terribly sorry to hear that, Vern. I just wonder if- Maybe after raising a little extra money- if you might consider investing in advertisement for the games you've made. They're all fantastic- Well programmed, very aesthetic, and fun to play. I think if you just got it out there, you'd start to really see some good income. Granted, I'm not sure how you'd get it out there, but I'd really love to see your games flourish as I think they should be. Porting MM to an ipod/ipad is an excellent move, I think. I'll certainly pass the word next time someone asks me for advice on what to buy for their iPod.

Personally, I don't think MM (in its current form) is a good fit for iPod/iPhone but perhaps for iPad. The talk of making the game available for iPod/iPhone makes me think a little bit about this thread: Midnight Mansion 3 - your opinion wanted!, and that maybe Vern's ideas would have been better suited for those smaller platforms. It just seems like some of the more successful games for those platforms tend to be smaller, or at least broken down into smaller sections, more puzzle-oriented, and generally something that you might play for shorter periods of time.


Amplifyed wrote on 10.08.2012 at 22:20:45:

I'm not sure how this works, exactly, but is there any way you could get your game on that "Steam" program? That has  all those video games you can buy? I think that would be another way to help get it noticed, I've noticed that becoming very popular with people who play video games on their computer.

Good idea, and he tried after he did the Windows port. MM HD was rejected as being unsuitable without feedback as to why. They did encourage him to submit other games there, though.

Hey Amplified, thanks for the kind words.


Amplifyed wrote on 10.08.2012 at 22:20:45:

I'm terribly sorry to hear that, Vern. I just wonder if- Maybe after raising a little extra money- if you might consider investing in advertisement for the games you've made. They're all fantastic- Well programmed, very aesthetic, and fun to play. I think if you just got it out there, you'd start to really see some good income. Granted, I'm not sure how you'd get it out there, but I'd really love to see your games flourish as I think they should be.

I tried that in the past years ago. I always broke even or lost money. Advertising is quite expensive, and while it was hard to guage just how many additional sales an advertising campaign brought in, it never seemed to bring in much, and breaking even was the best it ever did (i.e. if I spent $300 on banner ads at Inside Mac Games, I'd get, tops, $300 additional sales.) That means $0 profit, and yet more customers to support. Not good.

I'd tried advertising at download.com (pay-per-click), Google, and Tidbits in addition to InsideMacGames. Other game developers will tell you a similar story. Only if a game is *really* good, and would get tons of sales anyway, does advertising pay off. (i.e. Angry Birds, or Brian Greenstone's games, etc.)


Amplifyed wrote on 10.08.2012 at 22:20:45:

I'm not sure how this works, exactly, but is there any way you could get your game on that "Steam" program? That has  all those video games you can buy? I think that would be another way to help get it noticed, I've noticed that becoming very popular with people who play video games on their computer.

That was my intent when I ported Midnight Mansion HD to Windows. Because they won't accept any games that are Mac-only. So I ported it. And then submitted it. It was flatly rejected, along with "Our policy is to not explain why a product was rejected."

As you can imagine, I was disappointed. I've sold probably less than 100 copies of Midnight Mansion HD for Windows. With Steam distribution, I'm sure I would've done much better. So it was quite disappointing that they rejected it, despite the fact that they carry lots of indy titles. Very odd and frustrating. Yet it was mounting frustrations like this that helped me realize I need to get a day job. You just can't sustain a business when the doors keep getting closed in you face. (BigFishGames also rejected the game several years ago.)

The odd thing is Steam *did* accept Insectoid a few years ago. But it sold so badly in the first place that I never went through the additional work to get it onto Steam.

-Vern

Rob Seegel wrote on 12.08.2012 at 03:08:49:

Personally, I don't think MM (in its current form) is a good fit for iPod/iPhone but perhaps for iPad. The talk of making the game available for iPod/iPhone makes me think a little bit about this thread: Midnight Mansion 3 - your opinion wanted!, and that maybe Vern's ideas would have been better suited for those smaller platforms. It just seems like some of the more successful games for those platforms tend to be smaller, or at least broken down into smaller sections, more puzzle-oriented, and generally something that you might play for shorter periods of time.

Yes, I agree completely. I don't expect Midnight Mansion HD to do very well on iPad / iPhone for this very reason. The top games have a number of things in common:

1) Controls that take advantage of the ability to touch the screen or tilt to control (i.e. NOT overlaid controls)

2) Designed specifically for iPhone / iPad, with new features that wouldn't be possible on a normal desktop computer

3) Gameplay that you can get into immediately, play for 1-3 minutes and have fun, and then stop. Great for while you're waiting for the Mac to start up, or for the elevator to arrive.

4) Memorable characters, very easy to play, yet still fun / challenging.

Midnight Mansion fails on almost all counts. It's not positioned well to be a top-seller on iPad / iPhone. Yet Rob, I can tell you that the iPhone version actually DOES work pretty darn well -- better than you'd expect, and is actually more fun (imo) than the iPad version, because holding the iPad in a way that lets you control it with D-pad style controls is more awkward.

Part of this is that I added a lot to the iPhone version to make it work well on that device. The screen actually scrolls so that Jack is never under a D-pad button. It's pretty smooth and intuitive, so you almost don't even notice it.

VernJensen wrote on 16.08.2012 at 11:47:01:

Midnight Mansion fails on almost all counts. It's not positioned well to be a top-seller on iPad / iPhone. Yet Rob, I can tell you that the iPhone version actually DOES work pretty darn well -- better than you'd expect, and is actually more fun (imo) than the iPad version, because holding the iPad in a way that lets you control it with D-pad style controls is more awkward. Part of this is that I added a lot to the iPhone version to make it work well on that device. The screen actually scrolls so that Jack is never under a D-pad button. It's pretty smooth and intuitive, so you almost don't even notice it.

Huh.. well, I'll take your word for it, and I'll be very interested to try it out then. I have both iPhone and iPad, so I look forward to comparing and contrasting the versions. You're actually playing it on the iPhone and not the simulator? I don't think we ever talked about this before, but I did wonder how someone might approach a game for the iPhone and iPad. I mean, in some respects they're different platforms. It's almost as though you'd have to tailor an experience to each. Kind of a bummer to the independent developer who is trying to get as much mileage from portability as he can.

As for the iPhone, I was thinking you'd have to go one of two ways with it: shrink the rooms down, losing many details and making it hard to avoid some obstacles, or keep the viewable area large, but limit the viewport. This would turn the handheld version into a sort of scrolling game where you might only view the part of the room that Jack happens to be standing in. I can see how that might actually ramp up the difficulty of some mansions, and make them seem even larger than they are.

I was wondering if the iPhone version would be something of an adaption rather than a straight port. Thanks for the info! Looking forward to continuing to support an independent game developer, even if it's only a sideline for you at present.

:)

Wow, Vern - I was looking around this afternoon to see what other free games/demos were out there (a few days until my payday...), and decided to see if there were any new custom mansions here.

Then I found the latest post, this topic. :'(

Sorry (on the one hand) to hear that your Actionsoft dream hasn't worked out as planned/hoped - I throughly enjoyed MM (1, 2, HD) and about all of the custom mansions. (Still need to work on Luris...) 

On the other hand, I rejoice at your getting a decent paying job where your skills will be more suitably rewarded, and with possibility of better increases down the road. May you be blessed with good and frequent raises there, Vern!

Hmm, maybe MM (in all its various editions) will turn into a 'cult classic' game of sorts - after all, I still enjoy text adventures (Zork, Infocom, others)... ;) 

In the meantime, I will hope and wait for the iOS version (of course, I may wind up needing a newer iPod Touch than my 2nd gen. to run it, but that's okay).

I have thoroughly enjoyed Jack and all his adventures in the mansions (think my PowerBook 2000 is on its 3rd keyboard - kinda wore a bit on the arrow keys(!) :) Thank you, Vern (and all the mansion builders and beta testers) for my favorite side-scroller game of all time! (Mario has nothing on Jack, IMHO!)

Jim in Cape G.

Rob Seegel wrote on 16.08.2012 at 13:52:18:

Huh.. well, I'll take your word for it, and I'll be very interested to try it out then. I have both iPhone and iPad, so I look forward to comparing and contrasting the versions. You're actually playing it on the iPhone and not the simulator? I don't think we ever talked about this before, but I did wonder how someone might approach a game for the iPhone and iPad. I mean, in some respects they're different platforms. It's almost as though you'd have to tailor an experience to each. Kind of a bummer to the independent developer who is trying to get as much mileage from portability as he can.

Yes, I'm testing it on the actual iPhone, not the simulator. The simulator is pretty limited when it comes to many things, such as testing true OpenGL-based game performance, texture memory limitations, etc.



Rob Seegel wrote on 16.08.2012 at 13:52:18:

As for the iPhone, I was thinking you'd have to go one of two ways with it: shrink the rooms down, losing many details and making it hard to avoid some obstacles, or keep the viewable area large, but limit the viewport. This would turn the handheld version into a sort of scrolling game where you might only view the part of the room that Jack happens to be standing in. I can see how that might actually ramp up the difficulty of some mansions, and make them seem even larger than they are.

I tried both approaches. I did a lot of work to put scrolling support into Midnight Mansion, so you could scroll around a single room. Part of it was nice... seeing everything nice and big. But the BIG drawback was that there would be things you'd need to do in the same room that you couldn't see until you got close. Like a lever in the upper-left corner, that you wouldn't see when you were in the lower or right side of the room.

If I remember correctly I took this out and went with "you see almost the whole room at once, but it scrolls slightly." The very minor scrolling that is done is used to keep the gameplay that is under your thumbs visible. If it didn't scroll, and Jack went down a ladder that led to the room below on the left side of the screen, you'd not be able to see him while he climbed this ladder, as it'd be under your left thumb (where the left/right controls are). My current system has almost unnoticeable scrolling -- it feels very natural and you barely notice it. It's quite subtle, but keeps it so the gameplay is always in view. It's pretty slick, and I'm much happier with it than the "you can't see stuff in other parts of the room" solution.

I also spent a lot of time re-optimizing the in-game map for iPhone. Initially it was slow as molasses. But by reworking some things to be optimize on iOS, it's now pretty smooth.

-Vern

Jim --- thanks for the kind words! :-)

I'm happy that we are no longer in the dark, it is saddening that the Builder may not be ported but it's just so good to see you online after so long :D

Thanks for all of your time working on MM, MM2 and Insectoid and I will be waiting patiently for the ports of MM and MM2 to Intel/iPhone/iPad, don't rush, your job, church etc. take higher priority than us ;)

BTW, if you do get the iOS ports out there, I could always cover it on a blog I'm working on with some professional writers, it's done quite well for a blog just starting off ;)

I thought this may help a bit :D
http://www.palmgamer.com/midnight-mansion-hd-heading-to-ios-soon/

Where'd everyone go?
Hope to hear more from you all pretty soon... I miss making mansions so much now haha :)

I was thinking the very same thing.  Perhaps others have encountered the same
problem I did.  I upgraded my Mac to version 10.9 and MM2 won't work with
it.  I can only play the original MM1. 

And from what I was told many moons ago, Vern did not want to continue
with MM bcos updating the system (I am so not computer savvy, so forgive
my lack of proper terminology) to enable it to work with the newest Apple system,
would be expensive and very time consuming.  I completely understand this.

So, since MM2 is not 10.9 friendly, I guess everyone just moved on to other
things.  Sad.  Really, really sad.  :(

Actually, I have a version of Midnight Mansion 2: The Haunted Hills running on the latest OSes just fine. It's not 100% finished though, so I just have to find the time to finish, but this will definitely be released in HD "sometime".

It's rather the *Level Builder* that might never get updated. I dream of this happening sometimes, as I realize the community here has 'mostly died' due to not having a level builder that works on modern Macs, and I'd love to see it revived... but updating the level builder would be quite time-consuming.

But not as time-consuming as I had originally though... so maybe it'll happen sometime. It's just hard to want to spend *more* time on the computer after spending all day on the computer at work! But I really do miss game development, so I hope to keep working on the game here and there when I can.

Thank you for the update Vern.  I think everyone in the MM community feels
the same way.  We miss MM2 and the custom mansions.  It would be great
to get things back to where they were. 
Please don't forget to let me know when MM2 will play on my 10.9 version.

Thank you

VernJensen wrote on 27.04.2014 at 14:31:02:

Actually, I have a version of Midnight Mansion 2: The Haunted Hills running on the latest OSes just fine. It's not 100% finished though, so I just have to find the time to finish, but this will definitely be released in HD "sometime". It's rather the *Level Builder* that might never get updated. I dream of this happening sometimes, as I realize the community here has 'mostly died' due to not having a level builder that works on modern Macs, and I'd love to see it revived... but updating the level builder would be quite time-consuming. But not as time-consuming as I had originally though... so maybe it'll happen sometime. It's just hard to want to spend *more* time on the computer after spending all day on the computer at work! But I really do miss game development, so I hope to keep working on the game here and there when I can.

You are really awesome :D
BTW I wouldn't object go you doing a kickstarter campaign if you need more funds ;)

Vern that would be GREAT! (And yeah, Kickstarter  ;) )

I for one, have no intention of ever quitting MM. As long as I can dual boot or whatever it takes to play and build.

It would be very nice to have MMII in HD version playable on 10.9.

I would be ready to pay for MMI and II HD level builders and I guess that most MM fans would, too.

Yes Brell, I agree. 

Indeed, the economical cost for a Level Builder is far less [unless Vern charge us $243809873240987 of course…] than the joy gained in a revival of this community and (hopefully) new members with building skills will also emerge.

Hopefully the future OS's don't cause that much problems in updating the apps…

@ Vern: If you could estimate the price you think would be appropriate for the Level Builders MMHD I and II and ask if we would be willing to pay for it? :)

I think all of us die-hard MM'ers would be willing to pay for updated level builders, but Vern said his issue is time, not having much spare time to apply to it.

Hopefully, some day.
Thanks for checking in with us, Vern.
:)

I wish it were that simple. :-(

My day job keeps me busy enough that I haven't really had energy at the end of the day to do more programming when I get home. And I think the level builder would be a multi-month project if I were working full-time on it, which I can't.

I WOULD however be more than happy to release the Level Builder source code to Open Source, so that anyone who has programming experience can port it. I think the challenge though would be finding someone interested in doing so. But if there is interest, I definitely could do that.

MM II is running on OS X 10.9 as we speak, and has 'mostly' upgraded HD artwork. I just need to find the time/energy to finish it up...

Hi Vern,

That is so very generous of you!  I hope that someone takes you up on that
offer.

Bless you for being you!

Me! ME!! I'll do it!!!

Oh wait, I can't code  :P

Vern, would it be possible to include the MM1 and 2 builders in the MM1 and 2 HD packages with the forewords that they can't be used in Mac OS 10.7. and above?  Then at least some users could keep on building and testing and then use Rezycle to convert to HD.

I have a few friends who like coding but they hate Macs so that's probably a no go :(
Hopefully someone should pick it up... after this trial of Fusion goes, I must go back to my mom's old computer... which is slow... and non portable... hey, I can't work on mansions without something going on in the background... also I prefer to use trackpads for mansion building

Hey Leon- can you download a new trial onto the other computer then move it to a new user folder on the first computer?

brell wrote on 12.06.2014 at 17:40:30:

Vern, would it be possible to include the MM1 and 2 builders in the MM1 and 2 HD packages with the forewords that they can't be used in Mac OS 10.7. and above?  Then at least some users could keep on building and testing and then use Rezycle to convert to HD.

Certainly I could included it in the HD packages, but it's already available to download separately. See the FAQ:

http://www.actionsoft.com/games/midnightmansionhd/faq.php#HDLevelBuilder

Or specifically, the link to download the Level Builder is here:
http://www.actionsoft.com/files/mm/LevelBuilder1.2.2.zip

I guess you're suggesting including it for the sake of publicity, so people are aware it exists?

I thought the builders were only available as parts of the MM1 and MM2 packages.  If they are available as a free download we need to advertise it on the forums.  Or, perhaps, as you say, include them in the HD packages for the sake of publicity.

Not sure if it has been mentioned before, but what about Kickstarter, a lot of great games have been funded there and this one would just be another greater game to get funded there if Vern thinks it is a good idea :)

If so, I would recommend the funding period be around Q2/3... but it's all up to you :)

I would donate :)

That is such a great idea Leon, if someone can get 40000 dollars to make a potato salad, revival of this forum would be far more interesting for donors :)

Will MM2: THH be released for Mac? When I read the post it looked like a no but I wasn't sure

Hi Meredith- as far as I know, there are no plans at this time to port MM2 to later OS's. Vern (the creator of MM) no longer does this as his full time job. Many people still play and have an interest in building custom mansions so hopefully someday he will, or maybe "pass the torch" on to another coder (fingers crossed!)

You posted about getting a refund- Vern still drops by here and checks messages occasionally, but it may take a little while to hear from him. If you don't, one of the admins  **may** know how to contact him directly (I don't know for sure, just speculating.)

In the mean time, what kind of computer do you have? Is it possible (and are you interested in) having an earlier OS on another drive/partition so you can play MM2?

I have a MacBook Air OS Yosemite. I would be interested in partitioning my drive but as small as it is and due to the lack of a younger system cd, it's not possible. I only ask as much as I have been because I'm trying to revive the boards and people's interests in getting the game upgraded. I'm probably not doing it in the best way, but at least I'm trying  :-/

Another thing to keep in mind is that newer Macs are physically unable to run Snow Leopard or earlier. I found that out the hard way. I have a 2013 iMac and can't run SL. I actually bought a cheap used iMac so I could install SL and run MM and MM2.

Welp guess I'll be without sunshine and Jack is stuck in stasis

Meredith- there are many people who would love to see MM updated and have the boards "come back to life!" It was quite fun around here back then, and a great game like MM deserves that.

Oh- there *may* be a custom HD mansion in the works that features daylight   ;)



Semi-Native wrote on 15.04.2015 at 19:03:18:

... I actually bought a cheap used iMac so I could install SL and run MM and MM2.

And that's why we love you Semi-Native!  ;D

Semi-Native wrote on 15.04.2015 at 19:03:18:

Another thing to keep in mind is that newer Macs are physically unable to run Snow Leopard or earlier. I found that out the hard way. I have a 2013 iMac and can't run SL. I actually bought a cheap used iMac so I could install SL and run MM and MM2.

Actually, if you use a Virtual Machine programme like Parallels or VMWare Fusion (NOT Boot Camp), you can actually emulate Snow Leopard Server. If you call up Apple directly, I think you can purchase it for about ten bucks

Leon wrote on 17.04.2015 at 06:48:57:

Semi-Native wrote on 15.04.2015 at 19:03:18: Another thing to keep in mind is that newer Macs are physically unable to run Snow Leopard or earlier. I found that out the hard way. I have a 2013 iMac and can't run SL. I actually bought a cheap used iMac so I could install SL and run MM and MM2. Actually, if you use a Virtual Machine programme like Parallels or VMWare Fusion (NOT Boot Camp), you can actually emulate Snow Leopard Server. If you call up Apple directly, I think you can purchase it for about ten bucks

Or VirtualBox 4.1.2.0.  As far as I know this is no longer possible with Parallels or VMWare or younger versions of VB because Apple has banned it!  Really.  The possibility to run older Mac OSes has been removed form these virtual machines because of Apple's demand.

brell wrote on 17.04.2015 at 23:28:04:

Leon wrote on 17.04.2015 at 06:48:57: Semi-Native wrote on 15.04.2015 at 19:03:18: Another thing to keep in mind is that newer Macs are physically unable to run Snow Leopard or earlier. I found that out the hard way. I have a 2013 iMac and can't run SL. I actually bought a cheap used iMac so I could install SL and run MM and MM2. Actually, if you use a Virtual Machine programme like Parallels or VMWare Fusion (NOT Boot Camp), you can actually emulate Snow Leopard Server. If you call up Apple directly, I think you can purchase it for about ten bucks Or VirtualBox 4.1.2.0.  As far as I know this is no longer possible with Parallels or VMWare or younger versions of VB because Apple has banned it!  Really.  The possibility to run older Mac OSes has been removed form these virtual machines because of Apple's demand.

You've gotta be jacking me... I really hate it when Apple makes me start to hate them :(

Well put, Leon.  VB 4.1.2.0 still works.  I am running 10.6.8 on VB within Mavericks.  I upgraded to Yosemite this winter but had to downgrade again because my computer was showing all kind of weird behaviour.  Luckily I have a Time machine backup disk, otherwise I would not have been able to downgrade.

Anyway, for those interested VB 4.1.2.0 can run older Mac OSes, at least under Mountain Lion and Mavericks.  The setup is quite complicated, though, and demands a LOT of memory.

brell wrote on 19.04.2015 at 19:58:18:

Well put, Leon.  VB 4.1.2.0 still works.  I am running 10.6.8 on VB within Mavericks.  I upgraded to Yosemite this winter but had to downgrade again because my computer was showing all kind of weird behaviour.  Luckily I have a Time machine backup disk, otherwise I would not have been able to downgrade. Anyway, for those interested VB 4.1.2.0 can run older Mac OSes, at least under Mountain Lion and Mavericks.  The setup is quite complicated, though, and demands a LOT of memory.

Leon or Brell - I could not find a VB 4.1.2.0 version. Did you mean 4.1.20, or 4.1.2, as those seem to be the closest version numbers I found? Or, does anyone know whether a later version of VB (I think they were up to 4.3.36 currently today) will run Snow Leopard (and thus, MM1/HD/MM2)?

Jim R.

Sorry, I meant 4.1.20

Newer versions do not run Snow Leopard.

I wonder if Vern still works on the game from time to time or if he just doesn't have enough time anymore

Leon wrote on 07.11.2015 at 03:53:26:

I wonder if Vern still works on the game from time to time or if he just doesn't have enough time anymore

I wonder the same... I also wonder how hard it is to make the Level Builder available for the newer systems. I thought it might be a good task for some of my students (I work as a high school teacher), and there might even be some student who'd do it just to learn more programming. But I have too little info on what needs to be done, perhaps someone with more knowledge could tell me and then I'll look around a bit...

It would be great if you could get your students to upgrade the MLB program.
Why don't you PM Vern directly?

I did :)
We'll see if he's around

It may take Vern some time to reply bcos he doesn't check the MM boards that often, from what I've been told by him, but he does reply when he finally sees a PM.

Try PM'ing Semi-Native.  She does check the boards albeit, maybe not that often either, but I'm sure that she'll reply much quicker.  I think that's her avatar.  Old age and memory not the best these days.  Sorry.

Hi guys! Someone here posted that Vern drops by the MM fb page now and again, maybe that would be a good place to try him. And Semi-Native is still around but I don't know if she has Vern's contact info.

Olle the Greatest wrote on 13.10.2017 at 22:43:45:

Leon wrote on 07.11.2015 at 03:53:26: I wonder if Vern still works on the game from time to time or if he just doesn't have enough time anymore I wonder the same... I also wonder how hard it is to make the Level Builder available for the newer systems. I thought it might be a good task for some of my students (I work as a high school teacher), and there might even be some student who'd do it just to learn more programming. But I have too little info on what needs to be done, perhaps someone with more knowledge could tell me and then I'll look around a bit...

Hey guys! So in general I'm open to the idea of someone modifying the level builder code. There are just a couple issues:

1) The hard drives with the original game's source code are currently in storage. I bought a fixer-upper and have to finish a lot of renovation before I get my stuff out of storage. That might be a while. But, once I do, I'm open to making the level builder open-source.

2) It's a BIG project to update the level builder. Way, way more than 50-100 hours. If it were merely 50-100 hours, I'd have done it already myself. ;-)

I'm afraid few people understand just how extensive the changes were that Apple forced on software developers during the OS 7 > X and PPC > Intel transitions.

Some history: back in the old days of OS 7 and PPC machines, Apple encouraged developers to use "Resources" to store things like images, sounds, dialog boxes, and so on. Resources were an Apple-specific technology, and were not compatible with Windows.

I obediently did 'the Apple way' and used Resources.

Later, when converting to OS X, Apple did away with Resources and switched to Interface Builder. Interface Builder is much better, but it means that EVERY SINGLE DIALOG BOX you see in the Level Builder must be completel rewritten from the ground up. Not just all the menus, checkboxes, radio buttons, and text fields, but also the source code (probably 1-3 pages of it per dialog box) must be entirely rewritten from the ground up.

We're talking old code just throw out and rewritten -- not 'upgraded'.

For the GUI portion of the Level Builder, it must be written from the ground up, as if no work had ever been done on a level builder before.

Of course, that's not impossible, but I think it took me something like 2 years of development to make the original level builder.

Maybe it can be done in something reasonable like 3 months, maybe faster, I'm not sure.

But it's definitely more than a 50-100 hour project.

It's too bad.

And also a reason developing for Mac was really hard on independent game developers like me back in the day. I was making about $20,000 a year, and Apple kept making huge changes that took months of work. When I was done with the work, people saw nothing new -- the project merely continued to function on new computers. It was really hard for guys like me to survive.

Hence why I got a day job. ;-)

But -- I do wish the game were running on modern computers, so if anyone else wants to take a stab at porting the level builder, I'm all for that once I have access to the source again!

I also have a backup of the game on my website -- from a much older version of the game (probably non-HD version), so I could make that available NOW if anyone is interested.

-Vern

I just checked, and the source code backup I have is ONLY of Midnight Mansion. It doesn't include other things required, such as SpriteWorld (the animation library), and it's also the old non-HD version.

Better to wait until I get my stuff back out of storage, as what I have wouldn't be that useful.

Nice to see that you are still alive Vern ;)

Hi Vern! Thanks for checking in, and for the explanation. MM is one of my all-time favorite games EVER, still hoping someday we get a new version  :)

It feels like it's been forever, but I remember being really interested in the mansion builder code. Not so much to recreate the old builder exactly, but to re-implement it in a different language. Some of the lower-level, non-ui details would have been helpful.

I hope everyone's doing Ok.  I was feeling nostalgic and went to look at the high score list and saw that they weren't operational anymore.  :'(

I still occasionally play the last release, and it's really too bad that the Haunted Hills never got the same treatment as the original.  I really loved some of those mansions and some of the enhanced features.

Hi Rob. Good to hear from you. I hope you're doing well.

I'm doing pretty good.  It feels like a lot of life has happened since I was last active on the forum. Nice to see it still here. I browsed through the messages and it seems like people found plenty of creative ways to keep playing.  How are you doing?

Yep, my web host changed servers on me a while back and broke everything... including my online order system. I got that working again, then they made more changes and broke it AGAIN.

I hope to get online scores working again... once I get automated order processing back up.