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?

Freddy wrote on 20.04.2007 at 08:36:49:


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.

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.

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...

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 and the unfinished . 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