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Actionsoft's latest game, Midnight Mansion 2: The Haunted Hills,  includes 28 mansions. The 8 Built-in mansions have 3 difficulties along with 4 extra custom mansions. We don't have that many other custom MM2 mansions yet. Design your own custom mansion! Info below.  You can find out more about the game here.

The original Midnight Mansion game contains over 150 mansions. The 8 included mansions which have 3 difficulty levels each, and about 115 approved custom mansions which you can download here and also several freely uploaded mansions. To know the difference between these three types of mansions, click here.

Are you a creative person and thinking of designing a mansion yourself? Or want to know about how to upload it? Click here and we'll show you! You'll find guidelines for betatesters here.

News:
Midnight Mansion 2: The Haunted Hills version 1.0.2b has been released. This fixes a bug in Jasperlone Mountains Hard. Simply re-download the game, bring over your custom mansions folder from the old version and play on. All your saves and high scores will not be changed.

Midnight Mansion HD (MM1) is now available at the Mac App Store and at the Actionsoft website. A Windows version is now available.

Here is a list of downloadable MM1 HD ready custom mansions, which also work in the Windows version of the game.

The MM2 custom mansion Hanging Gardens of Babylon by Freddy/SandyBean/Josephine/brell was updated on 19. Nov 2023 to add a fourth section. Available here


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A "manual" for beta testers (Read 38531 times)
brell
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A "manual" for beta testers
30.09.2007 at 06:39:52
 
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.

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« Last Edit: 22.07.2008 at 20:11:03 by brell »  

A stuck Jack is better than no jack
 
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ryos
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Re: A "manual" for beta testers
Reply #1 - 01.10.2007 at 00:49:44
 
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.
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Freddy
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Re: A "manual" for beta testers
Reply #2 - 01.10.2007 at 01:43:39
 
Thx for these beta-testing suggestions, brell.  Smiley 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.  Cry
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Semi-Native
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Re: A "manual" for beta testers
Reply #3 - 01.10.2007 at 06:55:25
 
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.

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Alan Falcon
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Re: A "manual" for beta testers
Reply #4 - 02.02.2008 at 17:38:03
 
This is a wonderful idea for a thread, with some great information. Smiley 

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. Smiley
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-------> Original Designer of 'Falcon Manor', 'Chateau de Medusa'
-------> Now making iPhone games at FalconEmpire.com
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brell
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Re: A "manual" for beta testers
Reply #5 - 02.02.2008 at 19:18:19
 
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. Smiley


A very good point Alan.  I guess most builders/testers have encountered this.
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2 Loons
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Re: A "manual" for beta testers
Reply #6 - 11.07.2011 at 06:03:13
 
I need to know how to show room number when testing. I can't see it.
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Re: A "manual" for beta testers
Reply #7 - 11.07.2011 at 06:34:56
 
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
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Missy
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Re: A "manual" for beta testers
Reply #8 - 25.11.2012 at 03:11:43
 
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.
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Re: A "manual" for beta testers
Reply #9 - 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?
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