Missy wrote on 25.11.2012 at 02:52:03:


Missy, there is *no* Level Builder for MM HD, at least not yet. It may happen eventually, but there is no timetable for it. It wasn't ported as part of the work for MM HD.  I believe Vern intended to go back and do that if MM HD was more successful. He even released a Windows version of MM HD. 

One of Vern's primary goals for MM HD was to make it more portable so that he could more readily create releases for other platform besides OSX. His thought was to open it up to a bigger audience. There are still far more Windows users than Mac users, and he thought that might make HD a more viable product. While doing that he also updated the game to use high resolution graphics. In doing so, though, it made it more difficult for him to take advantage of features that were available only on OSX. There were other changes as well.

When I set full screen mode in the Options window in the game (or from the preferences... option from the menu bar) It sticks between game restarts. Odd. Simply switching to full screen mode while playing the game doesn't stick.

Missy wrote on 25.11.2012 at 10:18:49:


Not sure about the notifications. I'll look into it.

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No. MM 2 is not HD if we're referring to the same game. It can not be played on Lion. When Vern released MM HD, he reworked the graphics engine that was used for both MM1 and MM2 and repackaged it, splitting it into two separate games. MM HD - Episode 1 and Episode 2. The mansions that had been in MM1 were split up between Episode 1 and 2, and new mansions were added. Many of the menu screens changed as well.

The original MM2 game has not yet been updated. There's quite a bit more work that would need to happen depending on what Vern chooses to do. It's not something he currently has a lot of time for, but it's not all on Vern. If he gave MM2 the same treatment, then all the graphics would have to be redone, which is a huge effort.

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When he updated the original game, there was a lot of value in making sure it could load as many of the original custom mansions as possible. One of the main issues with the old mansions was that the file format was OSX specific, and his goal was to make the game portable. So, converting an old mansion so that it can be used with MM HD basically requires using a tool, which unpacks the data from the old file, into separate files and directories. If the mansion used custom graphics, then there are problems. If the mansion used tricks that are unsupported by the new game engine, then that also causes problems.

Most of the older mansions converted cleanly.  So, if you have the older game on a machine that has not been upgraded beyond Snow Leopard, then it is possible to use the old Mansion Builder to create mansions, and then convert them for use within MM HD. It is a little tedious though, since you won't exactly see the rooms as they appear in HD. You see them as they used to appear in the older game. It's only after converting and play-testing them in HD that you see the effects of your work. I know because this is what I did with all the original MM mansions!   A few of converted most of the original custom mansions. That, too, was a lot of work, but not as much as what I was doing with included mansions.

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Technically, there is no MM2 HD. There is MM2 and MM HD - Episode 2, and the two are not the same. MM2 was a sequel to the original MM, with some nice new features and game elements. MM HD - Episode 2 is the second part of a remake of the original game. New features present in MM2 are not in MM HD.

What I am saying is this:

If you wish to learn how to make mansions that are playable in the original MM, then you can using the original builder. All you require is an older installation of OSX that can play the older game and builder. You can then take any mansion you create for MM, and "convert" it to MM HD fairly easily. There are a few pitfalls to watch out for, but they are easily avoided.

If you wish to build mansions for MM2, then you still can - again, so long as you have an older installation to build and play the mansion. The only problem is that the audience of people who can play this custom mansion will be very small, until MM2 can be made to work on Lion (or Mountain Lion). This is a shame, because I really loved the changes to MM2.

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I think i still have it - I'll look. You can also probably still access the old test boards - i see you are a tester. I'm sure they were all posted there as well. Anyway, I'm sure I still have the file Rose mentioned.

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Yes. It's pretty simple really. When people upgraded to Lion from Snow Leopard, they lost the ability to play the old game and use the mansion builder. With no mansion builder, people could no longer create new mansions. A few folks have older installations they can access, but probably most do not.