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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 nostalgic blog concerning designing mansions (Read 7074 times)
Freddy
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Re: A nostalgic blog concerning designing mansions
Reply #10 - 18.09.2022 at 18:46:53
 
BLOG (part 9)



2022 September the 18th

Smiley
I have my Midnight-Mansion-Only-Mac! That means that I could install Leopard and all MM applications.

Early this morning I enjoyed life with visiting the free parts of MM1, MM HD and MM2. And did send a mail to ActionSoft Support to receive a new registration code, because my former one seems to be out of use.
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« Last Edit: 02.10.2022 at 22:55:45 by Freddy »  
 
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Re: A nostalgic blog concerning designing mansions
Reply #11 - 18.09.2022 at 20:38:22
 
Congratulations, Freddy! Good luck getting everything up and running.
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Freddy
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Re: A nostalgic blog concerning designing mansions
Reply #12 - 24.09.2022 at 19:24:08
 
BLOG (part 10)



2022 September the 24th

While I am waiting for my registration codes I like to share an image with you with the interesting question: does this room include a design mistake or only a possible playing mistake?
Huh

The room shown is number 17898 out of
MM1 Falcon Manor hard
. Jack may use the first sinking platform to the red key and jump to the moneybag on the yet not moving platform. There is no common way back! To continue the player needs to sacrifice a life by Jack jumping into the lava.

In the good old times, as a compromise, we called this situation a Half Jack Stuck.

However, with what I know now, designers have so many possibilities with this nice builder that I believe that there is no good reason to add this kind of 'problem' into any mansion. Imagine a 50 room mansion with a lot of Half Jack Stucks ...
Shocked
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« Last Edit: 02.10.2022 at 22:55:30 by Freddy »  

 
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Freddy
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Re: A nostalgic blog concerning designing mansions
Reply #13 - 25.09.2022 at 17:22:38
 
BLOG (part 11)



2022 September the 25th

I added a picture out of
MM1 - Falcon Manor normal
, somewhere between the save pedestals 1 and 2. In this area you see 3 poles. The middle one is the way to continue to the second save and further.

To arrive at that pole Jack may come either via the left pole or the right one. And that implicates that once Jack slipped down one of these poles, the other wing isn't visitable any more.

It makes this mansion rather unorthodox, especially for an original included mansion (not a custom one). Players in urge of a high score have to play this mansion more than once in both ways to figure out where most money is ...

In my opinion there are other and better ways of design to convince players to visit a mansion several times. One of those ways is even seen in the very same manor! One yellow  key, but two yellow doors. One door is for progress in the mansion, while the other one leads to treasure AND a yellow key to be able to continue through the other yellow door.
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« Last Edit: 02.10.2022 at 22:55:17 by Freddy »  

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brell
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Re: A nostalgic blog concerning designing mansions
Reply #14 - 28.09.2022 at 21:38:33
 
It is also impossible to visit all rooms in Nightmare Mansion in one go.
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A stuck Jack is better than no jack
 
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Freddy
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Re: A nostalgic blog concerning designing mansions
Reply #15 - 29.09.2022 at 18:07:34
 
BLOG (part 12)



2022 September the 29th

Falcon Manor and Nightmare Mansion.
Roll Eyes

MM1 got released with eight included mansions. In the following years some mansion bugs got detected and fixed. But, in contrary to the other six, the two mansions mentioned above were also important issues on the boards because players seemed unable to explore all rooms or to catch all keys/money/secrets during one single mansion visit.

For now, two things about that.

1. With what I remember from these two mansions is that there were severe differences between the easy, normal and hard versions. I had the feeling that the hard versions were much more polished than the others and therefor probably made first. I think that some things went wrong during the downgrading process for the easy and normal versions.

2. Without replaying the 2x3 mansions I have to take care with what I say because I haven't any idea about what things got fixed or changed since I left the 'scene'. And if there are differences between the included mansions in MM1 and MM1 HD.

Concerning
MM1 HD Falcon Manor hard
  I saw in a 2015-video from
Alex Diener
that in the left, red area it seemed possible to skip a red door. Afterwards the question raise if it was possible to skip the only blue door in the right section as well. The answer to that question is very important for being able to evaluate this mansion fairly.

About Nightmare Mansion I can recall that one of the top players from the early years (
Psychotronic
, I think), was very sure that everything was in reach. But about which version we were talking I really can't remember.

So, my hope is that I soon will be able to play again and give some clear answers at the appropriate board.
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« Last Edit: 02.10.2022 at 22:54:59 by Freddy »  
 
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Re: A nostalgic blog concerning designing mansions
Reply #16 - 30.09.2022 at 16:01:13
 
BLOG (part 13)



2022 September the 30th

Last night I was witness of a Jack-stuck in
MM1 HD - Knight Mansion hard
. But this post is not meant as the report of a designing mistake. It is an illustration of the risks while building complex rooms/areas.

On the left image Jack came from the left. Standing on the gold blocks he jumped down to the right. His only way to continue was by climbing the ladder to arrive in the room above (right image).

It seemed to be a dead end street where is only a lever that toggles the grey door below him. After returning down, even jumping into the deep didn't help. Jack reappeared on the ladder in the upper right corner of the room.
Sad

Text completed on October the 2nd.


A player who is on the alert should think twice before doing a one way jump down. Since Jack came in from the room above the player could have known in advance that the only way of continuing was climbing up the ladder at the far right that most likely was leading to a forced way of return. And big troubles.

However. Although this is a hard mansion for experienced players, a lack of enough thinking ahead, may never lead to a Jack-stuck and forced aborting of the game.

Now, is the designer to blame? Of course not! The two shown rooms are part of a very large and complex area with gold/silver puzzles. Sometimes in combination with grey or other doors and 'annoying' spiders, birds and scorpions. Out of own experience I know the building of these things is, besides very fascinating, also exhausting.

Good beta testing AND (the possibility of) fixing seem the keywords to me.

Btw, an easy way to fix this Jack-stuck is just removing the upper four gold blocks from the column. Or all five, because that would make the jump back harder.
Grin
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« Last Edit: 02.10.2022 at 16:32:04 by Freddy »  

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Freddy
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Re: A nostalgic blog concerning designing mansions
Reply #17 - 02.10.2022 at 16:52:34
 
BLOG (part 14)


2022 October the 2nd

Freddy wrote on 24.09.2022 at 19:24:08:
... I like to share an image with you with the interesting question: does this room include a design mistake or only a possible playing mistake?

... In the good old times, as a compromise, we called this situation a Half Jack Stuck.

However, with what I know now, designers have so many possibilities with this nice builder that I believe that there is no good reason to add this kind of 'problem' into any mansion. ...


I have the feeling that I need to clarify my point. With an added image of room 17899 out of
MM1 - Falcon Manor normal
.

If Jack runs to the right to pick up the $ 200 moneybag and the map, he will not be able to return to the left because all 20 skulls will be disappeared. As a player, I had never any problem with the fact that I needed to take care and jump to the right, so that enough skulls stayed there to be able to jump back.

But as a designer, and that is only my personal opinion, I should avoid that. Here, every 5th skull I should replace by a 1-tile grey sinking platform. 5th because it is the normal version; in the hard version I'll make it 6th.
Tongue
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Freddy
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Re: A nostalgic blog concerning designing mansions
Reply #18 - 02.10.2022 at 17:39:56
 
BLOG (part 15)


2022 October the 2nd

I always found
Nightmare Mansion
the most intriguing one of the included mansions.

brell wrote on 28.09.2022 at 21:38:33:
It is also impossible to visit all rooms in Nightmare Mansion in one go.


Just a small introduction to explain ... the nightmare!
Cool

From left to right you see images from room 16302 in respectively the easy, normal and hard version.

In the Midnight Mansion game there is the possibility to get maps that are handy to check where you have been, to check what you probably missed, to figure out in which direction you want to continue or what to do first etc.

But taking and using maps is not obliged, only helpful. So, in the normal version you may leave the red door closed and in the hard version the purple one.

Remembering this mansion, it could be of major importance to get spare keys.
Undecided

I do like to figure that out. And that is one of the many many reasons that I really want 'my game' back.
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« Last Edit: 11.10.2022 at 17:18:11 by Freddy »  
 
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Freddy
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Re: A nostalgic blog concerning designing mansions
Reply #19 - 09.10.2022 at 22:13:16
 
BLOG (part 16)



2022 October the 9th

Jack Malone, who is becoming an addicted selfies-man, arrived at a place of interest (see pic). In room 18495 of
MM1 HD - Falcon Manor easy
he is standing between a pole down at the left and two red doors at the right. Since he has two red keys in his backpack the way to the right looks like the most obvious one, because there is $ 350 to pick up ànd an open way to at least one room at the right. Above that, the ladder is there to get back to the pole.

But what if Jack immediately slides down the pole with his two red keys? Surprisingly spared keys may do odd things with a mansion!!
Undecided

I know that once down the pole there is a forced catch of a rainbow key and the possibility to save. Further down there is an inevitable fork with left a red door and right a blue door. Of course Jack should open the red door, saving his rainbow key for future use. But my Jack can't open this door, because there is an early exit since I still didn't receive my codes for both MM1 and MM2.
Sad Cry
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« Last Edit: 11.10.2022 at 15:49:40 by Freddy »  
 
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