Midnight Mansion Forums - A nostalgic blog concerning designing mansions

Freddy

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Re: A nostalgic blog concerning designing mansions
Reply #40 - 13.12.2022 at 21:17:08

BLOG (part 26)

2022 December the 13th

Today's post is a question.

In the shown room please completely ignore the long ladder at the right. Do as if it's not there at all. Now, assume that Jack comes in at the bottom right and has to leave in the bottom left corner.

Is anyone interested in testing this room based on the picture? What is your first impression? How would you handle it? What would you change? Oops, that's more than one question. Then please leave a reply.

Meanwhile I like to put your attention on the levers. From the time of MM1, I of course remember that there are several colours for the knots. But as well for the bottoms?!
Undecided

The funny thing is that in the builder-lab the bottoms don't change, but once in the testing mode colours may change. Due to spoiler alert I can't tell why, but from the point of view from the designer it's important because players may be on the alert because of the exposed differences.

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brell YaBB Administrator Offline Posts: 1803 Moita, Portugal Gender:	Re: A nostalgic blog concerning designing mansions Reply #41 - 15.12.2022 at 19:30:50 Send it to me
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Olle the Greatest

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Re: A nostalgic blog concerning designing mansions
Reply #42 - 16.12.2022 at 15:41:58

@Freddy I don't know if I can be of assistance, but if I can I will. Is there some kind of error or error message concerning the Octopus Mansions, or do they simply not open at all? It's been such a long time but the game is still the best game I know, and my kids love it even though there are so many choices nowadays. They like to watch me play, too, so it's a win-win for me (I know where the kids are, they behave, and I get to have all the fun Cheesy

)

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"How come things that happen to stupid people keep happening to me?"

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Olle the Greatest

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Re: A nostalgic blog concerning designing mansions
Reply #43 - 16.12.2022 at 15:48:43

It looks like it's necessary to pull the levers in a specific order to avoid the animals, but since the levers are the same color (except the yellow one) I guess I'd die at least once trying them out... I'd probably start with the leftmost, since it's not fair to have a lever that makes a scorpion fall on your head. But on the other hand, since that is the most obvious first choice, it probably opens the middle one with the snakes, making it hard to reach the key without dying. But the yellow one will probably open for the scorpion... which will fall down on the floor, so that's not too bad, so I'd change to that choice instead just before pulling. That's my answer...

Freddy wrote on 13.12.2022 at 21:17:08:

BLOG (part 26)

2022 December the 13th

Today's post is a question.

In the shown room please completely ignore the long ladder at the right. Do as if it's not there at all. Now, assume that Jack comes in at the bottom right and has to leave in the bottom left corner.

Is anyone interested in testing this room based on the picture? What is your first impression? How would you handle it? What would you change? Oops, that's more than one question. Then please leave a reply.

Meanwhile I like to put your attention on the levers. From the time of MM1, I of course remember that there are several colours for the knots. But as well for the bottoms?!
Undecided

The funny thing is that in the builder-lab the bottoms don't change, but once in the testing mode colours may change. Due to spoiler alert I can't tell why, but from the point of view from the designer it's important because players may be on the alert because of the exposed differences.

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"How come things that happen to stupid people keep happening to me?"

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Freddy

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Re: A nostalgic blog concerning designing mansions
Reply #44 - 16.12.2022 at 19:53:28

BLOG (part 27)

2022 December the 16th

Today's post is an answer.

Olle the Greatest wrote on 16.12.2022 at 15:48:43:

It looks like it's necessary to pull the levers in a specific order to avoid the animals, but since the levers are the same color (except the yellow one) I guess I'd die at least once trying them out... I'd probably start with the leftmost, since it's not fair to have a lever that makes a scorpion fall on your head. But on the other hand, since that is the most obvious first choice, it probably opens the middle one with the snakes, making it hard to reach the key without dying. But the yellow one will probably open for the scorpion... which will fall down on the floor, so that's not too bad, so I'd change to that choice instead just before pulling. That's my answer...

Depending from the time of the day and my mood I should start a room like this one with trial and error or with thinking ...
Wink

Well, as a player I expect that a designer delivers neat work that results in fair play. That is why I tried to avoid that this room is a guessing game.

The room has 6 levers, 1 conveyor belt and 5 trapdoors. The double trapdoor, indeed, gets opened with 1 lever. Before doing the ladder jump, be sure how to get back to earth!

Now there are two possibilities. You know why the lever bottoms have different colours. Or you don't. And that makes a difference. Now let's assume you don't. Just think that they are all red.

Since the way back to the bottom floor is at the right, the 4 most left levers can't be for the snakes, because otherwise Jack doesn't have a proper way out or a way further to the left and back.

Like you said, Olle, the left lever may not lead to a fast death due to the scorpion. So you can always start there. But how to continue?

SPOILER ALERT:

Don't only think in playing order or order from left to right. Have a closer look at the position of all the trap doors and then of all the levers. To say something: why are the levers not on a row on the bottom floor?

Suggestion Smiley

In the old days we designed a mansion, searched for beta testers and finally asked to launch it as an approved custom mansion on the boards. Made for other players!

Nowadays Midnight Mansion is 'our' oldtimer game that we like to take care of, keep alive, honour. But we all are designers, beta testers, administrators and players at the same time. And we are few.

That is why I propose to do an open beta testing for

MM2 - Brave New World

. No bilateral sendings of mails with (parts of) a mansion anymore. Just a post in my blog with, as a start, an attachment of e.g. 10 rooms? And public debate over here with 'all members'?

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« Last Edit: 16.12.2022 at 23:34:00 by Freddy »

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Freddy YaBB Administrator Offline Posts: 1789 Brugge, Belgium Gender:	Re: A nostalgic blog concerning designing mansions Reply #45 - 05.01.2023 at 02:21:05 I like to change water into wine ... I mean lava into water. (So far I only found out how to change the sound, but why should I want to do that!) Is that possible? How?
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Freddy

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Re: A nostalgic blog concerning designing mansions
Reply #46 - 11.03.2023 at 16:30:40

BLOG (part 28)

2023 March the 11th

Hello everybody!

I am interested in everyone's opinion about the shown green room. Assume that Jack is somewhere in the middle of a mansion and a previous area seems to be finished. He entered the room by climbing down the ladder.

How would you handle this room?

My Jack, who often does other things than I want him to, would definitely climb the ladder up again to the sleeping room and go to bed because he is exhausted from all previous efforts ...
Cool

What I am up to is this. As designer I am going to give information in the room to the right about which green door Jack has to open first. But if he slides down the pole first he will need to guess.

My important question is: do you consider using the pole first as a player or a designer mistake in a mansion on level 'normal' Questioning

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brell

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Re: A nostalgic blog concerning designing mansions
Reply #47 - 11.03.2023 at 22:21:30

You need to give a hint as to what to do first. Like arrow of coins or something.
If the player does not take the hint it is his/hers fault. But if the player does go down the pole first and then opens the wrong door it must not lead to any kind of Jack-stuck although Jack may miss some part of the mansion.

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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 #48 - 22.03.2023 at 18:11:20

BLOG (part 29)

2023 March the 22nd

Hello everybody!

In the

Hanging Gardens of Babylon

it is raining in the first room. But when I know try to make it rain in a room that I am designing it doesn't work. The rain isn't visible in builder nor game. But in the game I could hear the sound of the rain. And after pressing M the rain is visible on that map!!?!

Is there anyone who has an explanation or is able to help me?

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Freddy YaBB Administrator Offline Posts: 1789 Brugge, Belgium Gender:	Re: A nostalgic blog concerning designing mansions Reply #49 - 23.03.2023 at 16:21:53 There are lava-mansions and water-mansions. Is it possible that rain is only possible in water-mansions?
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	Midnight Mansion Forums from ActionSoft Latest news! January 2025's updates of custom mansions are: - for MM1 The Bat House (version 1.1) by Chippy - for MM2 Brave New World (version 1.1) by Freddy - for MM1 Art minds mansion (version 1.1) by Veronika December 2024's updates of custom mansions are: - for MM2 Hanging Gardens of Babylon (version 4.1) by Freddy, SandyBean, Josephine and brell - for MM1 Cheetah Castle Easy (version 1.2) and Cheetah Castle Normal (version 1.2) both by Catwoman. New to the forums? Go ahead and register! Why register? Click here to find out the difference of being a guest and a member. After you're done, go here to learn how to start posting. Make sure you've read and agree with the rules of posting here! The forums are run by three administrators. Read here who they are and what you may (and may not) expect from them. A brief history of the game At first there was Midnight Mansion, now often called MM1. This game package was for Mac only and contained 8 mansions, each on easy, normal and hard level. Above that there was a builder included, so that customers could design mansions themselves. Then there was Midnight Mansion HD, now abbreviated as MM1 HD for both Mac and Windows. It contained the 3x8 mansions from MM1 plus 3x a bonus mansion: Tomb of Princes. All in high definition! Actionsoft's latest game, Midnight Mansion 2: The Haunted Hills, includes 28 mansions with a lot of new features. The 8 built-in mansions have 3 difficulties along with 4 extra custom mansions. Yes indeed, the MM2 package also has an included builder to create mansions! Custom mansions In the past decades several customers started experimenting with the builders. Creating rooms. Talking about it on the Midnight Mansion Forums. Sending their own designed mansions to other board members to test them. And finally sending them to the administrators of MMF. Result? Nearly 200 extra mansions are downloadable from these boards and some of them have over 100 rooms. If you like to download custom mansions, go to the General Custom Mansions Area (Mac and Windows) where you find the lists with all the download spots.