BLOG (part 1)

2022 may 11th

Many many years ago I started playing Midnight Mansion. The pre-Intel period. In those days I was already active on the first boards and around that time I made my first steps with the mansion builder, which resulted in a project that I called Works in Progress. Several parts of it were used in my . A mansion that absolutely needs a serious renovation. What brings me to my first issue: I do not have access anymore to any of the MM-programs.


Together with I became administrator of the current boards (version YaBB 2.2) at the time of the release around Christmas 2006. I am not sure, but I think that it was earlier that year that I released my . This custom mansion was a huge monster and because it was so big, no wonder that it also contained some good parts.


In January 2010 I created my last mansion: . It was a small, quizzical mansion where Jack struggled with a backpack that wasn't large enough. It was also the period that my MM-life slowly faded away. I remember the start of HD and MM2 with its contest. But finally I did stop completely.

So what is going on right now, more than ten years after? Even without the possibility to play, fix or build mansions! That is the ...

2022 May the 21st

On our boards, and especially under General Custom Mansions Area, there is a lot of information about:
- the major importance of overall playability;
- avoiding Jack-stucks, half Jack-stucks and cheap deaths;
- taking care with the use of layer 6 etc.

Thanks, . I don't think I need to add something to that.


But there is more, so much more!

A good way of spreading rewards, especially the dollars since they generate Jack-lives. (To) empty rooms. The sometimes unpleasant speed of critters and platforms. Treasure areas. Map and sound hints!


With showing several examples I like to tell you about the different ways of designing starting rooms of mansions.

The image in part 1 of this blog is the starting room from my . The idea was to raise doubt about first going left or right. That was wrong since the explication about the 'crumbs' only came several rooms later in one of the two directions. Besides that, if you choose the way to the crumbs first, then there is far to much backtracking to do.

It seems that in the HD-version coins give a glow, so I assume that the single hidden coin is hinted. Then that's okay. But in the not-HD-version the coin was completely invisible. Therefor I shouldn't do that anymore. The setup of this mansion is starting with a very easy area (where Jack can't lose any life). So now I have the feeling that the hidden coin (not-HD-version) isn't appropriate for that anymore.

Conclusion: without making any building mistake, the design of the first room was influenced by bad ideas.


Next time I show examples coming from the original mansions.

2022 May the 26th

Freddy wrote on 21.05.2022 at 17:54:32:

I absolutely need to add dark rooms and the number/spread of saving points to this list.

Now back to business: set-up of the starting room(s).

The most controversial start in the original mansions is, in my opinion, the one in Chateau de Medusa hard. I try to explain this with the included images that are stills from the video where ’s Jack struggles through the first rooms of .

Jack has to start in a flat room with only one moving skull spider at the right and the task to do a precise jump to the left (pic 1).

The video starts with Jack’s first attempt by walking to the left where he got stuck in a row of dark rooms. After a voluntary game over he started to the right where he soon found out that this way is a dead end street. With his nose against a grey door he had no other choice than turn around (pic 2).

Like in his first attempt he continued to the room at the left where is no other possibility than climbing the ladder down (pic3). Since he was there before, he now wasn’t taken by surprise and hesitated while hanging at the bottom of the ladder (pic 4). But like in all previous rooms, there was only one way to continue: falling into the deep (pic 5, 6 & 7).

Jack had a safe landing on the invisible vines; invisible because it’s a dark room. The silver coins show an odd arrow to the right, but he decided to turn to the left first. There he kicked without succes against a wall (pic 8).

The only way forward is to the right, while being careful and picking up the coins (pic 9 & 10). As soon as he entered the next room two things happened nearly together: he walked into a mess of coins and bumped against an invisible wall (pic 11 & 12). Just like with his previous attempt he couldn’t start jumping over the lava pits or doing anything else that was useful.

It is interesting to see the images from his way back to the left because all the silver coins are gone now (pic 13, 14 & 15). Especially the last image is weird because the room is completely black.

Because there is no way up in any of the dark rooms, the area to find the solution is somehow limited in size: the bottom row in four rooms. So, no panic!

At last Jack found a hidden sign with a clue to help him (pic 16).

Conclusions

The small area to the right of the starting room is a way back. Right of the closed grey door is a pressure button that should open that door (pic 2). Maybe it is only because it is a way back that these rooms are pretty easy for a hard mansion. But why a way back to the starting room? To do efforts to catch a few more coins or a shield during the fall (pic 4 & 5)? And then again the whole way back to the place where you want to continue with exploring the mansion? Maybe even more than once? Really?

There is nothing wrong with a 4-room-fall, but in a first attempt the odds are big that you get taken by suprise, fall down from the ladder and will miss some rewards. Besides that, the two money bags (pic 4 & 5) are out of reach due to gravity. That is distracting and therefore feels unfair.

The dark rooms! To avoid spoilers I will not give details, but I like to put your attention to the fact that Jack-from-the-video at first missed the sign and the second time only found it after a lot of kicking/jumping/climbing everywhere in the dark rooms. More important is that before he found the sign he hadn’t the slighest idea that there was a hint. In my opinion I think that the hint was okay because it is a hard mansion and the hint did not disappear.

However this was a wake-up call for me to be very careful with designing dark rooms and especially not to forget that coins ‘to show the way’ disappear when Jack picks them up. E.g. there are coins suggesting the presence of a ladder (pic 11 & 12). If Jack climbs that ladder, dies in the zapper beam and leaves the room to search for an other way forward, the player may forget that there was a ladder or where exactly that it was.

Dear Freddy,
nice to "see" you again.  Your blog is good and I think in the right category.
What type of Mac and system are you using to play/build?  I am using a VirtualBox machine where, unfortunately, MM lags a little which makes it harder to play.

BLOG (part 7)

2022 July the 5th

First of all I have to remind the readers of my blog that is not an existing or forthcoming mansion. It is just a collection of ideas about how a new mansion could be.

Refering to the original mansions the standard difficulties are easy, normal and hard. Because of the size of I added very easy and very hard to them. And to be honest, I have the feeling that there also should be a difficulty degree like ‘quizzical’, probably best used in miniatures only.

But let's assume that there are only The Three Degrees.


You may absolutely disagree with me, but for me, as a player, the most important element to decide if a room or a complete mansion is easy, hard or normal is the risk of losing Jack-lives. But as a designer I believe that I have to take care that (all) other elements are in balance with the previously chosen difficulty: the amount of money, the number of shields and safe pedestals, the puzzles (!!), the place of the lantern or the first backpack.

One single example of a mistake out of my own lab. In the very easy area of MM&M there was a rugsack-maze (see added pic): the maze where Jack could find his first backpack. While it was really impossible for Jack to die, the 3-room-puzzle wasn't easy at all. Room 1 had real and fake ladders, room 2 also ànd magic doors.


More complicated is the handling of secrets. It starts with the fact that, what's in a name, secrets should be secret. So a designer can't just use bricks with cracks for all secrets. On the other hand both and mentioned me that at a certain point the fun is over when you don't have any clue, therefor get the feeling that you're playing blind and Jack has to kick, jump and duck everywhere.

I prefer not to get into details, because sooner or later I like to restore my own mansions. But saying some things more in general is of course possible.

The hint(s) for a secret may be:
- in an adjoining room;
- on the map;
- a sound (of a hidden falling moneybag, an eye ball, ...);
- the abrupt absence of music;
- in the name of the mansion.


And also: the lack of a 'normal' way out of an enclosed area.

Conclusions

Hints for secrets must be subtile. (Bricks-with-cracks feel only good in easy mansions.)
Take care that the hints are not too subtile.