You are disturbing my beta-testing-work of SPoG!
Midnight Mazes and Monsters ... there is so much to say about it. On the previous boards there were at last 10 threads of which the largest one had 25 pages.
To answer your questions ... more or less.
First of all, this mansion is built up like a tutorial. It starts very easy (Jack can't die!) and ends very hard (the player can die ;D). The purpose is that a player with limited experience (e.g. the 8 original easy mansions) becomes step by step stronger while playing.
Two: the crumbs. Left of the starting room there is a map that gives you a message about this mansion having a master puzzle. The crumbs are there to help you. Not to frustrate you. But while the rooms are very easy and easy in the beginning of MMaM, the master puzzle is NOT. That doesn't mean that there is a paradox, since not knowing how to use the crumbs in your advantage is not a disaster in the beginning of the mansion. While playing, sooner or later you will get the point!
And finally, something about the size. Well, MMaM has close to 500 rooms. That means that it is huge and no one in the world, including myself, is expecting that you start playing and only stop at the exit door. Besides 34 saving points that give you the possibility to save your game and restart at any other time, I introduced checkpoints in this mansion. MMaM contains 12 checkpoints and each one has a brown blackboard now. On those BBBs you can read what the highest possible amount of secrets and dollars is, when you reach that checkpoint. And then you have the choise: go on OR go back. Midnight Mazes and Monsters is especially designed in a way that, as long as you do NOT enter the final treasure area, you are always in the possibility to return to any place in the whole mansion. Yes indeed, also to the starting room if you want to. (Because there is a secret over there, btw.)
Thus: relax, take your time, do it in shifts, ask for hints on the forum etc.
Good luck!
