Beta 2: Castle Basano

[hawaii]

16097 Hard

See Jacks dead skeleton to the right of the bouncing eye ball. I think that there is so very little room between the eye & the fish. To me the fish is a cheap death. Maybe if you moved it over to the right a bit???

[hawaii]

15102 - Hard

After Jack arrived up top with the Bat Mobiel, he went exploring and jumped off to the left of the vine & died.  He re-appeared FLASHING in the middle of the grey panel.  To take the pic I had to make him stop flashing, so I hit the space bar twice.  The pic below shows where he is.

Bottom line, the grey panel door should stay open if Jack leaves the room or dies OR Jack should re-appear on the left side of the grey door.

[hawaii]

15500 - Hard

I think Jack found a short cut that is NOT meant to be. He jumped down from the above ledge to where he is in the pic

[hawaii]

14899 - Hard

The blocks in the pic where Jack is standing are not solid.  He still can leap to his death when exploring to the left.

15498 - Hard

Just my opinion.  I think that the falling bricks AT the 2nd tier level are to far apart to get access to the top level.

16499 - Hard

The bird is on top of the yellow platform when Jack enters from the left....extremely hard to jump over him.
Also, isn't the snake to close to the lava for Jack to jump over him to the left?

[hawaii]

16296 - Hard

This area is a real humdinger.  There should be a SAVE before this area.  A new player will get pretty frustrated.
The upper RIGHT bricks are solid, Jack falls to his death.  On the re-try, he bends down, but the ghost gets him. (Remember, think of a player's fist time).  On yet another re-try, he bends then jumps over the ghost and misses the 2nd set of upper bricks - hidden ladder. hmmm. 
And in the room to the right of this, he may lose some lives just getting to the Bat Mobiel.
He will have a long way to go from his last save.
I do believe a SAVE before he starts all this is a good idea.

[RobSeegel]

Castle Basano - Hard

Wow! Truth in advertising -- it really was hard, and a heck of a lot of fun to work through, but it definitely made you work to get through it. It really seemed to me that the designer had a lot of fun with it. I would easily rank it up there with the hardest from the first game. There were a few screens that were frustrating, but you know I was glad it was hard. It makes the finishing all the more satisfying.

I would hate to see it made too much easier. It's good to have something to work towards - this should be difficult for newer players to get through. That's why there's the Easy and Normal levels to work through. I think having levels like this helps to extend the life of the game.

Having said that, I think the difficulty level further highlights issues with Normal and Easy. I played Easy, Normal and Hard for this mansion without trying any others so I could try and get a sense for the differences between them, and I don't think the levels are very balanced as they are right now. Easy and Normal are too similar.

I think Normal is just about right for that level, Hard is very hard - there might even be a few minor tweaks to tone it down slightly, but in my mind the real issue is with Easy. It's not Easy enough (at least the last time I played it). I think the difference between Easy and Normal should be roughly the same difference between Normal and Hard.

Some things that might be done for Easy:

• Fewer rooms. I think there should be a general feeling that the mansion is larger as the difficulty rises.
  
  
• Fewer creatures. I tend to think as a general rule of thumb having three monsters in a single pathway per screen might be too much. 
  
  
• Fewer irregular path creatures such as birds, and fewer creatures that can drop in from above.
  
  
• I think for Easy mode the main challenge should be getting accustomed to the varying terrain and the different creatures - one or two at a time. It should make it relatively easy to focus on the main goal and finding keys without having to make too many hair trigger decisions.
  
  
• I also think that it should be fairly easy to find all keys/doors. It ought to be nearly impossible in Easy mode to be trapped outside of locked areas (even if it doesn't interfere with being able to finish).
  

Obviously... just my opinion. Seriously, though I thought the Normal and Hard levels were excellent. An alternative would be to make Normal a bit harder to help separate it more from Easy, but this skews the whole game harder. So, I'll stick to my suggestion, that the Easy level should be easier.

Some notes as I explored the mansion:

15693 - Wow - sure is easy to fall off those appearing/disappearing blocks! I tend to agree with Missy on this one.

15698 - Really tricky - a big departure from other levels, but not really that hard if you're careful. 

15701 - darn I hate those ghosts. I think they have my vote for most annoying monster since they can pop out of nowhere - usually at the worst possible time.

16298 - Seeing some strangely high jumps from the up/down platforms. It's thrown me off a few times now.

16499 - Cheap death with bird when you enter this screen?

16901 - I laughed when the elevator saved me a life by pushing the creature up and away from me - it really caught me by surprise. I didn't expect the monster to be affected by the moving platform. This was also a case where the low ceilings was an advantage. I didn't actually have to ride up and dodge the creature. I was able to jump up and get coins/keys.

16101 - Room with coins and vanishing blocks which I'm really starting to dislike. A very frustrating room. I think a small platform that goes left and right across the lava might be nice here. It wouldn't be high enough to give access to all the coins, but would give you a way around while still keeping it pretty tough. Yeah.. not a fan of this room.

15297 - Save point seemed unnecessary here. Very close to the other one a few rooms to the right, and there didn't seem to be too much hard stuff to justify it.

16307 - I think the layers are a bit off on the stalactites in the right side of the screen. It spoils the illusion of depth.

15706 - Cheap death w/ giant spider?

15506 - Tough screen. Good thing there was a save not long before...

15908 - Message: I realize the wording is meant to be somewhat stylized but I really think

when

works better than

while

here.

There was one screen, I'm going to have to find the number and post it later where I fell through the floor (it was the area where all the gold/silver blocks were. I jumped and fell through solid floor. I tried repeatedly to reproduce it, but couldn't.

[rose]

Hard
I do find the mansion hard in places and it should be. I find it hard to rate the mansions. I hopefully get more and more skilled. Some thing I never learn and have to waste a few life to get past. I am glad I can cheat while testing the mansion otherwise it would take several years before I have conquered a Hard mansion.

15897 - when traveling on the moving brick from left to right it is hard, maybe impossible to avoid a death of Jack.

16095 - 16097 If one has missed something here there is no going back to get to the lower levels if you have come to the upper level in room 16097. One has to start all over again

15697 - 15698 Skeleton and scorpions are falling through the floors when Jack is shifting between the golden and silver blocks. Is it supposed to be that way?

I don't find the spiders in room 15698 as cheap death. You have just to be skilled enough to bypass them.
Cheap death is when you don't have time to see whats coming like when just entered the room and the scorpion takes you before you have a chance to move any direction. Just being a slow player isn't making it a cheap death just more difficult to play the mansion.

15497 Some stones are in front of Jacks feet and some are not on the upper level.

The saving points 15297 and 15499 are to close to each other. The way my Jack has walked he passes the one in room 15499 twice. It is just a few rooms between them.

I didn't find any JS or real cheap death in this mansion.

[Wingy]

Thanks everyone for all your comments, questions and queries etc. Especially Rob, who really has made me thinking about easy mode. Also rose, Missy, Semi, all of you guys are great.

Here are the changes I shall make:

16101 Easy / Normal - Wine Fumes instead of Fumes of Wine on the sign.
15499 All - The levers can all now be pulled multiple times.
15698 Hard - Removing the spider; replacing with a snake.
16097 Hard - The fish has been moved over a space so it won't kill Jack on the central platform (Near the right edge).
15102 All - Trigger will be permanent in opening the grey door.
15500 Hard - A conveyor belt has been lowered to prevent players from going on them from above.
15498 - The first falling platform has been made bigger.
16499 - Monsters repositioned a bit.
15701 - Removed a fish, moved the ghosts a bit.
16901 - The lever to activate the platform resets when you re-enter now.
16101 - A platform hovering on the bottom has been added to maybe catch unlucky players.
15897 - Replaced the fish with an annoying bird.
15693 - Removed a spider.
15499 - Removed the save point, seeing it was right beside the one at the end of the section.

Along with some minor changes (bricks added here and there, graphical glitches, etc)


On a side note, Rob and Missy - About room 15693 - Try the 'technique' of jumping THEN moving and you should have better luck. The spider is going to be gone, after all, anyway.

On what you said about easy mode, Rob, I would very much consider what you said but I have so much work to do. Jasperlone Easy and Hard are my priorities right now, followed by Mount Peril Easy and Hard modes. I'll think about what you said for their easy modes. If I find time after, I may go in and make some changes. Nothing I can really do about making the mansion small, though, without reconstructing the whole thing.

I'm sorry if hard mode was too big (biggest mansion so far, as far as built-in ones go with about 150 playable rooms) but I really wanted the hard mode of Basano to be quite hard and quite long. Because, well, mainly this was the mansion that got me into doing what I do here designing for Vern) and I wanted to have it in all its glory in its hard mode.

Try Leofani Manor, Rob, tell me what you think, from easy to hard, if you don't mind.

[Wingy]

424B5D4B43432A0 wrote: 16296 - Hard

This area is a real humdinger.  There should be a SAVE before this area.  A new player will get pretty frustrated.
The upper RIGHT bricks are solid, Jack falls to his death.  On the re-try, he bends down, but the ghost gets him. (Remember, think of a player's fist time).  On yet another re-try, he bends then jumps over the ghost and misses the 2nd set of upper bricks - hidden ladder. hmmm. 
And in the room to the right of this, he may lose some lives just getting to the Bat Mobiel.
He will have a long way to go from his last save.
I do believe a SAVE before he starts all this is a good idea.

• New players really wouldn't get here if they were brand new to the game.
• I believe this was explained in the tutorial how low-ceiling while riding a platform is something to watch out for, not a cheap death.
• It is hard mode, so players should be adapted for jump over things while on a platform.

[RobSeegel]

Try the 'technique' of jumping THEN moving and you should have better luck. The spider is going to be gone, after all, anyway.

After playing some of the other rooms, that one seemed a little easier ;-) I didn't go back and reedit my earlier comments.

On what you said about easy mode, Rob, I would very much consider what you said but I have so much work to do. Jasperlone Easy and Hard are my priorities right now, followed by Mount Peril Easy and Hard modes. I'll think about what you said for their easy modes.

Totally up to you and I agree - it's tough to look backward at something that is basically

done

when there's lots of other things to do.  If that particular

easy

level is a bit harder, it's all good, because it gives users a bit of a progression to Normal. Still, I stand by what I said earlier  .

I'm sorry if hard mode was too big

I think the length adds to the difficulty and increases the payoff.  On the downside, there's more to test, and it can take me a while to do.

When I test, I like to play it all the way through as though I were a player (usually twice - but probably more on Hard due to deaths) so I can get the feel of the thing.

Along the way I make notes on screens with questionable areas, that I review later using the MMB. Where I can look at it in detail. Unfortunately... the process is slow, and I'm still trying to fine tune the process. I'm amazed at how fast some others on the board are.

Try Leofani Manor, Rob, tell me what you think, from easy to hard, if you don't mind.

Sure... I had started on Jasperlone based on Vern's recommendation, but I'd rather hold off until the Easy mode is ready to look at, so I can hit them in sequence.