Beta 4: Dr. Demented's Den

[Semi-Native]

1320372B0F202B36202B450 wrote: Semi-Native, you mentioned you'd seen this in other mansions. Can you give any specific room numbers? When I fix this, I'd like to make sure it fixes the other spots too.

I just did a search of posts, and the only other one I could find was 15296 in Jasperlone Mts. Hard. I searched for the word

sparkles.

I'll check my notes to see if I can find any more.

[Semi-Native]

Here's another one, Vern:

15904 in Dr. Demented's Den Hard, but the Action is Permanent box is not checked, so I think that's an easy fix. It happens because the trolls held in the cage by a trap door reappear in the cage when you re-enter the room.

[RobSeegel]

5761696D294A65706D7261040 wrote: Here's another one, Vern:

15904 in Dr. Demented's Den Hard, but the Action is Permanent box is not checked, so I think that's an easy fix. It happens because the trolls held in the cage by a trap door reappear in the cage when you re-enter the room.

The problem is the trolls always reappear regardless of checkmark, which isn't the behavior I'd hoped for

I'm going through every place where the H trigger is used in DDD Hard right now. I've got a fix for each place. Instead of using the H trigger to open trapdoors, I'll use it to reveal a lever (which can optionally open trapdoors) at Jack's whim.

[RobSeegel]

7546514D69464D50464D230 wrote: Okay, so the bug in 15703 is due to the

Action is Permanent

checkbox NOT being checked for one of the H triggers. (Specifically, the 2nd one from the top.)

So I'm confused why this checkbox is even there. Is there a legitimate situation where an H trigger's action should *not* be permanent? If so, what should happen in this case?

I'm confused why I put this checkbox on the H trigger in the first place. Any ideas?

Well... I guess I'm sort of curious as to why it's tied to this checkbox in any event. Without knowing the code, I would have thought there would be some flag associated with the room if it had one or more H triggers, that would have been set the first time all monsters were cleared out, and from that point on it would be a normal room.

Of the possible actions, the one I ran into trouble with many times is the trapdoor one.

Also, on a side note, why aren't more actions possible when the H is triggered? It would have come in handy, but I guess considering the issues with even this limited set, maybe its for the best.

[RobSeegel]

52646C682C4F6075687764010 wrote: Okay, finally finished the hard version with 93% secrets (or 95%, I forget).

16304  I had 5 yellow keys, 1 green, 1 blue, 1 purple.  I couldn't pick up the red key, so I traveled right to 16309 to use a key but had to leave the other 2 there, of course. When I got back to 16304, I jumped down to get the red key, but now Jack is stuck because the brick didn't come down for him to jump on. The lever is set to be used only once.  See pic.  (The reason I had the purple was because at first, I chose not to use the purple in 15102 - I didn't feel like working that hard just to get a money bag - but I eventually did so I could get rid of that key)

17099  Same key dilemma - no room to pick up both keys. It's a pain to have to travel all over the place to get rid of keys, then come back to pick up some more.

Yes - the deal with the keys is critical. I knew the yellow keys would be tricky. My better times through the mansion were when I left the following yellow keys until I was picking up the nearby green keys: 15900, 16499, 16897.
Of course, your first time through you have no way of knowing how the situation with keys.

I was interested that the purple key seemed optional, because it wasn't intended to be. I tried to make it so that you'd have been forced to dump that key long before you had the issues you're experiencing. After looking, I see where the problem is in 15303. I made a few mods in the following screens:

* 15102: Added more treasure in this room to soften the blow of coming through here. Also sped up one of the creatures, so that it's now possible to get both with a single run. This room should be the only way of getting to the red key for the zapper rooms, which should help later on with keys.

* 15103: Widened the ghost platforms; should go a long ways towards making this room easier.

* 15303: levers moved. It's no longer possible to get through this maze without going through the purple door; I tried to balance it a little by widening two of the disappearing platforms.

* 15704: went back and tried to ensure that platforms only move the first time through here. It won't matter whether or not zappers work if the platforms don't move.

Rather than start from the beginning, try starting from room 15303 and let me know what you think of these changes.

The one time lever in 16304 can now be used as many times as you wish. Something else I'm considering... what do you think about replacing the red door/key with a gray door that uses no key? On one hand I kind of hate to do that, because the key makes it pretty clear what needs to happen in the room at a glance, but there are other ways of doing that as well.

I'll put out the update tonight.

[RobSeegel]

I'm trying to think where the best place to put a BBB that makes some sort of warning about the yellow keys. The three keys I referenced are the best to leave for last IMO, but I don't really want to come out and say that in the game. Any thoughts?

At the moment, I'm leaning towards something near the beginning of area 5. Jack could always leave one or two yellow keys in this area until later, without too much hardship, if he hasn't already.

Unfortunately, the yellow keys were intended to cause some of this trouble. I did envision them as a subtle trap that didn't make Jack's life any easier until he was able to get rid of them. Cursed keys...

[RobSeegel]

OK... here we go again. A brief summary of changes:

- Scrubbed all rooms with an H trigger in them to resolve all issues. Turned out to be more than I realized (and I had gotten rid of two such rooms in the last update).

- Corrected reported typos (plus a little more editing in 15910)

- Fixed JS in goblin room

- Replaced backpacks in one of the extended yellow rooms with gold coins.

- Key issue: I've already posted some of these changes for the zapper rooms. These changes should prevent Jack from carrying the purple key outside of area 3. There is one other purple key possibility though for a room that contains a save point in area 4

blue rooms

, but for now... I'll leave that one alone. I've also reworked rooms 15298 and 15300 to prevent Jack from getting the yellow in 15900 until he has first gotten the green/blue key in 15298.

Between the purple and yellow keys that should provide a little breathing room. I haven't yet created a BBB that warns of the

curse of the yellow keys

but I'm open to the idea to further mitigate the problem. I'd like to avoid making more changes like the one I did for the key in 15900. If it comes down to it, I'll remove one of the other yellow keys (probably 16499 or 16110) if I have to.

Edit: removed mansion attachment - there is a more recent version

[margherita64]

Hi Rob
I've finished re-playing your mansion: 94075 coins and 100% of secrets! ;D

I just find 2 things:

room 17110 - the signed lever doesn't do anything

room 15505 - the platform doesn't appear unless you suspend/restart the game

[RobSeegel]

494556434C41564D50451210240 wrote: Hi Rob
I've finished re-playing your mansion: 94075 coins and 100% of secrets! ;D

Great! Glad you found everything. I am removing most of the backpacks from the vault, and when I'm done my goal is for the highest score to be closer to around 80,000.
Glad you got the 100%.


room 17110 - the signed lever doesn't do anything

Fixed.


room 15505 - the platform doesn't appear unless you suspend/restart the game


Yep - that was the point.  I'm considering modifying it so this has a

trigger panel

and it can be used regardless of whether the other platform is present in the room.

What are your thoughts on the overall difficulty level? It's already considerably easier than it was initially. Do you think it fits in with other included hard mansions? Do you feel it's an improvement over the original Hard version?

One of the things I sort of like and dislike is all the save platforms. I like having a lot of save areas, but I don't like the idea that they all necessarily grant Jack additional lives.

It really makes me wish that MM supported two types of save platforms. One which can be used one time and resets lives to 6 (if Jacks total is less than 6 like we have now), and another type which could be used as many times as the player wants, but doesn't add any more lives.

If I were to ask you to choose 4 save platforms to remove, which ones would they be?

[RobSeegel]

Now that things are finally winding down... I'd like to thank the folks who beta tested Dr Demented's Den - Hard.  A simple

Thank you

just seems completely inadequate for all the effort you put into helping me get this mansion to where it is now. Simply put, I couldn't have done it alone, and I deeply appreciate all the input, both public and private. I carefully read and tried to address every issue that was brought up.

I ended up changing far more than I (or Vern) originally intended, and I hope the end result is OK. It was a great learning experience, and satisfying, but it was also exhausting, frustrating, and took far more time than I ever guessed.

Semi-Native and Margherita: You both were incredibly generous with your time, comments, and patience. Your feedback was invaluable, and I'm very grateful for all you've done.  If I can ever return the favor with testing, just let me know.

Jim - I also appreciated your feedback and willingness to try the mansion out despite the rapid fire changes.

Anthony: I appreciate your early advice and encouragement. After years of ruthless code reviews and software development collaboration with some pretty opinionated folks my ego isn't all that fragile, and I'm afraid I can be blunt at times, but I do appreciate your diplomacy and have a healthy respect for your opinion.

Jacob: Thanks for your initial design of this mansion, which I hope still shines through despite my many changes. One of my goals was to modify it so that it would still be recognizable, and very much the same in spirit to the original. Thank you also for the artwork that's been fantastic in the sequel (I esp. love the stain glass windows!). There were times I felt like a vandal in some of the rooms.

Vern: Thanks for all the feedback and the opportunity to help out with this! I was utterly gobsmacked (the only word that really does the feeling any justice) that you allowed me the chance to run with this as far as I did. Sorry for messing with your release schedule, and for diverging so much from the Easy and Normal versions. This has been tough to juggle with other responsibilities, but the experience has been all I hoped for and rewarding in many ways I never expected. It's been a pleasure to help out - both with testing and with the mansion. Thanks. If there's anything I can do to help out in the future, feel free to ask, and I'll set some time aside for it.

I fully expect that there may be a few more small changes, and I'll happily address them but I'm rapidly getting to the point where I'm going to have refocus some of my attentions back to other areas in my life. I initially budgeted time for this as a tester and nothing more... but this was simply too good an opportunity to pass up. It has been crazy, but worth it. In the future, I'll have a better idea of what I'm getting into and plan more realistically
.

Feel free to continue to submit feedback. If you raise a big issue at this point, I'd deeply appreciate a proposed solution as well.

In addition to being a crap artist, I'm afraid my music sense in terms of the game isn't great. I feel like the music could be arranged much better. I'd gratefully welcome suggestions for this. It generally follows the Easy and Normal versions right now, but it is also much longer than either of those so I'd be very open to altering the music throughout if someone feels like offering some input.

Edit: added thank you to Jacob

Rob