05-12-2022, 11:56 AM
BLOG (part 2)
2022 May the 12th
Recently I was able to (re)watch a lot of MM-videos that I found on internet. Besides it gave me pleasant memories, it also made me think again about the ways of designing mansions.
To hear and see what a player is experiencing and thinking during play was extremely interesting. It made me wonder how the setup of a new mansion of mine should be. This issue is only theoretical, because I don’t have a working builder. The mansion is a virtual desire, but that doesn't need to stop me from giving it a name: Brave New World.
In this blog I like to share my thoughts about designing mansions and will add images to illustrate what I mean. Or just for fun like in my previous post.
Before even thinking of a single brick, door or ladder, I did something I never did before: dive into the roots of the game. And I found inspiration in three sources.
On the ActionSoft downloadpage I got this: Jack Malone explores mansions while avoiding traps, solving puzzles and discover secrets. The lists with the high scores taught me that there is a rang order for 1° the amount of money, 2° the used time and 3° the found secrets, but also that, first of all, Jack has to leave the mansion through the/an exit door! Last of all, Alex Diener (betatester for some of the original MM1’s), did put my attention on the importance of the thrill from playing on the edge of game over. His playing-behaviour increased once his Jack had two lives or less. And Alex also often saved saving points for later/never …
8-)
I must confess that I barely took care of that game-over-thrill. E.g. Midnight Mazes and Monsters started with a pretty large grey area where it was completely impossible to lose lives. In contrary, before Jack encountered the very first challenge he collected over $ 3.000 an could ‘start’ with 9 lives!
So here is my first conclusion for my hypothetical mansion. It must contain:
- an exit door;
- money;
- secrets;
- traps;
- puzzles;
- the thrill of game over.
If I should start building a first section right now, it would be a not complicated area on a normal level, only to documentate how the loss of Jack-lives is when betatesters are exploring it the very first time.