02-03-2007, 04:04 AM
ryos wrote:All right. Now I have to take exception...
Oops! :-[ See, this is why I didn't want to name names. I must admit that I've not made it far enough in the Observatory to actually walk along the bottom of that room, and if I've gotten the map never noticed. My apologies.
Ok, the example isn't perfect, but the point stands! :-X
Oh, sorry. I forgot to use smilies, so it looked like I was all upset. No no no no no. I love discussions like this, and your experience with that particular secret is valid. I just figured I'd point out that there was more going on there than you might have noticed. There's not that many ways to reward a player in Midnight Mansion, and I wanted to have a couple of secrets that were extra-hard to find without a hint, so I threw in a couple of maps here and there that reveal those secrets. That way, people who were stopping to read their map once in a while would get a little extra reward, and I could hand out a map instead of a bag of money once in a while. You're still totally right that the invisible platform isn't hidden correctly.
And I 100% agree with you on pretty much everything in your first post. I'm not a fan of hidden keys that are required to continue in a mansion (ironic, considering the crap I pulled in ACO). I think it's possible to do it well, and Freddy's Midnight Mazes & Monsters is incredibly careful to make the hidden material into a puzzle, rather than a frustration; but I had a tough time maintaining interest in Foggy Forest Mansion because I didn't quite have faith that the required keys were nearby. After about the third time that I missed a hidden key and went back ten rooms checking every nook and cranny trying to find it, I just gave up.
But a lot of people really, really enjoyed FFM, so I think I just am attracted to a slightly different type of level design than some. There's mansions that let you explore a relatively open space, discovering rewards here and there as you poke around; and there's mansions that present you with a series of challenges more or less in a row, requiring you to solve a puzzle or find a hidden object at each step of the way before you can continue. I usually enjoy the former style, and most of the recent mansions have been of the second style, so I haven't been playing very many custom mansions all the way through lately. But there's obviously a demand for linear mansions. Matt and Joe, back on the old boards, made mostly very straightforward mansions, and someone described them as
relaxing, because you didn't have to worry about getting lost or missing required items while you explored. One of the great things about this game is how it allows for these different styles of design and play.