A nostalgic blog concerning designing mansions

[Freddy]

BLOG (part 17)

2022 October the 29th

The included image shows the starting room of MM1 HD - Nightmare Mansion hard. Jack is standing aside a pole that looks like it is coming from the room above. I remember that previously this pole gave me the strong expectation that there wàs a room over there.

But that doesn't need to be. In contrary this kind of setup is maybe just perfect. After all Jack is only able to visit a mansion when there is a place where he may enter that mansion (coming from an outer world). The starting room is probably the most logical place to expose that.

In the shown room the two wooden platforms are permanently moving left and right with the same (and reasonable) speed. The upper platform has a longer distance to cover than the lower one. That means that the platforms are sometimes moving nearly together in the same direction, but sometimes not all.

So going down to the ladder deserves neatly work: 4 jumps to the different platforms and a last step to the bottom. Hard work in the hard version of this mansion.

Or is there an alternative way? How about relaxing, not hurrying, thinking and finally SPOILER ALERT *** using only the left sinking platform! ***

[Freddy]

BLOG (part 18)

2022 October the 30th

The added picture is from the interesting room 16500 in the same mansion: MM1 HD - Nightmare Mansion hard.

The red door with the moneybag behind it did ring a very tall bell. In Jack's backpack are 3 wrong colored keys and in the large neighborhood isn't any red one.

To continue the game, I only had choice between two possibilities with a pole down (one way!). Once down, in contrary to what I thought, I could solve this puzzle. In a room there was an odd 'unfriendly' option: exchanging a shield or a life for a way back to that red door.

The room itself isn't only hard because of the red door and the small sinking platforms. Catching the left moneybag needs careful play. In that niche Jack can't duck or jump to avoid the upper blue bird. So it is a matter of timing and being fast enough.

[Freddy]

BLOG (part 19)

2022 October the 31st

See part 18 of the blog.

5D697E7F7F621B0 wrote: ... Once down, in contrary to what I thought, I could solve this puzzle. In a room there was an odd 'unfriendly' option: exchanging a shield or a life for a way back to that red door. ...

Well, well, well. How wrong was I. Not that I did lie, because my Jack really could fight his way back to that red door and open it. But afterwards there arouse new serious problems with opening colored doors. So yesterday this nightmare had no solution.

After new visits (plural!) I could 'finish' MM1 HD - Nightmare Mansion hard, what means that I arrived at a point where I need a code to proceed. See image of room 16894.

This, in my personal opinion, brilliant designed first part of the mansion is absolutely tough. What a masterclass! Especially concerning the use of (one way) poles with all their complications.
[smiley=tekst-toppie.gif]

So far, the mansion had a blue and a green area. Jack is standing right now at one of the two points where he is able to slide down a pole to the next red area.

A few important things.
1. I am pretty sure that I collected all money and found all secrets.
2. I 'saw' all rooms and visited all but one. The latter I only saw on the map.
3. Six doors I left unopened what resulted in four spare keys in the backpack. Indeed: there are more doors than keys in these first areas of the mansion!
:o

No wonder that players get in trouble. This mansion is a big invitation to revisit it.

Was my play perfect? I don't know. First of all, I know that there is an other pole where Jack can slide down to the next area and I don't have any clue if the choice between the two poles does matter. It may also be important that a purple door need to be opened to use that other pole.

Besides that I am not sure about one of the spared keys. After a closed colored door there is a room (the one I only saw on the map) with an other colored key (but absolutely sure no money). So an exchange before going to the red area may be important.

Do you understand that I am eager to figure this out?

[Freddy]

BLOG (part 20)

2022 November the 4th

7A4C44400467485D405F4C290 wrote: ... Good luck getting everything up and running.

MM HD and MM2 are up and running!

[smiley=beer.gif]  [smiley=birthdays.gif] [smiley=vrolijk_26.gif]

[brell]

Congrats Freddy. Remember, you can convert original MM1 custom mansions to MM2 custom mansions if you'd rather play them there than in the MM HD.

[Freddy]

Thank you!

Does this converting also help me to do repairs in the MM2 builder? That would be very helpful.

And are there somewhere instructions for the converting?

[brell]

5A6E797878651C0 wrote: Thank you!

Does this converting also help me to do repairs in the MM2 builder? That would be very helpful.

And are there somewhere instructions for the converting?

There are instructions in the MM2 documentation:

If you want to convert mansions from Midnight Mansion 1 format to Midnight Mansion 2 format, first make a backup copy of your mansion, and then:

1) Start up Mansion Level Builder 2. When the

Open Mansion

dialog comes up, cancel it.
2) Drag the icon of the mansion you want to convert onto the Mansion Level Builder 2 icon.

You will be asked if you want to convert the mansion. When you convert it, its format will be permanently changed, and will no longer be able to be opened by the original game.

Note: you'll see lots of the same numbers appear in the dialog repeatedly. This doesn't mean the process is

stuck

. This is normal. Conversion takes a while.

And, yes, after converting the mansion will be editable in the MM2 builder.

[Freddy]

Wow!
[smiley=2vrolijk_08.gif]

My new MM-life is going to start.

[brell]

Note that there a few (but easily solved) complications when you convert MM1 cm's to MM2 cm's.

https://actionsoft.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=1544

https://actionsoft.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=2198

There are propably more undiscovered. I do not include strange items from MM2 suddenly appearing in the converted mansions. They can even be funny and, anyway, can be eliminated in the builder.

[Freddy]

Ladderjumps and lanterns. Very important issues!

Midnight Mazes and Monsters can't exist without the jumps. And I couldn't give lanterns before the very last room! Makes me think of changes.

A maze in the dark ...
;D