Re: Helter Skullter

[Toybox]

I had trouble too. Even now I'm not sure I did find out its secret actually. Well, I still manage to go through now (without even losing a Jack)

[brell]

joeb wrote: brell,

That's cool, if you think HS qualifies. I'd still like to see what issues there are before we move it as it has only had limited testing. I won't do any further modifications other than JS fixes. I really like the difficulty level and don't want to make it easier anywhere. I think it's good where it's at as a hard mansion. What do you, or anyone else for that matter, think?

Joe B

Of course hard mansions qualify for the final list as well as others. I think you should have one or two beta (or is it gamma at this stage?) testers to check out possible JS and cd (cheap deaths) leftovers and then send it to me or Freddy for the list of complete mansions.

[Toybox]

I am stuck in 14297. I am downstairs; one lever opens a grey door and the other one does nothing. Then I cannot get up anymore, nor from the room to the right. Am I missing something?

[joeb]

OK all,

Has anyone completed the mansion yet?

If not then I will give the following ambiguous clues:

Seek and ye shall find the red keys !

All that glitters is not gold and all that appears hot may not be !

HEE HEE HEE

:-X :-X :-X :-X :-X

Joe B

[Psychotronic]

aquaMat wrote: Strangely I had figured out this room pretty fast...I don't know if it was luck or instinct, though. But strange that you, of all people, Psychotronic, had problems with this room....it reminded me so much of your Observatory...with all those layer-6 walls etc.

To be perfectly honest, after playing a lot of other mansions with layer six walls, I probably wouldn't have done the Observatory that way. I don't even enjoy playing through the layer-six part myself now. Temple of the Moon is the only mansion I've seen use the concept really well.

[joeb]

Hmmmmmm.......

Curious, why don't you like playing 6th layer mansions?
The 6th layer at the tower was a last minute thing. I'm not a big fan myself but I'd seen it in a lot of other mansions so I try to include it at least once in my mansions.

Joe B

[Toybox]

The lever is better now, but I still cannot go up again. I checked the wall, had a few leaps of faith and climbed inexistent ladders, to no avail :-?

Oh, have you fixed the other Jack-Stuck by the way?

And I agree that the layer 6 part is better now.

[Toybox]

I am not stuck anymore (there was a 4-bricks jumps which was changed in a 3-bricks jump). Your comment is very mysterious: a good teaser to go on and see if I find out what it means!

And here was a nice experience: getting stuck in a room, then suspending the game and restarting it with the modified mansion file - and you can get unstuck! It gives sort of a surreal feel to the game. As if Jack called some friend for help, and the friend arrived and gave him a lift

So far it is quite a stunning mansion I'd say. Indeed getting through is a matter of being careful and thinking your steps ahead instead of dashing around, and as Joe said: a lot of punch in a small mansion! Makes it look bigger, and you don't get so frustrated if you lose and you have to start over.

[aquaMat]

joeb wrote: Hmmmmmm.......

Curious, why don't you like playing 6th layer mansions?
The 6th layer at the tower was a last minute thing. I'm not a big fan myself but I'd seen it in a lot of other mansions so I try to include it at least once in my mansions.

Joe B

At least once ??? :-?
Joe.... as far as I remember your The Money Pit used quite a bit of layer-6 stuff... at least I remember dying a lot of unexpected deaths there, due to craetures behind walls, gaps in the floor covered by walls etc.... but it's still one of my top ten faves !!

Or wasn't that yours ??

[aquaMat]

I played version 004 now (as far as I got....  8-)).

First of all:  I understand some people didn't like it...but I liked the tower with more layer-6 tiles better.... now it's almost easy  ;D

Now to the problems (some of them might have been reported already):

Room 14298 >14299
Unnecessary sudden death due to height difference (top floor) (unaligned floor in 14299)

Room 14297
Upper right corner:  walking through is NOT possible (from left to right) due to a brick edge...so what's the point of opening the grey door??

Room 14299
Here I'm stuck...with nowhere else to go (except the dark room at the right....which I can't get thru alive)

Room 14098
I suspect there's an error in the middle

floor

, where a moving platform is NOT activated by the lever (in the upper right corner)...probably the platform is accidentially marked

moving to start

...I don't know ?!  If it's a

trap

, built on purpose....it's bad, as you cannot go back all the way to un-pull the lever !!

The fact that this platform is not working results in not being able to open the grey door in the lower right corner, which results in not being able to pull the lever behind it).

BTW: If this is the part you're hinting at with your Beatles lyrics citation....I'm not sure if this is manageable (getting back to the top I mean).

Also in room 14298:
Danger:  the fact that the platforms go up to the ceiling (with no

ceiling

there) results in the old game-quit bug !!

So....even if I managed (for the first time) to get as far as the section around room 14298 with 10 lives intact (hurrah!!), I had nowhere to go from there....  
And I have to admit, while I believe the first part of Helter Skullter is fantastic, really great....I think at this section it gets a bit

too weird

... the player is left completely in the rain, without knowing what direcxtion he'd be heading and not even a hint where to continue !