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HARD
15302 Jack can't climb down from the Save pedestal.
15303 Middle ladder doesn't go to top of bricks. Jack falls and dies. Also, the 2nd from the right lever can't be pulled without Jack getting zapped.
15304 Bottom right lever doesn't do anything (the one on top where the scorpions are before the gray door opens.
15303 and 15304 Gray doors are closed. How do they open? Jack can't proceed, I don't think.
15305 Should the top lever open the gray door? Also, a key is indicated but I never found it.
15501 Too hard. Maybe get rid of the top zapper beam so Jack can jump on the right top ledge. If he doesn't time his step off just right, he falls. Also maybe slow down the yellow platforms a bit to give him a better chance of jumping to safety.
How about another Save point before all the zapper rooms?
15503 Rightmost ladder is not lined up evenly between this room and the one above.
15505 Jack jumped right off the blue bat platform to see if there was a key behind the wall, since one was indicated. He fell down into the blue section (15705, I think), slid down the pole, walked right and fell to his death (uneven floor?). Silver bricks were on to the right when he fell, so I don't think he could have gone anywhere anyway.
15505 Key indicated, but I couldn't find it.
15703 Sound and sparkles persist even after everything is collected. This happened in another mansion, too. Some kind of glitch in the game, I guess.
15704 I've been all over the top zapper section but I only have 2 red keys. I don't seem to have anywhere to go. For now, I'll just give myself a red key so I can proceed. But what am I missing?
15897 Upon getting ready to enter the room, got an error message about music file not in the folder. Didn't stop game play, but no music played from that point on.
15899 BBB says ... he statue instead of the statue.
16100 When Jack re-enters from the right, the bouncing eyeballs are right there and he dies.
16893 On the BBB that appears after Jack gets the keys, it says you need 9 keys for the vault. Jack can only carry 8 - will this be a problem?
17099 When Jack is walking on the white bricks at the top right, there are layer 6 brown tiles that he walks in back of. There doesn't seem to be anything there. Is this a mistake?
Right now I'm wandering around in the blue section trying to solve the gold/silver brick puzzle, and I'm getting frustrated and have to take a break.
:-?  :'(
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I'll respond in more depth later when I can, but a few quick answers:
How about another Save point before all the zapper rooms?
If I haven't put a save point at the beginning of the section, then it's an oversight. There should be a save point at the end of each section, and additional save points behind some yellow doors. So, yes - absolutely.
16893 On the BBB that appears after Jack gets the keys, it says you need 9 keys for the vault. Jack can only carry 8 - will this be a problem?
No - technically you need 9, but not all at once ;-). You may have noticed a few structures so far that have a blue door, and inside there is a blue and green key. There are five structures like this - one for each section. Unlike the others, the structure in section 5 doesn't have a blue door.
Up to that point, you will have been working through section by section. Then you will need to back and recollect the keys from each of the other structures. Fortunately, by that time retracing some of your steps will be far easier than the first time through. At any time before you get to the vault, you should never have more than one blue key. You may have 4 green + 1 blue or 5 green.
The REAL key management issue will be with blue/green and yellow keys, because there are up to 5 bonus yellow keys you can take into the vault (each section has three yellow keys + 2 yellow doors). This is part of the challenge, and it will force you into deciding to delay getting some yellow keys (not recommended becuse some yellow doors hide save points/treasure to give Jack more lives to deal with difficulty), or to grab one or two green keys at a time, open a door, then go back and get one or two other green keys.
Note that ou don't need ANY yellow keys to finish the game, though I figure most people will want to try and collect as much as possible. At the point where you irreversibly head into the vault, there should be no way to have anything except yellow keys.
Right now I'm wandering around in the blue section trying to solve the gold/silver brick puzzle, and I'm getting frustrated and have to take a break.
Yes... sorry about that. I'd expect that or area 5 to be the most frustrating - it was frustrating to design, and it will probably be quite a while before I want to do something with gold/silver blocks again (especially up in the bonus areas). Area 5 is frustrating because of the dark sections. I hate dark rooms!
If it gets too out of hand, jot down a few notes. I remember when I played the first game there were some sections that took me a while to beat. I might get frustrated and not play for a while. The same is true for some custom mansions. I really don't expect lots of players to be able to go from beginning to end without using save points. I think I might have added too many. If it's easy to finish the game the first time without using a save point, I think either the player is really good/lucky, or I will have failed at making it challenging enough.
Thanks again for suffering through this  Are you seeing a general progression in difficulty?
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734E4372444446444D210 wrote:
Thanks again for suffering through this Are you seeing a general progression in difficulty?
The difficulty in my opinion should remain consistent with the odd room harder then normal. Yes, I know, I must be a hypocrite. Jasperlone has a extremely hard section at the end, but thats the final mansion.  A normal mansion like this should remain consistent.
Don't worry about this though-- We'll tell you if things are too hard -- I see Semi is doing a mighty fine job already!
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15704 I've been all over the top zapper section but I only have 2 red keys. I don't seem to have anywhere to go. For now, I'll just give myself a red key so I can proceed. But what am I missing?
In the zapper section, there is an exit to the left, that takes you to a high ledge. From this ledge, you can ride a platform down to collect a yellow key that is far out of reach from the ground. There is also a blue bat platform that will take you to the left where there is a green key room. There's a red key in front of the door. Hmmm.. seems like I need a way to force the player in that general direction, or simply remove the red key and one of the red doors. By the time the player got to the end of area 5, I wanted them to be away of where all of the green key rooms were so that they could plot the best course to each one.
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Oh, I don't think you have to worry about it being too easy for even the best players. There is definitely a progression in difficulty. I'm pretty sure you're going to have to dial it back for an included mansion. But you've done great work, and it's a really fun and interesting design, even if you do have to make it a bit easier in the end.
[smiley=thumbsup.gif]
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The difficulty in my opinion should remain consistent with the odd room harder then normal.
Ha! The progression I was going for was modestly difficult to crazy challenging, with scattered areas of extra difficulty throughout. There are going to be different sorts of challenges that different people like/hate, so I tried to mix it up. By the end I was trying to push the envelope of frustration without being impossible.
Unfortunately, my ambition outstripped my ability to deliver ;-) Hubris strikes again!
I'll be putting out at least one update every day until it's right.
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15302 Jack can't climb down from the Save pedestal.
Fixed.
15303 Middle ladder doesn't go to top of bricks. Jack falls and dies. Also, the 2nd from the right lever can't be pulled without Jack getting zapped.
Fixed.
15303 and 15304 Gray doors are closed. How do they open? Jack can't proceed, I don't think.
I'm disappointed by this, I was sure it was tested. for 15303, there are two gray doors and two brown levers, the one up top was intended to open the door on the right.
For 15304, the door that didn't open, was supposed to be opened by the bottom right lever that didn't do anything. The intent here was that Jack had gotten through the zappers only to have to get the purple key and backtrack (through the still activated zappers) to the previous room, pull the lever, and then go back through the zappers one last time. both cases fixed.
15305 Should the top lever open the gray door? Also, a key is indicated but I never found it.
Yes about the gray door - fixed.
15501 Too hard. Maybe get rid of the top zapper beam so Jack can jump on the right top ledge. If he doesn't time his step off just right, he falls. Also maybe slow down the yellow platforms a bit to give him a better chance of jumping to safety.
Heh... I loved this room. Mostly because it ended up serving as a key example that influenced me in many others areas in the mansion, by answering the simple question of how do you make a hard room harder, but still keep it fundamentally the same. You find some way of forcing Jack to encounter its dangers multiple times. That basic idea is used in many places throughout the mansion.
As for changes, how about a compromise? I shortened the amount of time that the zappers are on (and may shorten it even more), and I added a conditional trigger on that last turn that will turn off the top zapper, but only after you've grabbed the gold coin on the last switch. The top zapper was ONLY intended to catch players jumping for the coins from the moving platforms.
How much slower would you recommend the platforms be? Incidentally, the details of why it was too hard were invaluable. fixed, but I won't be opposed to further mods here.
15503 Rightmost ladder is not lined up evenly between this room and the one above.
Should it be? Not sure I understand this comment. The two ladders are in the same position in both rooms, but it might not look that way due to the thinner walls in the upper level room. I made the wall a bit thicker.
15505 Jack jumped right off the blue bat platform to see if there was a key behind the wall, since one was indicated. He fell down into the blue section (15705, I think), slid down the pole, walked right and fell to his death (uneven floor?). Silver bricks were on to the right when he fell, so I don't think he could have gone anywhere anyway.
I never counted on Jack dropping through the ceiling like that much less surviving the trip. I believe Jack fell because of the silver wall in the next room. When I removed the wall, there were no problems. Other than by dropping in, I don't believe Jack could have gotten there like this. I'll put a silver wall in this room as well, to prevent Jack from going next door. Also, I'll put a zapper in the room above to discourage jumpers.
The keys formed by money just point to an unhealthy preoccupation with keys - nothing more. I'll use a BBB or two to explain it away.
15505 Key indicated, but I couldn't find it.
Nope... in this level of the mansion, Dr. D has a preoccupation with keys, with a firm views on how they should be used. Hence the shape of his vault... I'll address this with a BBB, based on your comments.
15703 Sound and sparkles persist even after everything is collected. This happened in another mansion, too. Some kind of glitch in the game, I guess.
Hmm that's strange. I wonder if it has anything to do with the giant spiders?
15704 I've been all over the top zapper section but I only have 2 red keys. I don't seem to have anywhere to go. For now, I'll just give myself a red key so I can proceed. But what am I missing?
Room 15300 is the way of getting there. If you ride the blue bat platform it will take you safely there.
15897 Upon getting ready to enter the room, got an error message about music file not in the folder. Didn't stop game play, but no music played from that point on.
looks like somehow an object id was entered as track number, which didn't work. Fixed. I'll be fixing the music all over once most of the fixes are in place.
15899 BBB says ... he statue instead of the statue.
Fixed, also slightly revised the text. Late night copy writing hasn't been working too well for me.
16100 When Jack re-enters from the right, the bouncing eyeballs are right there and he dies.
Moved the eyes.
17099 When Jack is walking on the white bricks at the top right, there are layer 6 brown tiles that he walks in back of. There doesn't seem to be anything there. Is this a mistake? Yep, well spotted. Fixed.
Despite the obvious issues with this area, it doesn't sound like it went too badly for you. This was one of my favorite sections. I enjoyed working with the zappers more than I expected.
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Incidentally, I apologize for not using the normal quoting mechanism in my posts. I tried it for a while, but I find it a bit too cumbersome (esp. given the small space in this textarea) to use when there are a lot of quotes. I actually find using bold to be more readable - maybe it's just me...
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My replies are in red:
023F3203353537353C500 wrote: 15503 Rightmost ladder is not lined up evenly between this room and the one above.
Should it be? Not sure I understand this comment. The two ladders are in the same position in both rooms, but it might not look that way due to the thinner walls in the upper level room. I made the wall a bit thicker.
If you test this by having Jack climb up or down the ladder between the rooms, Jack starts off in the correct position on the ladder, but in the next room, he'll be hanging off the left or right side, depending on which way you're going.
15704 I've been all over the top zapper section but I only have 2 red keys. I don't seem to have anywhere to go. For now, I'll just give myself a red key so I can proceed. But what am I missing?
Room 15300 is the way of getting there. If you ride the blue bat platform it will take you safely there.
I was in 15300 and found the yellow key by taking the gray bat platform down. The problem is with the blue bat platform - there's an invisible white block that stops it from going out of the room to the left to get the red key. Just remove that block.
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HARD
15504 How about keeping the zapper beam that runs along the floor off a little longer to give Jack a better chance at pulling the lever.
15707 The 2 levers on the top left and the 2 on the top right don't do anything. What are they supposed to do?
15909 Silver blocks are on. Jack was climbing the ladder to pull the middle lever, got killed by the zapper beam, reappeared at the top left, blocked by silver blocks. Silver blocks are also blocking him in the room to the left. Jack Stuck.
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