MM2 - Brave New World

[Freddy]

Zip 022 is included.

About a week ago I was busy with the last room of the brown area and the start of the next very very grey area. That resulted in troubles with the bookkeeping. Playing results didn't fit with what was mentioned in the builder's mansion info. It took me several efforts to 'find' all coins and bags and realize that when playing in the builder,  in each part of the mansion the first backpack doesn't add € 500 to the account. Oh dear!
:

It would be nice if someone will do a thorough test of the brown area which is from save 8 ($ 16.000) to 9 ($ 21.000). The grey area isn't accessible right now. For those who want to go on to the finish ($ 33.375) I made a deviation.

The recent changes.

17901
At the spot where the lantern-T is, now is also a T for opening a grey door in the upper left corner. Behind that door is a lever to open a crucial grey door in the middle of the room that guarantees progress. All these make it impossible to open that door without having the lantern. What results in play on normal level, I hope.

17902
On the floor directly below the lava the silver coin got moved upwards, so that when taking it, the revealing of the moneybag is more striking.

17903
Added a shield and coins.

17904
I did remove the silver coin again because it looked bad (visual pollution).
Q: Secret still hinted enough?

18101
In the upper left corner a coin reveals (late) to expose that the floating platform and vine have sense. Meanwhile hopefully avoiding that Jack does stupid things in the dark.

18100
I changed the starting place of the moving platform to improve the flow.
Q: Normal level in this room?

18300
It felt better to bring the yellow door from the upper right corner in 18299 to the other two doors in the upper left corner of this room. I also made the space left of the green door larger, so that Jack has the possibility to follow a troll upwards the ladder without too much risks. That is better for the flow.
Take not that the trolls do not move randomly.

18299
I was briefly out of puzzle-inspiration (just like in 17905).
Q: Is a room like this okay in this mansion?
The upper left corner is part of the temporary deviation.

18099
What disturbs me in this room is the place of the save pedestal.
Q: I am very interested in your opinion about everything in this room.

[brell]

6A5E494848552C0 wrote:
17904
I did remove the silver coin again because it looked bad (visual pollution).
Q: Secret still hinted enough?

Yes

6A5E494848552C0 wrote:
18101
In the upper left corner a coin reveals (late) to expose that the floating platform and vine have sense. Meanwhile hopefully avoiding that Jack does stupid things in the dark.

Yes, much better.

6A5E494848552C0 wrote:
18100
I changed the starting place of the moving platform to improve the flow.
Q: Normal level in this room?

The room is much better now but I still think the moving platform is a bit too fast for normal.

6A5E494848552C0 wrote:
18300
It felt better to bring the yellow door from the upper right corner in 18299 to the other two doors in the upper left corner of this room. I also made the space left of the green door larger, so that Jack has the possibility to follow a troll upwards the ladder without too much risks. That is better for the flow.
Take not that the trolls do not move randomly.

Brilliant!

6A5E494848552C0 wrote:
18299
I was briefly out of puzzle-inspiration (just like in 17905).
Q: Is a room like this okay in this mansion?
The upper left corner is part of the temporary deviation.

Nothing wrong with this room IMO

6A5E494848552C0 wrote:
18099
What disturbs me in this room is the place of the save pedestal.
Q: I am very interested in your opinion about everything in this room.

I like this room and see no possible problems. What is the non-moving platform at bottom righ for?

[Freddy]

Thanks for all your remarks, brell.

2737202929450 wrote:
[quote author=6A5E494848552C0 link=1671814205/190#190 date=1687709011]
18100
I changed the starting place of the moving platform to improve the flow.
Q: Normal level in this room?

The room is much better now but I still think the moving platform is a bit too fast for normal. Easy to fix. Will do that.

2737202929450 wrote: [quote author=6A5E494848552C0 link=1671814205/190#190 date=1687709011]
18099
What disturbs me in this room is the place of the save pedestal.
Q: I am very interested in your opinion about everything in this room.

I like this room and see no possible problems.  What is the non-moving platform at bottom righ for? To be able to catch the green key. Could you get it without the use of that platform?

[brell]

72465150504D340 wrote:

[quote author=2737202929450 link=1671814205/191#191 date=1687771754][quote author=6A5E494848552C0 link=1671814205/190#190 date=1687709011]
18099
What disturbs me in this room is the place of the save pedestal.
Q: I am very interested in your opinion about everything in this room.

I like this room and see no possible problems.  What is the non-moving platform at bottom righ for? To be able to catch the green key. Could you get it without the use of that platform?
Bottom ladderjump :

[Freddy]

And here is zip 023. The amount of money between saves 8 and 9 is now $ 5.500.

3D2D3A33335F0 wrote: [quote author=6A5E494848552C0 link=1671814205/190#190 date=1687709011]
18100
I changed the starting place of the moving platform to improve the flow.
Q: Normal level in this room?

The room is much better now but I still think the moving platform is a bit too fast for normal. It rarely happens, but I did the contrary of what you suggested. What not need to be the final decision!
Well, when I started the design of this room the platform had the standard speed of 4. Due to the concept of the room Jack has to jump several times from both balconies to the platform. To assure a good flow, I raised the speed to 5. But you were right that something had to be done to get closer to level 'normal'.
So first of all I did raise the speed to 6 and then polished all jumps till they felt 'normal'.
Q: Do the changes feel as an improvement?

18099
I made several changes. Among them the fixing of the green key issue.
Q: What is your impression? Better or worse? Probably better because I added an extra $ 500.
8-)

[brell]

17901:  Jack went down from 17701 to 17901 furthest to the left for the first time and triggered something (T?) that closes one grey door.  Now he can do nothing in this room.
It is all dark and he cannot find any lever.

Freddy wrote:

17901
At the spot where the lantern-T is, now is also a T for opening a grey door in the upper left corner. Behind that door is a lever to open a crucial grey door in the middle of the room that guarantees progress. All these make it impossible to open that door without having the lantern. What results in play on normal level, I hope.

Yes but is Jack starts by going down to this room for the first time at the furthest left he will reveal (or close?) one grey door, which makes it impossible for him to find the lantern.

[brell]

64504746465B220 wrote: And here is zip 023. The amount of money between saves 8 and 9 is now $ 5.500.

[quote author=3D2D3A33335F0 link=1671814205/191#191 date=1687771754][quote author=6A5E494848552C0 link=1671814205/190#190 date=1687709011]
18100
I changed the starting place of the moving platform to improve the flow.
Q: Normal level in this room?

The room is much better now but I still think the moving platform is a bit too fast for normal. It rarely happens, but I did the contrary of what you suggested. What not need to be the final decision!
Well, when I started the design of this room the platform had the standard speed of 4. Due to the concept of the room Jack has to jump several times from both balconies to the platform. To assure a good flow, I raised the speed to 5. But you were right that something had to be done to get closer to level 'normal'.
So first of all I did raise the speed to 6 and then polished all jumps till they felt 'normal'.
Q: Do the changes feel as an improvement?

18099
I made several changes. Among them the fixing of the green key issue.
Q: What is your impression? Better or worse? Probably better because I added an extra $ 500.
8-)
Answer to both questions: Better

[Freddy]

0010070E0E620 wrote: Freddy wrote:

17901
At the spot where the lantern-T is, now is also a T for opening a grey door in the upper left corner. Behind that door is a lever to open a crucial grey door in the middle of the room that guarantees progress. All these make it impossible to open that door without having the lantern. What results in play on normal level, I hope.

Yes but is Jack starts by going down to this room for the first time at the furthest left he will reveal (or close?) one grey door, which makes it impossible for him to find the lantern.

Thanks for reporting this important issue. I got it fixed, but it was very complex.

When now Jack starts with going down the left or the middle ladder there is nothing to do that results in progress. So he is forced to follow the most obvious way at the right. At that right side going down to the bottom floor also has no sense. Step 1 in this still dark room is climbing the shortest ladder to a silver coin resulting in the revealing of the lantern and the sound of the opening of a grey door (both in the upper left corner).

Step 2 was doing the detour while picking up the keys and after re-entering the room getting the lantern. Have a look at image 1. It is an important moment because Jack sees that immediately using one of the two other ladders down lead to nothing. So going to the right in the upper left corner is the only option. Four (!) things may happen; in following order: revealing a grey door, opening the grey door at the bottom right got, taking the silver coin and pulling the lever to open the most left grey door on the middle floor. See image 2.

A new road for possible progress is now in view. Please take note of some changes:
- one of the hanging spiders is removed what improves the flow of the game;
- on the bottom floor there is more space left of the giant spider;
- the previous gold coin in the upper niche got split in two silver ones of which one is left of the new added grey door (edit: after making the images I did something similar in the area above the moving platform).

In step 3 Jack was able to reveal and pull the lever on the bottom floor to toggle all grey doors. See pic 3. Where Jack is now, taking the silver coin is not only obvious, but also the only thing that Jack may do. And it finally solves the issue, I hope.

A new zip with this fixing is coming soon ... with an important note about the impact from changes on saves!

[Freddy]

:-[
I should have mentioned it earlier, because I noticed this issue when making changes in the transit zone. It is important for the designer to test from save point to save point, because it isn't harmless to make late-late slight changes like removing a gold coin and adding two silver coins in the same room, with the idea that it doesn't matter for already existing further saves.

To illustrate what I mean I added two pictures from room 17901. They are both shots from the map.

Image A shows the room after having started at save 8, entered room 17901 and stopped playing/testing in the next room. Jack went to the right through the green door, leaving the enemies alive and saving the shield for later.

Image B shows the same room after having started at the already existing save 9. After immediately unfolding the map the two removed gold coins stay invisible, because already taken. The new grey door and the silver coins are now shown! Besides the fact that it would confuse the player seriously, it also means that it is possible to go back to that room, take the extra money and resave at no. 9 with more money than there is available in the mansion!
:o

Betatesters are not supposed to worry about that, although I believe that it is important for them to be aware of this issue. Because it could be of interest to check earlier parts of the mansion when you are missing some money.

Some of my saves are:
1.   3.000 in 16700
2.   4.000 in 16902
6. 12.000 in 16901
8. 16.000 in 17501
9. 21.500 in 18099

Zip 024 is included.

Containing the following changes:
- 17901 the niche above the platform (coins, lever, T's);
- 18100 the upper left corner (to force Jack to open the revealing door);
- 18099 L6-things below the grey door and above right of the left ladder.

Q: Is the hint in the middle enough to find the needed key?

[brell]

0C382F2E2E334A0 wrote:
Containing the following changes:
- 17901 the niche above the platform (coins, lever, T's);
- 18100 the upper left corner (to force Jack to open the revealing door);
- 18099 L6-things below the grey door and above right of the left ladder.

Q: Is the hint in the middle enough to find the needed key?

It is very vague but ok