Beta 3: Magma Peak

[VernJensen]

Post here for comments about Magma Peak, all difficulties. Begin your post with the room number the comment is referring to, if it refers to a specific room number.

[VernJensen]

Question: should Magma Peak be made shorter for the Easy version? (i.e. the final section removed entirely) This would result in Normal / Hard having more to offer, as has been suggested for other mansions.

Or, would removing the final section make this mansion TOO short for Easy?

[jasweena]

15893 (Easy) - having to dodge two eyeballs AND a fast-moving spider seems more in keeping with Normal or Hard, not Easy. I would suggest either slowing down or removing the spider altogether.

16299 (Easy) - the correct spelling at the bottom of the sign should be

Trespassing

(should be only one S in the first syllable).

[jasweena]

OK, I finished Easy. Some thoughts:

16491 Easy - when coming from the right (16492) it's difficult to get out of this room to the left, especially for newbies. If you jump on the lower-left falling brick and jump off before it actually falls, you land on the double bricks leading to the ghoul cage and you can't get down. You actually have to stop on the falling brick and wait until it's just about to hit the lava in order to jump and land on the exit walkway to the left. It took me about 5 tries to realize this. Fine for a Hard or even Normal level, but too difficult for Easy.

16295 Easy - why are the steps there? Maybe I did something in the wrong order, but by the time I entered from the left and revealed the steps, I didn't need to go that way because I'd already done it all.

Regarding the final section - I think removing it entirely would make the whole mansion too short. I haven't compared Easy to Normal or Hard yet, but I think Easy is just fine the way it is.

[jasweena]

17096 (Easy) - the release notes say that there is only one scorpion guarding the shield in all levels, but Easy still has two.

[RobSeegel]

Magma Peak - Easy

Completed this one with 100% secrets, and two leftover yellow keys. Here's my initial thoughts... which may be revised after playing the Normal level.

15893 - I replayed this one after reading comments on the board, and if it weren't for the top platform that appears/disappears, I would agree that it might be too much. As it is now, I think it's a bit more challenging, but OK. With a little care, I think a new player should be able to do it. If someone should take the top route, then it's going to be pretty tough, but that route is avoidable.

16096 - I was climbing up the ladder and level with the lowest block over the lava on the left, and it flickered repeatedly, which seemed weird. Seemed like a game glitch to me. Once Jack is off ladder it is completely solid, and doesn't negatively impact game.

16491 - Jack Stuck (OK...not really) after destroying creature in this room. The problem is the bottom left two-block platform that materializes. [I was able to exit this room eventually, using the same approach that Jasweena reported, but I agree that this might be too much for Easy. I think it would be perfectly fine for Normal]

Suggested: remove the left block of the two and Jack can simply walk off to the left side.

As for removing the bottom section, I'm torn. After all, you know my general preference for expanding number of rooms, but I think of it as a nice-to-have and not a must-have. I think it only makes sense if the difference in difficulty between Easy and Normal is slight.

I agree that it would feel shorter without the 12 or so rooms that would be removed, but it wouldn't be without precedent, and it still would not be the shortest included mansion. In the first midnight mansion game, there was one even shorter, and that would make this one roughly comparable with roughly 76 or so rooms on Easy (after removing most of the bottom section) and 88 in Normal, assuming the number of Rooms in Easy and Normal are currently the same.

Cathedral mansion had 71 rooms in Easy, and 90 in Normal.  I'll be better able to judge once I play the Normal version of Magma Peak now that I've finished Easy.

If the bottom section is removed, you might reconsider the use of the yellow keys/yellow doors in the top section. At the moment they are completely optional in the Easy version, and don't provide any significant reward for using them.

[jasweena]

16299 Normal - maybe something's wonky on my computer, but the text on the sign looks like a slightly different font than the other signs and the bottom line of text over laps the sign border a little.

16698 (all levels) - should the money behind the wall on the top right be marked as a secret?

I've finished all three levels and had a chance to compare the final section (the chain maze). I actually thought the maze was harder on Easy than on Normal.

[RobSeegel]

Magma Peak - Normal (87 playable rooms/9 secrets)

I finished this mansion with over 100% secrets found - the mansion options have 8 secrets set, though it really has 9. I also saw the same flickering glitch in room 16096 that I mentioned for the Easy version.

There were a few minor layer issues (I hate to call them issues because they don't interfere with the game):

One extremely minor thing I've noticed is inconsistency in how the ceiling layering is done. In one room, Jack will appear to jump in front of the ceiling tiles, and in the next he will be behind them.

A few examples:
  16697 => 16698
  15892 => 15893
 
16297 Look at the ceiling in this room, especially near the columns. Now compare this to room 16298. The second room feels more polished.

Anyway.. when someone's nitpicking to this degree, it must mean that all the big stuff's already been resolved . Other than that, I couldn't find anything wrong with the mansion. It was a solid mansion.

Thoughts on relative difficulty levels:

I spent a lot of time on this one, and took lots of notes to compare it to the Easy version.

I spent a lot of time thinking about the differences between the bottom section in both Easy and Normal. I think the reason it feels a little easier is because the maze is mostly unchanged. In the easy version, the main challenges are non-monster obstacles. Keys and Doors increase the back and forth that's necessary to get through, and increase the time it takes to finish. In the Normal version, the keys and doors are gone, replaced with more monsters, and generally less treasure. I did use up more shields in the lower section in Normal, but I got through it faster and it felt easier because of familiarity.

Playing the top section of the mansion, I was struck by how much like the Easy mansion it felt, so I tried an experiment which ended up being more work than I expected. I tried keeping notes on major differences between each room in Easy and Normal version.

I was able to loosely break the rooms into a few categories:
- No Difference (or undetectable to casual inspection) - 36 rooms
- Slight difference (solely due to additional or different monsters) - 31 rooms
- Redesign (which may or may not include monster changes) - 7 Rooms
- Minor redesign (like above, but small changes less likely to result in death) - 13 rooms.

What I found is that most of the changes were applied to the bottom portions of the mansion. Of the 36 rooms I labeled as No difference, 28 of them were in the top six levels.

Instead of getting rid of the bottom section in Easy, you might consider focusing on those rooms where there was no or very little difference (1 additional monster in a room where there were none before). Perhaps some of these rooms might be made more easy in the Easy version.

Possible candidates:
  - 15889
  - 15892
  - 15893
  - 16291
 

[RobSeegel]

Magma Peak - Hard

Finished this one and my only complaint was that I wish it could have gone on longer. I enjoyed this one the most out of the various levels for Magma Peak. It was pretty consistent throughout.

Generally, I think the progression from Normal to Hard has been pretty good on every mansion I've played so far. For this mansion, I thought the level of difficulty was good for hard without being too frustrating. The only only Hard one I've been a bit disappointed with so far is Blackheart.

[triforceguy1]

16890 - Magma Peak Normal - I noticed you can get the green key by falling ontop of it making it so you don't have to go through the puzzle ahead (obviously dying in the process.) I would recommend using a invisible switch to make it appear or make it so no one can fall down.