Midnight Mansion 3 - your opinion wanted!

[VernJensen]

So Jacob (the artist for Midnight Mansion and Midnight Mansion 2) and I have been discussing Midnight Mansion 3, and what we want to do with it. Midnight Mansion 2 has been selling well, so it looks like I'll be able to continue working on the franchise -- both good news for me, and for fans!

Here's the deal: Midnight Mansion 2 was originally an

expansion pack

that ended up turning into a full sequel. But it really is just

add ons

to the original game: new enemies, new artwork, and some new features allowing for some great new puzzles. However, for Midnight Mansion 3, I want to go all out with a

true

upgrade -- redo all artwork in high resolution, rewrite the engine so it's hardware accelerated, plus add more in-game additions than you can shake a stick at.

Some changes might be controversial. I've found that fans of the game have become *very* attached to how things are, like ladder jumping. Some are likely to be less controversial: I want to get rid of the rainbow key, and some of the weirder features, like being able to jump on a brick switch to move a flame from torch to torch.

Anyway, I'm not here to talk about all the in-game additions that will be made. I'm here to ask about a proposed structure to the mansions themselves.

What if Midnight Mansion 3 had 20-30 mansions, each about 20 rooms in length? The idea being that, instead of taking an hour to play, a mansion would take 15-20 minutes (depending on how good you are). Many adult gamers have limited time on their hands, and prefer to take play games for about 15 minutes at a time. While this is possible with Midnight Mansion's save and suspend game feature, it still feels like you

have

to get to the next save point.

There would be no save points. The mansion would be short enough that you'd beat with all the lives you have.

I know people don't like change here, so I'll probably get a lot of fans up in arms about even proposing this change, but still... I'm curious what people think.

[Semi-Native]

I'm not crazy about that idea at all. I hate to see good mansions come to an end, and 20 or so rooms just seems way too short. I think the replay value would be hurt a lot.

Maybe you could have a variety? Small-medium-large?

[samskelton]

I think the mansions are a pretty good length. I'd say, if you want smaller mansions, make some 50 room mansions and than have some really large 100 room mansions, kinda like a

Boss

mansion which you get to once you've gone through all the other 50 room mansions. 20 rooms is just too short... It takes 20 rooms for me to really get into the mansion, to be honest. Everything else you've listed, though, sounds great. I just think 20's just too small... But maybe some 40-50 room mansions would be okay.

[RobSeegel]

I don't know. I'd think you'd hedge your bet and split it down the middle, and have a mix of long and short.  One of the comments I had while working on DDD Hard was that I would have liked it if there were two types of save point:

1.) The traditional kind from MM1 and 2 which could be used once, and provided additional lives.

2.) A new type that could be used more than once, and provided *no* additional lives. It was just a save point. I might have used that more than the first kind if I'd had that option. If this isn't provided, then how about allowing the player to save wherever they wished? No actual save point.

I have to admit that I'm also not crazy about the change in direction, though it would depend on how it's done (more on that in a minute). Most of all, I'm surprised to hear this coming from you. In conversations we've had in the past, you emphasized your preference in being able to wander and explore. I can't help but think that this change would push mansions to being more dense and puzzle-oriented rather than less.

20-30 rooms seems pretty limiting. That's about the size of the treasure vault in DDD Hard, and...each of the other 5 sub-areas.

It might push the game to be closer to games such as Archibald's Adventures (which I also like, but for different reasons), but in so doing lose something that is unique to MM. 

I think it's a little sad that mansions such as Mt Peril would be lost under this scenario... 

Still, there are other mansions that might not be completely lost depending on how it's done. For example, many of the mansions are fairly linear, each having subsections that are aprox. 20-30 rooms (or less). If you're suggesting segmenting a mansion into smaller sub-sections, that wouldn't be all that different from now except that each subsection would be a mini-ending of sorts, and would be broken up by save points. Each of these subsections wouldn't necessarily have to end in a vault - would they?

It could also be that the increased resolution would provide more game area to be displayed in a single room. Presently, each room can support 3 floors reasonably well. Under a high resolution screen, and shrinking things down a bit, I suppose it would be possible to double that and increase the amount of game area viewed at a time.

Yet another possibility would be if a single

room

was larger than what could be displayed in a single screen, and would move with Jack as he walked towards the edge. I know there have been times when I felt somewhat constrained by the size of a room. This larger size would offset the lower number of rooms.

Out of curiosity... have you had a large number of complaints about the size? I work some pretty long hours, and have never had an issue with using the suspend option. Were there times when I wished I could save wherever/whenever I wished as many times as I wanted? Sure... but I've never wished that the mansions were shorter.

Anyhow... just a few thoughts off the top of my head.

[Wingy]

I like where you're going with this Vern. In the opinion of designing a great game, I would suggest of having each level moderate in length where it would not be the necessarily the number of rooms, perhaps the way it is designed and how much time the average player takes to beat it -- which would be 20-30 mins.

If I was helping design the game I would have a lot of smaller 20-30 min mansions that each contained a theme. For example, one mansion focused around avoiding enemies and trapping them. Another might be all about zapper beams. Who knows, seeing there will probably be a whole bunch of new features.  After you've covered a bunch of themes there would be a larger, 150 room mansion (with save points, maybe?) which contained all of those themes combined. So there would be 5 little ones, then a big one, 5 more little ones, then a big one, until 30 is reached. Each big one would have the features from *all* the previous smaller levels...

It's all in the distant future, however, since the port for Windows and iPhone is going to come first.

On another note:
A in-depth storyline is a huge aspect of a video game these days and has a huge potential in attracting people of buying games. For example, I was drawn in to Ambrosia's game Aquaria because the storyline just gave you a cliffhanger feeling, leaving the player sort of guilty of not knowing what happens, in a certain way. That's the way I felt, and it worked-- I bought that game within a week. It's an excellent game example of an intriguing storyline. Additionally, it had a level editor in which you could design your own levels -- I find that a must-have for a game to attract player communities. Frankly, MM1 might have been a lost cause without a level editor in my opinion.

Oh, also another huge change I would make is the ability to have much larger rooms. I myself am designing another game with my brother that is a side-scroller (much much different from MM) and we are going to have instead of 'rooms', massive sections in levels. I don't think that would be a good idea for your particular game design, but having larger rooms and adding a bit of scrolling in there would add a nice touch.

I have done quite a lot of research of video game marketing and design lately. Anyway... I do have more ideas, but perhaps later. It's late in my niche of the world.

[rose]

No, I don't like the idea. The point ins't to come to the end in a short time but to conquer the difficulties and try o find the secrets and get as money as possible. Short mansions will only be played once not many times as one do now.

[brell]

One approach to combine Vern's thoughts about smaller mansions and at least some other peoples' opinions is perhaps the Catacombs approach:

How about a save point after each 15 rooms or so (make it a rule) and an exit door? That way players can decide whther they want to go out or save for the next time.

I myself am against making any size limits.

[brell]

[movedhere] Game Improvements [move by] brell.

[Sharpie]

I'd have no problem with some small mansions but I agree with Rose that the replay value is higher in larger mansions. With the included mansions half the fun is trying to get both a high score, all of the secrets and the shortest time to make it on to the high scores list. With a smaller mansion it wouldn't take that many times through to do all of that.

And I'll add as an adult player, I don't always have time to finish a mansion at once. Heck, this weekend was a rarity for me to play a mansion straight through. But I use the Saves and the Pause button.

[leo]

I don't really like the idea of short mansions. While Vern's argument with the adult gamers that don't have enough time on their hands does make sense, I always found that the real thrill only comes with larger mansions that take you through a couple of sections, each of which has their own little mission (

Get purple key here to open door 10 rooms down to switch lever that opens trapdoor to the next section

or stuff like that).

As you can tell from my own custom mansions, I just like epic stuff with a lot going on and maybe a nice little story in the back, like Aquamat's

Complex

or Freddy's

House of Wonders

or Brell's

Pirate Invasion

. However, this is just my personal preference.

Plus: If you are an adult gamer and you really are running out of time, there's always the option to

suspend

the game and

resume

it later.