Mansions and Such
25 Aug 1995 18:01:44 GMT
I am facing a dilemma in the development of my current game, and as I
have looked just about everywhere else, I thought I'd might as well post
here. The problem sounds stupid, but it's really quite impossible, and
frustrating. Here goes:
I want to set my game is a massive, haunted mansion. I have no idea what
sorts of rooms are found inside such a place, my closest current source
of reference being a older text adventure game from ftp.gmd.de, "Hampton
Manor." "Craft of adventure" states that one of the most important stages
of game design is research, and knowing your genre, and I most certainly
do not. I have searched both the internet and the public library under
mansion, manor, gothic, house, architecture, english history and many
other topics, and been unable to find the type of referance i'm looking
for. The type of house I mean is the massive, gothic mansion with many
rooms that is so commonly featured in horror novels.
To compound the problem, I lack the wide literary background of some of
the more skilled i-f authors, notably Mr. Nelson (Curses), having thought
a dumbwaiter was an NPC and a demijohn a toilet 'till I looked them up.
I'm only thirteen, after all. Anyway, if anyone could reccomend a
specific book title or location of information that they think would be
helpful, then please do so. I will be forever indebted to you. In
specific, one of the most helpful things would be if I could locate a
floorplan of one of these types of houses, real or fictional, just so
that I would know what furnature and rooms to put in it.