I've downloaded this twice, and tried to run it both with my homepage changed to MPC and without, and it simply won't run. When I try to run it, it comes up with the usual advertisement (with the "Loading" bar underneath it) and then disappears back to my usual desktop. Has anyone been able to run it or is there anything I can look at to see why it won't work on my PC? I've tried another game from MPC today and it was absolutely fine.
Mystery of Mortlake Mansion - Problems? post here.
(24 posts) (6 voices)-
Littlemaggit
MemberPosted 12 years ago # -
I don't understand.
It does need DirectX 9 and I think the files are included. It works fine for me. First point. After it installs, don't use the shortcut but go to WHERE you told it to install. Double-click on "game.exe" and see if that works better than the file they use for the shortcut. If so, create a new shortcut and use that.
There have been games that my friend can run but I can't and vice-versa. However, we are both able to run this game.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Littlemaggit
MemberThank you Dragonlair. I've now tried "game.exe" but had no luck with that either. How very odd. I'll double-check my drivers, flash player etc to make sure that everything is up-to-date, but it's strange that I don't even get an error message - it just gives me the "loading" with its initial advert and then nothing at all.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Something is very funny if you get that "advert" using game.exe. That is the "real" executable and doesn't have any ads. There is a long "loading" session with this game before it actually get's going with that bar slowly filling but once it does load, it's fine.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Littlemaggit
MemberDragonlair, I do apologise - I'm afraid that I've misled you and didn't explain myself properly. What I meant to say was that when I tried to play it from the actual game "Mystery of Mortlake Mansion.exe" file I get the advert and then nothing, but if I try from "game.exe" nothing at all happens. It doesn't even look as if it's trying to do anything - the usual hourglass appears for about half a second and then that's it.
I've just tried to put a message into MPC Support, but got an error message and then a 404 - not found when I tried to send it.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Try contacting them using a different browser. I've noticed that some of these sites don't like FF and the message doesn't send.
Then again, I am NOT impressed with MPC's Support. If I ever get a response, it's always "not all games play on all machines, just try another game". Most of the time I never get anything.
There's a problem with several of their "iWin" games (Jewel Quest and Mah Jong Quest series) where they are SHARING a profile. You create a name in one and it works for others and even affects where you are in the game. It's really bad when a Jewel Quest profile is used for Mah Jong Quest because they aren't even the same kind of game! I notified MPC and got diddly-squat! I notified iWin and it took 2 tries to convince them it WAS a problem and even then it took a friend also emailing them about the same problem before they would admit it. However, neither one of us have heard beans since they said they were working on it!
I'm not any more happy with iWin's support than I am with MPC's support.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Littlemaggit
MemberI've just had a look at MPC's FAQs and the message about "not all games play on all machines" etc is on there. I guess I've just got to be grateful that they've got some good HOGs etc that I can play, and not worry about the odd one that won't! Who was it said "be thankful for the things you've got"? :)
Posted 12 years ago # -
Just to see if it is really your machine (maybe your graphics board), the game is available online. You might give that a try.
In general, I agree with you. When my friend and I complain about "no new game today", we have to add the proviso "as if we don't have plenty of games now". I've got over 80 games from MPC and many of the ones I have from elsewhere are available at MPC. In total, I have 170 of the (currently, according to my calculations) 552 games available at MPC.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Littlemaggit
MemberCuriouser and curiouser... I went to the Playrix site and chose the "Play Online" option, and it loaded it fine. I tried the similar thing on Gamehouse and nothing happened. I've now checked that everything is up-to-date on my PC, and I've got the system requirements that the game asks for, so something must be objecting. I find it strange that I don't get any error message.
Before I retired, I worked on a large mainframe IBM - if this sort of thing happened then, I'd have simply put a trace on the job running and found out what was going on. Sometimes I get frustrated that I can't still get "down among the bits"! But my PC is as different from the old mainframe as chalk is from cheese...
Posted 12 years ago # -
My background is similar - I worked with everything from small PCs and specialized computers (like Symbolics) to big IBM mainframes and really didn't care what was running underneath - that was someone else's job! My training led me to figure out a lot of these but I've seen tools on the PC go from giving you control over everything (including how many files could be open) to NOTHING! It's extremely frustrating.
In your case, it's not the game apparently -- it's the build.
It's like a game I got on CD (Finders Keepers from Jenkat "published" by iWin) that locked up every time I tried to exit it. I had to use Task manager to exit it. I downloaded the trial version from iWin with the same results. I downloaded the free version from Jenkat and it worked fine. Conclusion - it's iWin's game manager interface built in to the first 2 versions. iWin is trying to figure it out now (at least that's what they tell me).
Maybe you can contact Playrix with the problem and they'll be nice enough to give you a copy free.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Littlemaggit
MemberThank you very much indeed, kvtto, for this advice. I've downloaded it and it seems to be working perfectly! I'll have to have a good look at JenKat Games: I've found some good ones there, but didn't realise that they'd got Mortlake. One very odd thing about it is that I went onto the screen where you create a new player and it picked up my name without my keying it in - I can only suppose there's some sort of correlation between games from JenKat where they recognise each other, not that it matters at all.
Anyway, I'm very grateful to you.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Littlemaggit,
One thing to watch out for with JenKat games is you do not get a choice where the game is placed and it tends to garbage up Program Files badly. It puts part of the game in Program Files and part in Program Files/Common Files. It does not use a "Jenkat" folder to keep them together which makes it even messier. Also, any old games that keep their stats with the games (commonly done with older games), you may have to use admin mode to allow write access to those stats.
This game seems to have been part of Jenkat for awhile but was just released as free yesterday.
Watch out for games that know who you are before you fill out the profile. In some cases, it's simply taking your username for the computer. If that's the case, it's harmless. If it also knows your other preferences, such as music volume and full screen, then it's sharing profiles with another game and that can be serious. I recently solved a similar problem with the Jewel Quest and Mahjong Quest games offered from MyPlacyCity. I had 3 different types of games sharing the same profle which meant you either had to play the HOG in windowed mode or the others in full screen or keep changing back and forth. It got nastier when 2 similar games even shared the same stats so if you progressed in one game, it thought you progress in the other game the same way if you used the same player name.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Littlemaggit
MemberThank you for the heads-up, Dragonlair. I'll watch out for these. I'm getting rather used to moving stuff out of Program Files and other places (I've set up a totally separate partition for Games, which seems to work well and I try to remember to override the defaults with this, but tend to forget all too often!).
I'll watch out for games sharing the same stats - that sounds very annoying. I suspect this one has picked up my computer username as you suggest, especially as it's a bit longer than I'd normally choose for a player name. Certainly the other preferences weren't what I tend to use (for example I always turn the sound effects and music much lower).
Posted 12 years ago # -
mikiem2
ModeratorI don't know that this will help at all, but on the chance that it does...
The core logic for a game can be (re)used almost regardless the programming language or tools that the game's written & compiled in, e.g. a game can be written for Windows PCs, then ported over to Flash &/or Android &/or HTML5 etc. That's not to say the process is quick or easy -- despite taking in huge amounts of money & expanding their staff it took quite a while before Angry Birds for example appeared as a stand-alone PC game.
So-called Casual games that can to be played online are written using other tools than the more traditional game "engines" usually featured with GOTD, or Playcity downloads. Most of those rely on graphics hardware that supports D3D [Direct 3D] -- it's not usually necessary in the sense that whatever game doesn't include 3D, but rather using D3D shortcuts some of the coding work that might have to be done otherwise. When the graphics hardware doesn't support the D3D features one of these games tries to use, it just stops -- rarely is there any notice or message telling you why, though there may be logs stored somewhere with that info. The play on-line stuff is much easier on hardware requirements, but it doesn't always make things nice & easy when it comes to packaging that code & trying to store it all in a usable format on a Windows PC/laptop.
One possible solution, if you've got a PC & not a laptop, would be to add a graphics card or upgrade whatever graphics card's in there now. If that's something that might interest you, note that I've heard that lower end, cheap graphics cards may disappear from the market -- because on-board graphics is becoming so popular with PC manufacturers as a way to cut costs, allegedly sales of these cards are drying up so it's just not worth the card makers' effort to produce them. IOW it might be something to look into now rather than later. Supporting that notion [that these cheap cards are going away], Newegg has a bunch with MIR bringing them down to the $15 - $30 range.
Posted 12 years ago # -
mikiem2
ModeratorI worked on a large mainframe IBM - if this sort of thing happened then, I'd have simply put a trace on the job running and found out what was going on. Sometimes I get frustrated that I can't still get "down among the bits"!
Google/Bing on sysinternals -- it's part of Microsoft nowadays & has a bunch of free tools... Process Monitor for example lists most everything going on, to the point of information overload. There are other tools out there for tracing &/or debugging, but if you want to find out when, where, & maybe why something's not happening (dying), Process Monitor can usually do the trick. That said, in the case of this game, *if* it's dying for lack of D3D support it might test for D3D capability or just try to use it & die, so Process Monitor might not be as useful or as efficient as finding the game's logs, *if* it writes any.
Posted 12 years ago # -
mikiem2
ModeratorCurious, I took a look at the mentioned "Mystery of Mortlake Mansion" from Jenkat while I was working with a couple of virtual machines. Installation is screwed up, but at least with a VM it is possible to shortcut around the installation, avoiding it almost entirely.
Normal install gives you several opportunities to try other software, & once you get past that stuff it will download the game setup file to your user temp folder -- you should copy/paste it elsewhere while setup's still running. Normal install adds a C:\user.js file, a couple of cookies, installs Funmoods, & installs what appears to be two pretty much complete copies of the game, one in Program Files [or Program Files (x86) & one in Program Files [(x86)]\ Common Files\ -- the desktop shortcut points to the 1st copy, but it's the 2nd copy that's complete & will run, wherever you put it. You also get a bunch of new registry entries, some having to do with your web browser(s). Again, all you really seem to need is that game folder that's added to Common Files -- running the game adds a folder & files under Users that's specific to this game. The easy way out is to just copy that 2nd game folder wherever outside the VM -- it is possible however to get what you need by expanding the game's setup file with 7Zip...
TO do so you need to move the 4 folders in $_OUTDIR up one level, so they're in the main folder where you expanded everything. Next you need to drill down into the $MUSIC folder, moving MortlakeMansion.exe up 2 levels, to that same, main folder. Now you can delete both $_OUTDIR & $MUSIC, renaming the main folder whatever you want, putting it pretty much wherever you want -- double click or setup a shortcut to point to MortlakeMansion.exe when you want to run the game.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Jenkat does not install complete copies in Program Files and Program Files\Common Files. It's just part in each place. I copy the "Common Files" part OVER the Program Files part and then move THAT to my normal games folder. I use CCleaner or Revo Uninstaller to access the uninstall and reset the uninstall pointers.
Posted 12 years ago # -
mikiem2
ModeratorJenkat does not install complete copies in Program Files and Program Files\Common Files.
With apologies, based on the monitoring etc. I've done that's exactly what I saw. A trivial matter really, since copying one folder over the other has almost the same result as just keeping the game's folder in Common Files, the only reason I'm replying really is in case something not quite right is happening with your PC/laptop. Purely FWIW, the following is the result of pretty complete monitoring in 2 VMs.
The 2 folders I got were for the most part identical except for the MortlakeMansion.exe file -- the one in Program Files wouldn't run without the folder in Common Files -- that .exe file that the desktop shortcut pointed to apparently just starts the one in Common Files... kinda wasteful since both folders contain the main game data file that makes up the bulk of the game at 133+ MB. The Program Files version has the following files not in the functional game folder: Mystery of Mortlake Mansion_uninstall.exe, Mystery of Mortlake Mansion.ico, a MoreGames Internet Shortcut, favicon64.ico, none of which impact the game
If knowing that I ran the normal setup on another PC/laptop, & got 2 incomplete game folders, I'd want to investigate to find out why, but that's me -- now you know so you can decide whether you want to bother or not. :)
I use CCleaner or Revo Uninstaller to access the uninstall and reset the uninstall pointers.
Again FWIW, CCleaner will not remove all, or I suspect most of the added registry entries I recorded, which for the most part have to do with Funmoods [too many to list or I would]. I think the paid version of Revo allows install monitoring, & if that's true, maybe it can clear them all?... don't know personally as I've never used the paid version. Far as uninstall goes, M/Mansion itself adds & apparently needs very, very few registry entries, so if you choose to avoid the setup routine, uninstall could most easily be accomplished by deleting the 2 game folders & whatever shortcuts, i.e. the main folder (wherever you put it), & the user folder that holds the log etc. -- that 2nd should be in [UserName]\ AppData\ Roaming\ for Vista/7, or [UserName]\ Application Data in XP.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Littlemaggit
MemberThank you, Terri, I couldn't believe my eyes! In fact, I'd downloaded it from JenKat, but I'm very much inclined to download it again here because of the way (see the above posts) JenKat tends to put bits of the download in different places on the PC system. I'd much prefer to get the GOTD download as these seem much neater.
I played it OK (the JenKat version) and simply loved it - it's certainly up there with the very best of its type. It's exactly my sort of game - plenty of brain-teasing with no time limits and a beautiful game to look at while puzzling out what to do. I love the constant going backwards and forwards through different scenes, finding new things to do each time, although I know that drives some people nuts!
Posted 12 years ago # -
Whiterabbit-uk
Games GuruIf you are having problems with Mystery of Mortlake Mansion, please post details here, or if you want advise on how to progress. There are walkthroughs available from Big Fish Games and Gamezebo as well as loads of Video walkthroughs on you tube. you'll find links to all of these via the following link. Check my review for video walkthrough links and for Gamezebo. another community member posted links to both Gamezebo and big Fish somewhere in the comments section. :)
You can access the giveaway comments section HERE
Posted 11 years ago #
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