Using Editor – Part #1

Now that Rockbot is reaching the 1.0 version (ETA first semester of 2014), it is time for other people to start making games by using the editor. As, for what I know, this was only used by me, the user interface can be confusing. So I will explain the basics of editing players, enemies, bosses, objects, maps with this tool in hope someone find useful. The posts on this series will not follow the tab order, but a logical one, as there is no sense in creating an enemy without a map to put them.

 

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Game Properties:

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Name: the name of the game you are creating/editing

Special Item #1: Remember Mega man 2 items #1, #2 and #3? Rush Jet/Coil? Same thing. Pick, between the items you created the one player will be able to call upon selecting on weapons menu. The items can be created at “Objects” tab.

Special Item #2: Same as above.

Semi-Charged Shot: The editor allows you to create projectiles at “Projectiles” tab. You must create one that is the semi-charged and set it here. Why this is here and there isn’t the full charged shot? Because this one is common to all players, while the full can be set differently for each player.

Stage-Faces: Remember the Mega Man 2-10 stage select screen with 8 bosses and later Dr. Wily face? Well, here you can set the icon image for each stage. The stage name is editable at “Stages” tab. For each stage, you set an image.

 

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Stages:

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A stage consists of three maps, that can be linked (remember climbing a ladder on Mega man and the screen scrolls up-down slowly? This was a map transition) between themselves. The stage tab edit have a name, usually the boss name, and, for each player, two diaglos; one in the stage beggining and another when reaching the stage’s boss. You can set, in this tab, the stage name, boss name, boss face (that will appear on the dialog, not to be mistaken with the stage select face), answer player is where you select witch player you are editing the dialog for – the boss dialog is the same for them all, but the player text is not. Also stage dialogs is used on start of the stage, while boss dialogs is the one used when you reach the boss room to face him for the first time. If a stage is already beaten, no dialogs will be shown, as the boss room is now empty.

Note that boss face can be any face you like, the player can speak with someone else, like a companion or communication center, like in Megaman X series.

 

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Players:

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Here you can edit some aspects of the character the gamer will control while playing your game.

Name: Player name. This will appear on dialogs the player speaks.

Hit Points: Hotal damage points the player can receive. Default is 28, we recommend to keep this way or lower only, as the game does not support other values much well because of the number of lines in the energy bar.

Has Shield: If the player can use a shield button to avoid being hit by projectiles.

Max Shots: How many simultaneous projectiles from regular weapon (special weapons taken from bosses hay their own limit) the player can fire up at same time in the screen (one one of those vanishes, you can fire up more).

Touch Damage Reductor: The player can take less damage from touching enemies. Minimal damage is always 1, but if the touch damage is 4 and you set this to 1, the player takes only 3 points of damage reduced from his total energy points.

Jump Gravity: This is the value substracted from player’s jump speed each frame he is moved when the jump if going from ground to up, or increasing speed when going down in the jump. Higher values make the jump shorter, while higher values make is longer and slower.

Jump Speed: initial jump speed. You can combine this value with gravity to make a really slow or fast jump. Player with both and find values you like.

Move speed: how fast the character moves. Two is a value similar to Mega Man, higher is faster.

Can Slide: If enabled, the player will slide can can pass small holes of only one tile size where normally the player can’t fit; otherwise it will dash and the player height isn’t affected by the movement.

Charged Shot: The projectile this player fires when fully charged.

The graphics used by the player can’t be set from the editor yet, instead it uses the pN.png file from data/images/sprites folder, where N is the number of the player, eg p1.png, p2.png.

 

 

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