Part 2 of the tutorial is now available here! A scripting tutorial is still in the works, but in the meantime, check out increpare's post below, or PJBottomz's Scripting Tutorial level.This is a very short, simple tutorial to get you started making levels in the new VVVVVV level editor. I'll try to keep it as brief as I can. Later tutorials will cover entities and room settings in more detail, and how to use scripting!
Ok, first up, you can find the editor from the main menu. Select
"PLAYER LEVELS"...
Then
"LEVEL EDITOR".
Alright! When you've done that, you should see a screen like the one above.
You can place tiles with the mouse, like so:
...but for shaping out a level properly, you'll need a bigger brush:
If you
hold down the Z key, you'll draw with a 3x3 brush instead of a single tile brush. (
Hold down the X key to use a 5x5 one.) You can also
delete tiles by using RIGHT CLICK. (or Ctrl+Click on Mac)
Alright. Now, sketch out a quick room like the one above, with an exit to the right. By default, you start in a 5x5 world (you can see the room coordinates in the lower right corner).
To move to a different room, just use the arrow keys!
From room (1,1), trying
pressing right to go to room (2,1). You'll notice a white bar on the left hand side of the screen here - this indicates that there's a wall on this edge, useful for making sure you don't get any collision errors when you put the level together.
Ok, draw another room in here, like the one above (so that it has an exit to the left into the other room). We've got a basic level layout now, so let's put something in it!
If you
press the space key, a little menu will pop up. This allows you to select the tool! Currently we're using the Walls tool, so let's move over to the checkpoint. You can change tools by
pressing the < and > keys, or by pressing the shortcut key for that tool.
(The numbers 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0 are shortcuts for various tools, as are the top row letters R,T,Y,U,I,O,P).
Ok! Once you've
placed a checkpoint (hide the space menu if you can't see the floor tiles), move back to the first room.
Here, we're going to place a
Crewmate! That tool is on the second page of the space menu (or use the shortcut key "O").
This is a good time to mention that you can change the colour of the crewmate you placed by clicking them again! You can do this multiple click action with many entities, which will cycle through it's different variations.
Ok!
Go back to room (2,1) and
press ENTER. This will spawn you at the nearby checkpoint! You can just
press ENTER again to return to the editor, or:
You can go rescue the crewmate! Yey
Ok! Well, we've got a basic level working now, so to distribute it, we probably want to change it's settings.
Press ESCAPE to go to the map settings menu. From here, select
"CHANGE DESCRIPTION".
Enter whatever information you want here. This will help people identify your level in the play menu.
Ok, with that done, go back to the editor. To
save your map, press
SHIFT + S, and give it a filename. The extension is added automatically. (I'll talk more about the SHIFT menu options in the next tutorial.)
And that's it! We've made a basic level! From here, try experimenting with the different tools and see how you get on. The next tutorial will cover
entities and room settings. The one after that will cover
scripting.
Enjoy! To distribute your level for other people to play, go find the .VVVVVV file in your Documents folder. (On windows, that should be in My Documents/VVVVVV, on Mac it's Documents/VVVVVV, on Linux ~/.VVVVVV). You can play other people's levels by copying files into this directory.
Thanks for reading! Hope you have fun making levels!
