Few Questions About Room Design

Started by Tetris, June 03, 2018, 07:22:49 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

Tetris

1)Wall Glitches

I'm brand new to making rooms so I'm still trying to figure things out. Occasionally if a wall doesn't have a solid line around it, Viridian clips through the walls and sort of falls through them until he hits the next room, and then the whole room freezes. Why is it that the wall's solid line doesn't appear even when there's a solid line?

2) Room Teleportation

I've already designed the particular room in question around this problem using warp tiles, but for future reference is it possible to map one edge of the room to the edge of a completely different room to give the illusion of a "climb" or "fall" that is higher/deeper than just 5 rooms without using warp tiles?

3) Room Names

Is it possible for the Room Name bar to not obscure the bottom-most row of tiles? I've put some spikes there in some rooms, and it gets obscured with the room names.

4) Unused Scripts

I have some scripting boxes I accidentally placed and deleted terminals, and the whole scripting menu is a bit screwed up and cluttered with extra unused scripts. I cannot seem to remove them. I know I could "break" the game if it tried to call a script that doesn't exist but it's really cluttering up the workspace.

5) Multiple Levels

How do I create a full-out world where there's multiple teleporters and levels? All I can do at this point is use my limited 25 frames to make people run back and forth to complete tasks. I know there's a way to map the gravity lines to scripts that are triggered by trinket counts to act as gates. I plan to use that to make people run back and forth, and I've placed some diabolical traps to cause people to have to re-do some difficult parts if they mess up.

6) Text Enemies

Is it possible to place flashing text enemies in the game?

7) Playing Outside Editor

Is it possible to load a level without going into the editor?

---

Overall VVVVVV is a game I keep recommending to people and mentioning on the list of my favorite games. The Guile's-Theme-inspired music (especially Positive Force) is so catchy and I love the 8-bit style. I even went so far as to 3D print Viridian in blue glow in the dark material, although I have no clue where I put him hehe I do need to find him.

But yes. I'm looking forward to completing this level and making more levels.

And as I am new to the forum, is there anything I need to know? You know, that's fundamentally different from other forums and common sense rules?

Info Teddy

Quote from: Tetris on June 03, 2018, 07:22:49 AM1)Wall Glitches

I'm brand new to making rooms so I'm still trying to figure things out. Occasionally if a wall doesn't have a solid line around it, Viridian clips through the walls and sort of falls through them until he hits the next room, and then the whole room freezes. Why is it that the wall's solid line doesn't appear even when there's a solid line?
adjacent wall indicators (those white solid lines) appear so you don't get clipping errors when crossing room borders. they don't appear for spikes or for warping room borders within a room. i don't know what you mean by "why is it that the wall's solid line doesn't appear even when there's a solid line?"
also one of your goals as level designer is to not have those clipping errors. clipping errors can even happen when a tile is only one tile away from a horizontal room border and four tiles away from a vertical room border, so make sure that doesn't happen. and make sure to indicate bordering, adjacent spikes in an adjacent room with spikes next to the room border in the current room.
Quote from: Tetris on June 03, 2018, 07:22:49 AM2) Room Teleportation

I've already designed the particular room in question around this problem using warp tiles, but for future reference is it possible to map one edge of the room to the edge of a completely different room to give the illusion of a "climb" or "fall" that is higher/deeper than just 5 rooms without using warp tiles?
yes, by using internal scripting. here is what your two scripts would look like:
Code (warp_load) Select
iftrinkets,0,warp
Code (warp) Select
say,3
gotoroom,1,0
moveplayer,0,-202
loadscript
text,,,,4

that trailing newline is only to be done in the in-game vvvvvv editor. you could also try using ved, that's a much better editor, and it has an internal scripting mode so all you would have to do is create a loadscript and not fiddle with the notation. in this case, this is suited for down room borders, and you would be placing warp_load in a trigger (script box) right next to a down room border.

what's happening is that warp_load loads warp (because you need to load internal scripts like this in a special way) and in warp, gotoroom,1,0 goes to the room (1, 0)+100. basically, room coords for the main map actually start at 100 (0-99 are used for outside dimension vvvvvv). what the in-game editor does is subtract 99 from the room coords when displaying them, so (1, 0)+100 would actually look like (2, 1). gotoroom actually adds 100 to the given room coords, so gotoroom,1,0 goes to (101, 100), which in the in-game editor (and ved) would look like (2, 1). gotoroom,1,0 goes to (2, 1).

it also sounds like you aren't aware maps can be larger than 5x5. they can be as large as dimension vvvvvv (excluding the tower): 20x20. you can change them using ved or (with the in-game editor) holding shift and using the arrow keys.

and also, commas, opening parentheses, and closing parentheses are completely exchangeable in scripting. they all equally count as argument separators. you don't need the last argument separator because there are no arguments (has to be plural) to separate
Quote from: Tetris on June 03, 2018, 07:22:49 AM3) Room Names

Is it possible for the Room Name bar to not obscure the bottom-most row of tiles? I've put some spikes there in some rooms, and it gets obscured with the room names.
no. also, don't put spikes there or tiles players can walk on. that's annoying
Quote from: Tetris on June 03, 2018, 07:22:49 AM4) Unused Scripts

I have some scripting boxes I accidentally placed and deleted terminals, and the whole scripting menu is a bit screwed up and cluttered with extra unused scripts. I cannot seem to remove them. I know I could "break" the game if it tried to call a script that doesn't exist but it's really cluttering up the workspace.
use ved. deleting them is more intuitive and also you can see which scripts are unused and see how many scripts you're using (which is important because there's a 500 scripts hard limit) and how many lines of a script you're using (which is important because there's a 500 lines hard limit)

you can remove scripts by pressing backspace in the in-game editor
Quote from: Tetris on June 03, 2018, 07:22:49 AM5) Multiple Levels

How do I create a full-out world where there's multiple teleporters and levels? All I can do at this point is use my limited 25 frames to make people run back and forth to complete tasks. I know there's a way to map the gravity lines to scripts that are triggered by trinket counts to act as gates. I plan to use that to make people run back and forth, and I've placed some diabolical traps to cause people to have to re-do some difficult parts if they mess up.
for teleporters, you're going to have to use internal scripting. it depends on whether you want to reserve a room for a "hub" or have a menu system with text boxes instead that doesn't take up any rooms.

to make gravity lines or warp tokens disappear, use destroy,gravitylines or destroy,warptokens respectively. to have them be destroyed only when a certain flag is activated, first, that flag needs to be activated by using flag,x,on (you can also turn them off by using flag,x,off. flags range from 0-99.

so if a certain flag is on, ifflag,x,script will jump to script if flag x is on. for example, if flag 0 is on, and your destroy,gravityline script is destroyline, you would place ifflag,0,destroyline in a trigger covering the entire room containing said gravity line. destroy,gravitylines and destroy,warptokens destroy all gravity lines or warp tokens in the room. you can also use destroy,platforms but that just makes platforms invisible (it's bugged)
Quote from: Tetris on June 03, 2018, 07:22:49 AM6) Text Enemies

Is it possible to place flashing text enemies in the game?
like "obey" and "lies"? you will need to consult the createentity enemy map http://distractionware.com/forum/index.php?topic=2881.0 and use internal scripting. basically you need to have a loadscript as usual, but the internal command (with all the fancy notation) will need to be createentity,x,y,1,direction,speed, and within the same room as the enemy appears in the main game map. otherwise, you'll just get a pink box enemy
Quote from: Tetris on June 03, 2018, 07:22:49 AM7) Playing Outside Editor

Is it possible to load a level without going into the editor?
you mean actually play the level? of course you can. it should be in the levels list when choosing "play a level" unless you moved the level file. you can also load the level using ved, which doesn't count as loading it in the in-game editor.
Quote from: Tetris on June 03, 2018, 07:22:49 AMAnd as I am new to the forum, is there anything I need to know? You know, that's fundamentally different from other forums and common sense rules?
this community be small af yo

azathothsAwakening

Answer to 3:If the room doesn't have a roomname, then the bottom row won't be obscured.
Answer to 4: in the script menu, you can press backspace to delete whatever script you have currently selected.
Answer to 5: hold shift, and press the right and down arrow keys in the editor. You'll now have more than 25 "frames"
Answers to 2 and 6 involve something complicated called "internal scripting", which i'm not the best at explaining how it works, but there's some posts that explain it.
Answer to 7:do you mean testing your level?
Edit:while i was typing this, info teddy posted a reply, but i typed this before i read it...

Tetris

Wow! Thanks for such an in-depth response! I can't wait to try these out later!  :viridian: