Ok! This is part two of my short VVVVVV level editor tutorial.
Part one can be found here, and covers the basics of getting a level up and running. This tutorial should explain the various settings and tools touched on in the last tutorial in more detail.
When you press
SPACE in the editor, you'll see this toolbar pop up:
There are two pages, that's page one. This is really just to remind you what the tools are - you don't need it on the screen to change tools. You can change your selected tool with the
< and > keys, or by using the shortkey for the tool you want.
1 - Walls: The first tool is simple enough - it allows you to place walls with the left mouse button. By default you use a single tile brush, but you can use a larger brush by holding the
Z key (3x3) or the
X key (5x5).
2 - Backgrounds: For drawing background tiles. Z and X brushes work here too. (Some tilesets don't have backgrounds.)
3 - Spikes: Spikes are spikes!
4 - Trinkets: And trinkets are trinkets! You can place a max of 20 on a map due to limitations with how VVVVVV's structured, but this might change in later versions.
5 - Checkpoints: Checkpoints have two orientations - on the floor, or on the celling. Click on them when they're placed to switch between them. When testing a map, you can
press ENTER to spawn at the closest checkpoint.
6 - Disappearing Platforms: No settings here!
7 - Conveyors: Click on these when they're placed to change their direction.
(You might be curious about the larger Conveyors on the right picture - these were just an optimization in VVVVVV because in the old version, having too many entities on a screen could cause some slowdown. They're not really relevant anymore)
8 - Moving Platforms: Clicking on these changes their direction.
9 - Enemies: Clicking on these changes their direction too. This version unfortunately only has 16x16 enemies, but hopefully a later patch will bring custom enemies of all sizes.
0: Gravity Lines: Are placed horizontal by default; click the control point to make them vertical.
Onto the second page of tools! First up:
R - Room Text: Place and start typing! (Little bit of trivia, these weren't actually used in VVVVVV, but were implemented in early versions to give instructions. Another "early version" feature that might make a return for the editor; minor collectibles!)
T - Terminals: When placed, ask you to provide a scriptname. I'll discuss scripting in the next part of the tutorial. Terminals trigger scripts when the player stands in front of them and presses ENTER.
Y - Script Boxes: These are like terminals, except that they trigger their scripts as soon as they player enter them. Again, will discuss these more in part three.
U - Warp Tokens: When you place a warp token, you'll be able to move to any other location in the map to place it's end point. Warp Tokens are automatically numbered so you can keep track of them. If you're trying to find the corresponding exit, just mouse over a placed token to see the room it links to.
I - Warp Lines: Can only be placed on screen edges. The only place these were used in VVVVVV was in the tower level! They're partial screen warps - they allow you to warp from one side of a screen but not the other, or from a single entrance in a room. (Usually best avoided if you can just change the entire warp direction of a room instead, as using these doesn't change the background and can be confusing.)
O - Lost Crewmates: The (current) goal of a level is to collect all the lost crewmates. You'll need to place at least one if you want people to be able to finish your level.
P - Level Start Position: This is the where you start the level if you select it from the main menu. If a start point doesn't exist, you'll just spawn in the middle of room (1,1).
Ok, that's tools covered - now, let's move onto settings. If you hold down
SHIFT, you'll see this menu:
The box on the right contains reminders for
saving and
loading (by pressing
SHIFT-S or
SHIFT-L). The box on the left are the room settings. First up, to change the tileset you're using, press
SHIFT-1. (To change the current room colour, press
SHIFT-2.)
Ok! The next two settings concern enemies. Press
SHIFT-3 to toggle between the different enemy sprites. You can currently use any of the 16x16 enemies from VVVVVV. Later versions should allow custom enemies, though.
If you play this room, you'll notice these enemies go all the way from wall to wall.
If you want them to have more constricted movement, you can set enemy bounds by pressing
SHIFT-4. It'll ask you to draw a box. Enemy bounds are not exact, unfortunately. (If you want to get rid of enemy bounds, just draw a box containing the entire room.)
Similarly, you can change platform bounds with
SHIFT-5.
The next setting is the room warp direction. Toggle this by pressing
SHIFT-W!
You can change the current roomname by pressing
SHIFT-R.
Finally, you can change the size of the current map by pressing
SHIFT + Arrow Keys. Sorry, I forgot to add this one to the GUI!
That's about it for settings. The last menu is the
global menu, which you can access by pressing
ESC. Descriptions we covered in the last part, scripts we'll cover in the next part - the only other thing here is the map music:
Ok! Hope this has cleared a few things up
I'll post the third part soon, which will covers scripting. Later updates might add new features, which will either get added as new parts or appended to these tutorials.
