The level editor

The level editor contains a large number of toolbars which are for icon-based editing. They are quite visual and easy to understand, but unfortunately contain no text clues... Here's the lowdown on the toolbars.

The file bar contains buttons that you should recognise immediately; new, save, saveas, load and exit. These are for the standard operations on your level - saving to disk is important if you want to make sure you keep your game edits! Furthermore, extra information is provided underneath - level name, scene number and amount of enemies.
Underneath this, the weapon can be changed by clicking on the blue pistol.

The scenes bar contains simple operations for your scenes; adding, deleting, cloning and the new transition button. The name of the current transition is displayed underneath the bar. When it is possible to move forward or back a scene, the the scene arrows appear above the toolbar, and move the game forwards to the right, and backwards to the left.

The enemies toolbar is the most function-filled for editing your games. Each button allows you to access a new tool, and the one that remains highlighted is the current tool. The tool can be used by clicking or dragging within the scene preview window. The currently selected enemies' specific information is contained the right of the toolbar. Here's each tool in order:

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• Enemy Selection tool - Use this for selecting the enemy. Left click on the enemy you want, or right-click to cycle through the enemies
• Move Tool - Left click and drag to move
• Scale Tool - Left click drag to scale up and down, right click to restore to 100% scale
• Z-order Tool - Left click to move the current enemy up a layer above the others, right click to move down. YOu can see the number of the enemy in the information panel to the right
• Add Tool - Left click where you want to add the enemy, then select its type.
• Delete Tool - Click this button to delete the currently selected enemy
• Define Types - Click this button to define the different types of enemies available, and their healths
• Clone Tool - Click this button to clone the currrently selected enemy

In addition to this, you can also define the hiding time of the selected enemy - how long the enemy remains on frame 1 between attacks (to the nearest 0.1 seconds). This is on the right of the toolbar - left click on the hidetime to increase it, right click to decrease it. The maximum is 25.6 seconds.

The last few buttons are bottom right of the level editing screen, which contain some global settings and the all-important background/foreground controls. From the top, the buttons are:

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• P - This is the loading screen for your game (miniature copy displayed to the right, and name displayed above). Why it's a P, we can't remember. It may stand for picture.
• Speaker - The loading sound for your game. Name displayed above.
• Music - The background music for your game. Name displayed above.
• B - Background for the current scene. Name displayed to the left.
• F - Foreground for the current scene. Name displayed to the left.

That's about all the tools that there are for the level editor; there may be more in future updates, but for now that's all you have to worry about! If you want to make a suggestion about the level editor, please do not be afraid to contact us on our main email address.

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