Archive Magazine 1995/ARCHIVE95.iso/discs/shareware/share_47/inertedit/!InertEdit/!Help

Text File | 1992-06-01 | 8KB | 232 lines

*************  INERTIA SCREEN EDITOR  *************

****************  By Bruce Goatly  ****************

************  Version 1.58, 13 May 1992  ***********

This program is a simple screen editor for the
popular game Inertia from The Fourth Dimension.

HOW TO USE IT:

Open the !Inertia application directory on your
original Inertia disk by double-clicking on the
application while holding down the Shift key. Find
the files !Inertia.scrns and !Inertia.scrnl (these
are the screen files for Levels 1 and 2
respectively). Now insert the disk with this
!InertEdit application and open its application
directory in the same way. (Presumably you already
know how to open application directories - how
else would you be reading this?) Copy the 'scrns'
and 'scrnl' files across from the !Inertia
directory to the !InertEdit one.

Start up the InertEdit application in the usual
way and choose whether you want to edit Level 1 or
Level 2 (it's cheating but it's fun), whether you
want to edit a different map - make sure it's
inside the !InertEdit directory - that you've
already been working on (there's some error
checking but don't try editing non-Inertia-screen
files because I won't take responsibility for the
consequences), or whether you want to start a
completely new map. In the first three cases the
edited version will be saved over the one that was
loaded for editing; in the last case you will be
asked to give a file name for saving the new map
to.

Displaying a map file takes a little while - it's
90K long, after all, and I'm not into ARM code yet
- but before long the mouse pointer will appear
and you can start. It's quicker with an ARM3!


Screen layout:

Most of the screen is taken up by a plan view of
the map itself, with each tile displayed as a
two-pixel square. Sorry that the scale is so
small, but there is a way to enlarge it (see
below); sorry too about the plan view, but in fact
it's more useful than a perspective view when it
comes to working out tile positions (and far
easier to program!).

At the bottom left is a stack of four tiles,
representing the four possible levels at which a
tile can be placed; the current level is indicated
by the light-coloured tile. Above the stack
various messages appear, the most important of
which are the coordinates of the pointer. The 'Q'
icon to the left of the stack is for quitting, and
the 'S' icon below it is for saving your work.
Next come two tile representations: the top one
shows what tile is at the pointer position at the
indicated level; the bottom one, in a frame, shows
what tile you have selected for placing on the
map. The panel at the bottom right is your stock
of 19 different sorts of tile. For reference they
are:

Top row: normal green base, score tile, light grey
base, normal grey base, darker grey base, darkest
grey base, turquoise base, three slopes
(away-right, away-left, towards-left).

Middle row: slope (towards-right), four inner
corners (devise your own definitions of
direction), four outer corners (ditto), jump.

Bottom row: ice, brake, vertical speed (help! - I
just can't get used to this tile's effect),
transform to slow vehicle, transform to normal
vehicle, four conveyor belts (away-right,
towards-right, towards-left, away-left).


Using the editor:

Pick up a tile by clicking Select on one of the
tile shapes in the panel.

Place the selected tile by clicking Select at the
appropriate place on the map.

Remove a tile by clicking Adjust at the
appropriate place on the map.

The pointer can be forced to move only horizontally
or vertically around the map by pressing the H or
V keys. This is useful for drawing straight lines.

You can store the pointer's position on the map by
pressing the S key (*not* clicking on the S icon -
see below) and restore the old position with the R
key. This lets you use the mouse to change your
tile selection and then jump straight back to
where you were.

Move up and down the levels with the up-arrow and
down-arrow cursor keys. (I chose this way because
you can use the mouse with one hand to place tiles
while using the arrow keys with the other to
change levels.)

Clicking Menu while the pointer is over the map
doubles the scale, which spares your watering eyes
especially if (like me) you have only the standard
Acorn non-multisync monitor. The program detects
which part of the map you click over and enlarges
only that particular quarter. Everything else
works in the same way as at normal scale, except
that a position saved at one scale isn't
translated to the same map coordinates at the
other scale - restoring the saved position just
returns the pointer to the same screen position
(as you might expect). Click Menu again over the
map to return to normal scale.

Save your work from time to time by clicking
Select on the S (Save) icon. This will use the
file name already supplied.

Quit the editor by clicking Select on the Q (Quit)
icon. You will be asked if you want to save your
map first - just click Select on the Save icon to
save it before quitting, or on the Quit icon a
second time if you don't want to save it. Or you
can just click anywhere else on the screen to
abort the quit operation.


Notes on the screen maps:

When the editor starts up, the pointer is placed
at the starting point of the game, coordinates
(19,37). *Always* place a tile there for a
playable game!

Every map *must* have at least one score tile to
be playable. However, don't place too many score
tiles in a map (170 is about the maximum) to avoid
corrupting the game screen.

Getting used to the perspective view of the slope
and corner tiles takes a little time. Remember
that the game view of the map is from the
southwest (i.e. towards the northeast) as you look
at the map in the editor, so for instance the
first tile in the second row of the panel is a
ramp upwards in a southerly direction on the plan
view. Don't worry, it gets easier after a while.
The colouring on the green tiles is lighter at the
highest point and darker at the lowest, if that
helps you visualize things.

The bottom of the map wraps around to the top (and
vice versa, of course), but displaced one tile
sideways in so doing. Thus, for example, a tile at
(27,95) is connected to one at (28,0).

Latest versions of !InertEdit also contain in the
application directory a sample map (called scrns,
so it's Level 1) that I've been doodling with
while developing the software. It's far from
finished, but shows some of the features of a real
Inertia map. At least you can start - for the time
being - using the editor without access to Inertia
itself.


PLAYING THE NEW SCREENS

You need to fool the Inertia application into
thinking that the new map files are on the
original disk, so make a backup copy of your
original Inertia disk (the protection makes it a
non-working copy, for copyright reasons) and copy
the new map files into the !Inertia directory on
it. Remember that one of the files has to be
called 'scrns' (Level 1) and the other 'scrnl'
(Level 2). Then insert your original Inertia disk
and start up the game as usual, but change to your
backup disc before selecting Level 1 or Level 2.


STANDARD BORING COPYRIGHT NOTICE

This software and documentation is copyright ⌐
1992 Bruce Goatly.  It is in the public domain and
you are therefore free to give the entire
application to anyone you please via any medium
provided it is delivered with all the supplied
files, unaltered. The original Inertia screens are
copyright ⌐ 1990 The Fourth Dimension, which is
why they are *not* supplied with the screen
editor. Buy the game!

This software is supplied 'as is'; no warranty,
express or implied, of the merchantability of this
software or its fitness for any particular purpose
is given, In no circumstances shall the author, or
any provider or distributor of this software, be
liable for any damage, loss of profits, or any
indirect or consequential loss arising out of the
use of this software or inability to use this
software.


Correspondence, suggestions, money, praise, offers
of work, etc. (but no complaints, please) to:

Bruce Goatly
Walnut Cottage
Liberty Avenue
LONDON
SW19 2RN

13 May 1992