═══ 1. Builder - The Level Editor ═══ General Help The Builder window consists of two parts: 1. Object bar and 2. View of the level Select any object in the object bar with the right or left button of your mouse. A small frame shows you that your selection has been accepted. If you press the mouse button in the view of the level the selected object is drawn into the level... Information for the following topics is available from this page: o Boulder-Dash Objects (short description of all objects available in Builder) o Key short-cuts to the Objects in Builder o Opening an existing level o Saving a modified level o Saving a level with a new name o Exiting Builder o Level settings o Zooming the level o Emptying the level o Fill mode o Showing an animation o Converting objects ═══ 2. Boulder-Dash Objects ═══ Specification of Boulder-Dash Objects Border: Every Boulder Dash level is surrounded by this border. It cannot be eaten or destroyed. Empty: When there's nothing, there's Empty... Normal Earth: Most common thing in a Boulder Dash level. Running into earth results in a Empty object. Horizontal Earth: Horizontal Earth can only be eaten from the right or left. You cannot eat it from below or above. Vertical Earth: Vertical Earth can only be eaten from below or above. You cannot eat it from left or right. Earth containing Stone There are two classes: o Earth containing 1 Stone o Earth containing many Stones. The stones are generated at random intervals. Solid Wall: Solid walls cannot be destroyed or eaten. Old Wall: Other than Solid Walls old walls can explode. Magic Wall: A Magic Wall starts running, if a something falls on it. While the Magic Wall runs, all objects fallin onto it are eaten. The objects fall out of the wall, if there is nothing (say Empty) below the wall. Note: Most of the objects falling through the Magic Wall are transformed! Swamp: A swamp swallowes everything that falls into it. It is running all the time and cannot be destroyed. House: At the beginning of the game, a house looks like . But when enough diamonds are collected it changes to . You cannot enter a house before you collected enough diamonds. A level cannot be completed unless all players went into the houses. Note: There must be at least one house for every player. Slime: Slime grows in Earth and Empty. As soon as there is no more earth or empty to grow in, all the slime transforms to diamonds. When growing, slime produces drops () that are falling down to spread even faster! and Player: Player 1 and player 2 can be distinguished by the colors of their hat and dresses. You move the players with the devices defined in GI (generic game interface, also available via anonymous ftp, search for GI.ZIP!). Stone: Stones fall down if there is Empty below them. If a stone hits a 'living' object (like Player or Ghost) by falling on top of it, it explodes. Players can push stones if there is a Empty field behind the stone. Players can stand below a stone without getting killed, if the stone does not fall onto them. and Diamonds: Collecting diamonds is the base idea of the game. You cannot complete a level until you collected enough diamonds. A blue diamond counts three green diamonds! Note: Blue diamonds are much more fragile. They get crushed if something falls onto them! Egg: In every egg, there is a diamond. If something falls onto the egg, it cracks open and becomes a diamond. Bomb: A Bomb explodes when either another bomb next to it explodes or it falls down and hits something. Note: Chain-reactions are very nice! Mine: A player collects mines by moving over them. Once collected they can be used anywhere in the level. A mine is launched by standing still and holding a button for some time (you'll see what i mean, if you try it...). When the mine is activated, it take about 2 seconds until it explodes (so you better run like hell). Missile: Like mines, missiles are collected and used afterwards. You launch a missile by holding the button and pointing to the direction the missile should fly to. Doors: To pass through one of these doors, the player must have the key with the same color. Only player can pass through these doors (no ghosts). Note: A door can be passed more than once. Note: You cannot save a level, if it contains doors without the appropriate keys! Keys: These keys are needed to pass the doors mentioned above. Ghosts: o Red-Ghost: Red ghosts always walk in one direction as long as they can. When they reach the end of a horizontal or vertical path, they decide where to go next. Red ghosts don't look up or down while running horizontaly and don't look left or right while running verticaly. o Blue-Ghost: Blue ghosts always try to turn right . If they cannot turn right, they try to go straight ahead. If they can't go straight eiter, they do a quarter-turn to the left and try again... o Grey-Ghost: Grey ghosts alway try to turn left . If they cannot turn left, they try to go straight ahead. If they can't go straight either, they do a quarter-trun to the right and try again... o Green-Ghost: Green ghosts are intelligent! They always try to catch the nearest player. If two players play, green ghosts are attracted by the nearer player. If there is a Wheel things get easier: Just push against the wheel (it starts running) and all green ghosts get attracted by this wheel. Warning: A wheel does not run very long! (But it can be started as many times as you like...) o Bouncing Ball: A bouncing ball just bounces up and down. They stay where they are, always bouncing... Ghost Sleepy: When a player eats a Sleepy, all ghosts stop moving for some time. While the ghosts are sleeping, they don't look for players. ═══ 3. Key short-cuts to Builder objects ═══ How to define key short-cuts to Builder objects If you double-click on a object in the object bar of the builder window a dialog is shwon where you can configure a short-cut key for this object. Short-cut keys are saved when Builder is closed and reloded every time Builder is started. When you define a short-cut key for a object, pressing the short-cut key has the same effect as selecting the object with the mouse and pressing the mouse button in the level afterwards. Or shorter: Instead of selecting an object, you just press the short-cut key and the object apears below the mouse cursor... ═══ 4. File Open ═══ Open an existing level This menu item lets you select a level using the standard OS/2 file dialog. If the level is not protected with a password you can freely edit it. Levels for Boulder-Dash reside in the same directory as Boulder-Dash itself. Note: For a description of the naming conventions for Boulder-Dash levels see: Naming Boulder-Dash levels ═══ 4.1. Naming Boulder-Dash Levels ═══ Naming conventions for Boulder Dash levels Some care must be taken in naming new levels: (The following is an EBNF description of the levelname) levelname ::= levelmode number ".LEV" levelmode ::= "S" | "T" | "B" number ::= ascii representation of level-number Examples for valid level-names are: S123.LEV, T45.LEV, B9999.LEV The levels are numbered in a rising manner. It is not allowed to leave "holes" in the row of numbers. There is alwas a B- (for Both 1 and 2 players) or a S- (single player) and a T- (team) level. Or mathemtically written: (B or (S and T)). Note: The Save and Save as functions of Builder always suggest a level name according to the rules above! Warning: The Save function overwrites existing levels without questioning the user! Warning: If you modifiy a level, all level-highscores are lost! Warning: Do not rename levels outside of Builder, the level-number is coded into the level! ═══ 5. File Save ═══ Save an existing level The current level is saved to disk. If the current level has no name, the same procedure as in Save as aplies. Before a level is saved, some plausibility checks are made. ═══ 5.1. Plausibility Checks ═══ Plausibility Checks before Save The following tests are made before a level is saved to disk: o More than one player 1 or player 2 defined o Level mode does not match number of players defined o Doors without apropriate keys o Too few houses o Start distance between players bigger than one screen ═══ 6. File Save as ═══ Save level as new file This menu item lets you select or enter a new level name using the standard OS/2 file dialog. Levels for Boulder-Dash should reside in the same directory as Boulder-Dash itself. Note: For a description of the naming conventions for Boulder-Dash levels see: Naming Boulder-Dash levels ═══ 7. Exit ═══ Exit Builder Selecting this menu item closes the Builder window and ends the program. Note: If your last changes haven't been saved yet, Builder asks you wheter it should save them for you or not. ═══ 8. Options Level ═══ Level Selecting this menu item brings you the level dialoge . ═══ 9. Zooming ═══ Zooming the view of the level Zooming can be done in two ways: o Zoom in: look closer. You'll see more details but a smaller part of the level. o Zoom out: widens the view. Less details but more overview. You can either zoom with the Option->Zoom menu items or with the + and - keys. Note: Limitations: The objects must be bigger than 5x5 and smaller than 100x100 pixels. Zomming beyond these limits is not allowed (and not possible). ═══ 10. Options New ═══ Clearing the level Selecting this menu item clears the whole level (or fills it with Empty, if you prefer). Warning: No checkback is done. Your level will be lost, absolutly no possibility to get your work back! ═══ 11. Options Fill ═══ Flood fill option If the flood fill option is checked every mouse click in the level starts a flood fill. The object below the mouse arrow is replaced with the new object and all meeting objects of the same type are also replaced. Warning: There is no possibility of undoing a flood fill. Use it very carefully! Flood fill can be switched on and off in two ways: o By selecting the menu item Options -> Fill or o By pressing ALT-F ═══ 12. Animation ═══ Showing a simple animation This feature is mainly for debugging new animated objects. It won't help you anything... ═══ 13. Convert Objects ═══ Convert Objects If you delete BOULDER.PIC you can recreate it with this feature... ═══ 14. Level settings ═══ Level settings In this dialog you can taylor your level. Values as time, number of diamonds, size and mode are part of the definition of the level. Name and password of the level are optional. Help for the following topics is available: o Level time o Level diamonds o Level size o Level name o Level password o Level mode o Level statistics o Level password ═══ 15. Level time ═══ Time to complete the level Time in seconds the user has to complete the level. If you design a new level don't calculate this value too sharp... Note: A maximum of 9999 seconds is allowed here. ═══ 16. Level diamonds ═══ Number of diamonds required to complete the level Enter the minimal number of diamonds a player/team must collect before the houses are opened. Note: It's not possible to specify more diamonds than width x height of the level. Theoretically it would be possible to collect 3 x width x height diamonds... ═══ 17. Level size ═══ Size of the level Change the actual size of the level with these spin buttons. If you enlarge the level the new area is on the top or on the right depending wich value (height/width) you changed. If you shrink the level area from the top and right are destroyed. Warning: The shrunk part of the level is lost forever, no chance to get it back! Note: Currently a maximum value of 150 is allowed for either width and height. Note: Minimum values are: width=20, height=12. ═══ 18. Level name ═══ Name of the level If present, the name of the level is displayed for about 3 seconds when the level is played. You can give small hints, weired phrases or sarcastic comments to the player... Note: The level text can be no longer than 40 characters (screen widht when playing). ═══ 19. Level password ═══ Definition of the level password The password is optional. It should be used when you want to lock your level for distribution. However it is not recommended to protect all levels since sometimes a player/team may just be overcharged. Note: I would be glad to receive new levels for a future distribution. But since I'll have to change the level number please don't protect them... ═══ 20. Level mode ═══ Mode of level There are three classes of levels: o Level for one player only, not playable in team mode o Level for teams only, not playable by single players o Level for both singles and teams The level mode affects the file name of the level. See Naming conventions for further information. Note: The level mode affects also the required/allowed number of players. ═══ 21. Level statistics ═══ Level statistics To help you calculate the right number of diamonds an estimated number of diamonds is available. This estimation bases on the number of: Eggs x 1 + Green Diamonds x 1 + Blue Diamonds x 3 + Red ghosts x 11 + Blue ghosts x 11 + Grey ghosts x 11 + Green ghost x 11 + Balls x 11 ============================ Estimated number of diamonds ═══ 22. Level password ═══ Entering the level password Please enter the password for the protected level. If you don't enter the right password, an empty level is shown. If you think you entered the right password but an empty level is shown, try re-openig the level with Level open . Note: A password consists of a maximum of 10 characters. The password distinguishes between upper and lower case as well as non alhpanumeric characters.