Agapito's Level Creator

[sartomism]

Hi!

Someone suggested to develop a level creator for "agapito".

I started to program it and this is the result by the moment:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnm_--s3S3I

It's programmed in SDL. It means that you can use it in Windows, in Linux or, if you are a very lucky guy, in MAC.
I hope you can also do it with a pandora, i have to test it.

please, tell me about the video. Suggestions are welcome.

 

[Trip]

Wow I can't believe it's so functional already.
You really need a decent way of displaying the graphics list but I love the way that you can select any part of the image and clone it instantly.
Looks like it will be fun to use and lets face it that's one of the main things you need from a level builder

 

[MarkoeZ]

Looking very impressive! im just starting to make a leveleditor myself for Panjoust, and that video was very inspiring, thanks! If the source is open, i'd like to take a look when it's ready ; )

Cheers!

 

[fusion_power]

Very nice!
This is the way, I like to edit 2D Tile based levels. I've worked some time with the old "Scrolling Game Development Kit" which was good to use, not to hard to learn and quite innovative. And it was the only one I've found which could edit Parallax layers in the same way like foreground Layers.
Your Editor seems to be very usable. maybe you could add a "random" feature to fill specified Tiles in random order, for example to generate other Brick-stones within the uniform Brick-Tiels without needing to add every one per hand.

Your Video shows how you set the "edges" of the solid Castle Walls per Hand. maybe there could be some kind of "pattern" where matching tiles are defined. A Minimum of "top", "bottom", "left", "right" "center" and maybe "edges" tiles could be made as set which automaticly puts edges and top onto the right place of the center tile(s). You just drag a frame with the desired size of this Set and it automaticly fills the center and puts the sides and edges onto, well, the sides and edges. Repeating tiles are repeated in the right order. Should save much time for huge Areas. Maybe, even corners are possible to put a smaller Set ontop of a larger set and "melting" it the right way. Hard to describe, I know.

this is how it looks in the "SGDK":


I like the Idea of being able to Edit Levels straight onto the Pandora, so you can quick switch between editing and testing. It also helps to edit onto the same Screen, like the game you want to play.

 

[sartomism]

thanks for ideas. I'll take advantage.


The fusion_power's ideas about automatic filling will be adapted soon (may be I'll need a more detailed explanation but I've catched the idea ). They'll help us to edit faster and nicer. The problem is that that kind of optimizations perhaps wouldn't be possible in all original scenes due to the old chaotic design. Don't forget they were "dessigned" by a child :S. Surely in further new stages.

I like the Idea of being able to Edit Levels straight onto the Pandora, so you can quick switch between editing and testing. It also helps to edit onto the same Screen, like the game you want to play.

All my efforts are pointed on designing an enviroment wich let us create and test stages directly on the same aplication.

It means that the game will use the same engine to run the action. In other words: You will be able to create a new stage (or edit an existing one),put the enemies and then test the new part. On this way, you can judge if its too dificult, or too easy and you will be able to find the right balance. I thinks this is the key. The balance between dificult and fun.

I've also been thinking on protect levels against illegal edition. I mean if you create a new stage, somebody could modify and end it without efforts. Perhaps the only who could modify it would be the owner. I'm right?

Thanks again!

 

[fusion_power]

Of course you shouldn't be able to edit the Original Levels
I think the Editor is mainly to make Fan-Levels OR make Levels that can be branded as "original" if the Quality is good enough. So it can find it's way into the "final" game if the Devs decide it.

The fusion_power's ideas about automatic filling will be adapted soon (may be I'll need a more detailed explanation but I've catched the idea ). They'll help us to edit faster and nicer. The problem is that that kind of optimizations perhaps wouldn't be possible in all original scenes due to the old chaotic design. Don't forget they were "dessigned" by a child :S. Surely in further new stages.

No Worries. I just thought to make the "rough" level structure building quicker and then do all the fine tuning per hand. I'm not good into designing a Level, I mean a good structured and challenging Design, alternations, not boring and quite clever built. Other, more talented People have to do this. But I think your game offers quite nice Ideas to make levels that are worth to play again and again and not just simple "run through and forget" levels.
I actualy Play "Sonic 2" and the other Megadrive Parts of this series mainly because I just love the graphics and the Levels itself. ^_^
And I like to play the old 2D Metroid games because it's addictive to search and find hidden Items and places. Elements like this are the Spice in the Level-Soup.

 

[foxblock]

I really dig the clone-stamp like tool you use to create the levels, I think I might adapt this to the level editor I am currently developing for Wandor - It seems to make rough level creation much faster and therefore more fun and less painful in the end.

An idea for displaying the tiles: Put them in a tool window like the menu, so you are able to place it where you want and make the list browsable with mouse clicks and arrow keys, I think that would work quite well and experienced users who know the tilemap well could hide the window and still browse with the arrow keys.

foxblock out

 

[bzar]

An idea for displaying the tiles: Put them in a tool window like the menu, so you are able to place it where you want and make the list browsable with mouse clicks and arrow keys, I think that would work quite well and experienced users who know the tilemap well could hide the window and still browse with the arrow keys.

If the tiles are originally in a single tilesheet, maybe you could show that in a scrollable window so that the cloning works there too? This could be nice if you have drawn say a window consisting of 20 different tiles. You could copy it all at once straight from the sheet . The palette window would effectively become a drawn read-only level in a window.

 

[sartomism]

An idea for displaying the tiles: Put them in a tool window like the menu, so you are able to place it where you want and make the list browsable with mouse clicks and arrow keys, I think that would work quite well and experienced users who know the tilemap well could hide the window and still browse with the arrow keys.

If the tiles are originally in a single tilesheet, maybe you could show that in a scrollable window so that the cloning works there too? This could be nice if you have drawn say a window consisting of 20 different tiles. You could copy it all at once straight from the sheet . The palette window would effectively become a drawn read-only level in a window.

The idea of putting tiles into a window is a good idea. Now, the way you choose the tile is with the mouse's roller button. The current tile appears under the cursor and then you can slide it up and down with the roller. Perhaps it seems too much basic but it's really easy.

All of you gave me an idea.
A clipboard. Just a window where you can put chunks of stage, adding the funcionality of automatic borders that pointed fusion_power and that sort of things. In addtion of that, you would be able to save the clipboards and restore them whenever you want.

I thing it's the best way. Easy and intuitive.

 

[fusion_power]

And if you can't decide which options are the best, put them all in so we can choose how the Tile-selection is done, scrolling or in a big Window...

Will it be complicated to set the tile-specifications like "foreground", "Background", "animated", "moving platform", "underwater"...? For example the nice mine-car track or the vaccum tube etc...

 

[Trip]

Not too sure if it helps or not but this is the way that the Secret Maryo devs decided to do it..

Here's the link to the editor page on the web site.
Maybe they can give you some good ideas