RoomShaker Tutorial:
Moving Rooms Around

 

This Tutorial assumes that RoomShaker is setup correctly on your system See Tutorials: Setting up RoomShaker & POPLM.

In This Tutorial we will move the rooms of level 1 to make the sword more accessable. We will also remove the room with the guard blocking the exit. After completing this tutorial, you will have an understanding of basic room movement.

Firstly, load up level 1 into RoomShaker.

Now, before we begin lets have a look at the overall level presentation to identify the components.
The red and blue squares on the map are guards and the player start, there will be only one blue square (player start) but any number of red squares (guards). By looking at the level we can see that there are 2 guards on level 1.

The black areas are wall, the blue horizontal lines are floor, the blue wriggly lines are loose floor tiles, this stuff is all self explaining so we'll move on.

One point I would would like to make now is that the “buttons” are highlighted red and Dk, Cyan this makes them stand out in level view.

Above the level, accross the top of the main view is a row of gray squares with numbers in them, this is known as the room buffer it holds any rooms that are not currently being used in the level.
In the image above you can see that room 13 is not currently used in level 1.

Lastly, on the bottom status line you will see a box with the word “ROOM:” in it, this box tells you which room the mouse is currenty over. Try that now, move the cursor over the room with the blue “Player Start” indicator in it.
Tip: Use the grid to help identify where the edges of a room are.

With the mouse over this room, notice the box now has “ROOM: 1” in it. Try moving your cursor over other rooms to get an indication of the room numbers.

Now for the Moving Rooms Tutorial.

Firstly we'll get you familliar with basic room moving. For this exersize, go to the “Tools” menu and turn off “Auto Grid Cleanup”.

Find room 2, it is the room directly below room 1. Click and hold the left mouse button on room 2 now, with the mouse button held down on room 2, move the mouse up to the room buffer and release the mouse button.
The room is now removed from the level and is placed into the buffer, scroll the view to the left so that room 2 of the buffer is visible, notice that it has gone dark?

OK, Click and hold room 22 (Top left corner of the level) and try dragging the mouse around.

When you are comfortable moving this room, move it to where room 2 used to be and let go of the mouse button, room 22 will now be placed underneath room 1.

Now save your level and play level 1, drop through the loose floor in room 1, notice that you are now in a completely different room than the one you would normally be in at this point.

OK, re-load RoomShaker and using the same method, drag room 22 back to it's original position (Top left corner).

For this next exersize we want room 2 back where it started. Do this by dragging room 2 from the buffer down to the original location of room 2 (where you just moved room 22 from - under room 1). You will have to click and drag the actual room 2 box on the buffer.

The level will now be back to normal again.

Now, we are going to make the sword much closer to the start point which will involve moving about 4 rooms, this will help you get practice at moving the rooms.

First Drag room 11 up to the buffer, Now right-click room 8. A popup menu appears, from this menu click “Remove Room”. Notice that room 8 is taken from the level and placed into the buffer?
This is an alterative way of placing rooms into the buffer and can be very handy when the view is scrolled and the buffer is not visible.

Your level should now look like this:

Move room 15 to the left of room 6 by clicking and dragging, then move room 10 to the grid spot directly below room 15 using the same method. Your level should now look like this:

OK, the last exersize we do involves the “Auto Grid Cleanup” tool, go to the “Tools” menu and turn on (ticked) “Auto Grid Cleanup”. The auto grid cleanup tool automatically removes rooms from the grid that are not connected to any other rooms.

This exersize will be to remove the room with the guard blocking the exit. Drag room 3 (room with the guard) upto the buffer or select remove room from the popup menu.

The room is removed from the level, notice that room 9 was also sent to the buffer?
This is because the auto cleanup tool removed it for you (remember: any rooms left on their own will be automatically cleaned off the grid when auto clean is on).

Drag room 9 from the buffer and place it direcly to the right of room 2. Note: this can also be done by right clicking the empty grid spot to the right of room 2 and selecting “Insert Room” then selecting room 9 from the dialog box.

Your level will now look like this:

Thats the end of this tutorial. You can save and play your level now and the level will be much easier. Of course there are many more things that you can do to this level, see the tutorials on selecting and changing tiles, potions, exit doors, etc...