Creating A New Level Parts 3, 4 & 5

RoomShaker Tutorial:
Creating A New Level

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

This tutorial picks up from the new level parts 1 & 2 tutorial.
In this tutorial we will make some of the tiles appear and function differently using tile modifiers, we will also make the gate and exit door function correctly.

Load up your new level 1 from parts 1 & 2 of this tutorial and we will continue.

Part 3: Modifying tiles

In this part of the tutorial we will cover "Tile Modifiers ". Modifiers are flags that change the state of the tile that they are applied to. We will use tile modifiers to change the potion in room 2 and we will also put the small brick patterns on parts of the background.

All tiles have different sets of modifiers and some tiles have no modifiers, for example Potions have potion types, Buttons have link numbers (Links are covered in Part 4).

Lets start by changing the potion in room 2 into a health potion. Edit room 2 and use single selection to select tile 5. From the dropdown list box marked "Mod" select "1: Health".
Thats it, the potion is now a health potion, RoomShaker prints the modifier value on the tile for reference

Using modifiers we can jazz up our level a bit by putting the background brick patterns on some tiles.

Still in room 2, select the following tiles:
Tile 8,
Tile 15

From the Modifiers dropdown list box select "2: Spot2/Diamond" this modifier is now applied to these two tiles. Next, go to room 1 and select the following tiles:
Tile 3

From the Modifiers dropdown list box select "1: Spot1/Half Blue".

In room 3 make the following changes:
Tile 3 : Place modifier 2,
Tile 11 : Place modifier 1

In room 5 make the following changes:
Tile 14 : Place modifier 1,
Tile 17 : Place modifier 1

If you save and load your level now, there will be bricks appearing in the background at some locations.

A note on placing modifiers: When placing modifiers to more than one tile at a time, the modifiers of the tile selected last will appear in the modifiers box. If the selection contains more than one tile type then the modifier will only be applied to tiles that support that modifier number.

Part 4: Creating gates and doors (Level Links)

In Prince of Persia all gates and doors are triggered using a link. A link is a Room # & Tile # coordinate represented by a link number.

Inside a Prince of Persia Level Link
Link Number	Room Number
	Tile Number
	Triggers Next Link Number (Y/N)

When a button is pressed in Prince of Persia the assigned link number is triggered. This opens the gate or door at the location defined in the assigned link.

Lets start by allowing the player access to the rest of room 5. Edit room 5 and take down the tile number of the gate. It is tile 12, so that means this gate's coordinates are "Room 5, Tile 12" we will use this information in a second.

Select from the "Level" menu "Edit Level Links" or click the "Link Definition" button on the toolbar.
The "Edit Level Links" dialog appears.

Select link number 6 from the dropdown list box, the current link information will appear in the Room & Tile boxes, type in the new coordinates that you took down earlier: Put 5 in the room box and put 12 in the tile box then click OK.

Link 6 is now pointing at your gate in room 5. Now, edit room 2. Set the modifier of the button at tile 17 to "6: Link 6". This button will now open the gate at tile: Room 5, Tile 12.

Now for the exit door, take down the coordinates of the "Left" half of the exit door in room 5. It's 5, 26.
Select the button in the bottom right corner of room 5 then right click.
Select "Set Link & Assign" from the popup menu.

The Level Links dialog box appears again. Keep Link 0 in the list box and enter 5 into the room box and enter 26 into the tile box then click OK.
This will assign the modified link to any selected buttons upon discarding the Level Links dialog box.

This button will now open the exit door allowing the prince to exit your level.

Part 5: Creating and changing guards

In this part of the tutorial I will go through the steps involved in editing guards. We will place a guard in room 2 and a guard in room 5.

Firstly open room 2 into the room editor, Next right click on tile 16 and select "Guard Here". The "Edit Guard" dialog box appears, Notice that the tile number is already filled in with 16?.

From the "Direction" dropdown list box select "Left"
From the "Colour" dropdown list box select "Orange"
From the "Skill" dropdown list box select "Skill 2"

Click the OK button. Room 2 will now have an orange guard facing left at tile 16.

Lets place another guard in room 5 at position 28. in room 5, right click on tile 28 and select "Guard Here". The "Edit Guard" dialog box appears.

From the "Direction" dropdown list box select "Left"
From the "Colour" dropdown list box select "Green"
From the "Skill" dropdown list box select "Skill 3"

Click the OK button. Room 5 will now have an green guard facing left at tile 28.

Thats all there is to editing guards, if you want to change an existing guard, just follow the above steps again.
If you want to remove the guard from a room, Select "Remove Guard" from the popup menu or uncheck the "Use Guard" box in the Edit Guard dialog box.

A note about guards: Each room may only have a maximum of one guard, if a guard already exists in the room, it will be moved.

Save your level and try it out with prince of persia. Feel free to make any changes you like at this point, with this tutorial you should now be quiet familiar with all of the basic editing of Prince of Persia.

In the next section of the tutorial we will create a level-set file from this newly modified levels.dat allowing us to be able to keep these changes while playing other level-sets.

Tutorial Section 3:
Making the level-set file