Mission Editor Guide

EDIT by TMC Franke : This was made for an early version of Space Ranger, please visit the Wikia for the current manual : space-ranger.wikia.com

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A short video introduction to the level editor:



Introduction:
Space Ranger has the ability for you to create your own levels via the level editor. The level editor is available from the game select screen. Either from the Edit Option after you selected an existing game (Upper Right in the Game Pop Up) or Via the New Level Button at the lower left corner of the Game Select Screen . The Game Select Screen is available from the Play Menu in the Main Screen.

With the level editor you can edit an existing level/game/mission* file and make it your own, make it less difficult or more so, or create entirely new levels for the game, copy the level unto the clipboard to paste it in an email or in a post on this forum. Evidently you can copy and paste from email or the forum back into the game with ease.

*Throughout this document, the terms Game, Mission, Level Set, Game Set, Mission Set are interchangeable were as Level may mean a single level in a mission set or a actual mission set as in the New Level button in the Game Select screen actually creates a Mission Set, not a single level..

Requirements:
The option is available in the purchased version of Space Ranger. For those of you who have the Demo Version of the game.

Making a Mission Set:

• In The Game Select Screen, Tap the New Level button or Tap a Game Set and then Tap the Edit Button in the Selected Mission Pop Up

Game Global Parameters:
The global parameters define values used by the entire game. A Game (Also referred as Mission Set Or Level Set) is defined by creating multiple levels to complete, you can have up to 16 levels in a game.

• Tap the Mission Set Name and type in some text, this text as it appears in the Game Selection screen. you may have mission of the same name. The system does no mind.
  
  
• Tap the Mission descript Text and enter the text to display when the user starts the game
  
  
• Tap the Author and type your name or handle

• Tap the Difficulty Rating to define how hard the game is. It is strictly for show and initially used to position the game in one of the 3 categories listed in the Game Select Screen. This is subjective and will be overridden by the players.

• Tap the Fun Rating to define how fun the game is. This is subjective and will be overridden by the players. The fun rating is used to sort the Levels in the Level Select screen.

• Tap the Mission Starts With N Ships. This defines the number of ships the game starts with. Usually 3 Ships to start is the value chosen.

• Tap the "with a maximum of n ships" to define how many ships you can have in the game. This limits the number of ships won in the game.

NOTE:
Windows 8 and Android users have the ability to use the device keyboard but the default keyboard will usually do the trick unless you require a character not included on it. The characters on the keyboard are limited not by design but by GMStudio limited in game keyboard character support which we hope will be resolved by Yoyo in the next Studio Update. We do apologize for the missing character support, though these characters are available via the alternate keyboard option.


Level Settings:
Level Settings define the level text and goals and time allotted to complete the goals. These are shown when a level starts 

• Tap the Level 1 Intro Text, this define what the game will say when the level starts

• Tap the Survive N Minutes Line. This defines the time the level lasts. Note strange Minute, Seconds, 30th convention used here. a 30th is usually ignored for this setting. Time the minutes and seconds you want the level to last.

Goals:
A level MUST have at least 1 goal

• Tap the Rescue N Spacemen to define how many spacemen you want to have saved as a goal

• You can do the same for the other Mission Goals
  
  
• Select the background image to use for the level
  
  
• Specify if the game ends when the goals are completed or when the time expires

NOTE:
Make sure if you have spacemen as goals that you have spacemen spawners, same for the other goal types

Spawners:
Spawners are used to spawn items in the game at regular intervals, you can set the maximum number of items to be alive at any time, set how many items will be generated throughout the level and set a wait period to delay the spawner like if you want a boss to appear at the end of the level...

• Tap the first Spawner Line: Create <not used> every 0:0.0... to define a spawner.

• Select a spaceman for now, then tap the Every Box and enter 2 seconds.

• Select a Max Alive of 8 and ignore the rest

Testing the Level:
You can test each level individually to make sure your design works. 

• You can now test the level by Clicking the Level 1 Click To Test line, Each Level can be tested that way

• You may hit pause and return in the game to return to the level editor.

It's pretty plain so lets add some asteroids to shoot

• In the second spawner for level 1, select one of the asteroids.

Note: if you want the game to start the level with a lot of asteroid, type 1 in the Every Field in the 10th or a second field. that will tell the game to create an asteroid every 1 tenth or a secon. And don't forget to set a limit for Max Alive. Say 100.
Note: Asteroids are where coins come from.

Other Spawner Settings:
"Max Alive" keeps the number of items down so not to overwhelm the player (or the Game for that matter)
"Max Spawn" will make the spawner stop once it has spawned so many items
"After" makes the spawner wait some time before it starts spawning TIP: when spawning UFOs you shouljd have a wait of 5 seconds to allow the Level Text to display long enough. If a UFO attack the base while the Level Text is up, it will disappear and the player wont have had time to read it.
"Hitcount" is used to modify the behavior of the object spawned. The use of the hitcount is described in each item in the item select list.

Fluff and stuff
Below the spawners you will see a different but similar looking items that can be added in the levels. We call those fluff and stuff.
Click on the Create N <item> from ... line to define what fluff you want to add in the level. 

• Select the item to create

• Type the number of items to create

 

• set the min and max depth for the items.

There many items you can add to a level, stars, planets, black holes. Some are animated, others are interact-able. The min max depth define the layer the items will appear (below the ship (+depth) or above the ship (-depth). Depth also define the parallax used on the item. the deeper it is the more it is further away and so the less it moves.

Do the same with level 2 and 3 and so on.

Deleting a Level from the mission set:
You can delete a level by setting all of its spawners to <not used>. This will essentially delete the level when you save it. All levels after the one with no spawners will move up the level list. This will only be evident when you reload the level in the editor.

Similarly, if you have a <not used> spawner between 2 spawners in a level, once you save, the empty spot will be removed and upon reloading there will be no gaps between the spawners.

Saving:
To save your mission set, hit the Save Button. If the game was from the original distribution, it will automatically save as new. If the mission set is yours, it will overwrite the existing level or save as new if it's the first save

Save As New will clone the level. Beware of multiple levels of the same name

Loading:
Hit the Back button, upper right in the Level Editor to return to the Level Select screen. Click your game and hit the edit button in the Selected Game pop up.

Clipboard Features:
You may copy the level to the clipboard with the To Clip feature. Windows 8 and Android users will be prompted to do this step manually with their device keyboard which will pop up. Windows user the process is done for you.

You may paste the content into an email or on the forum for other to play with.

You may paste levels back in the game, but make sure you do so in a New Level otherwise you may lose the level if you hit save instead of save as new.

Paste the level in the game, save it and you are you way to play it.