Creating your first level #
Open up the level editor from the game’s Options menu, and you’ll find yourself with a clean blue print to start designing your level in.
On the left side you see the Toolbar, at the bottom there is a little status bar showing you important information, on the right there is a “Level Sanity check” which shows you that this current level has errors and can not be played (duh.. it’s empty!). The top right corner is a tiny reminder to tell you how many DNA kits and Tactical Advantage suitcases have been placed. If you don’t place any of these, the game will randomly find spots to hide them in your level.
Let’s create a first tiny little level that can actually be played. From the Toolbar select the Walls tool, and draw a square room using your Left mouse button to place the wall tiles. The game works with rooms, so make sure to always make enclosures using walls without open area’s in there.
You’ll notice there is a yellow box appearing, this is just an indicator to make you aware of the “size”
the level is.
If you know click on the Errors box, it tells you that we are missing a couple of things that need fixing. The game says there are no Rooms detected, this is because we need to add a Texture to the floor INSIDE the room.
It also says there is no Squad start, which is the location we want the player to spawn when entering the level, and we need to add at least 1 mission marker.
Let’s first add a texture to the floor using the Floor/Wall textures tool:
The first option is a “Flood fill” tool, which will quickly give the whole room the same texture, you can also use this tool on Walls to change their texture. By clicking with Left mouse button you will cycle through the available options, with Right mouse button you can cycle reverse through the list.
If you want to change a single floor tile instead of the whole room you can select that floor texture from the Floor/Wall texture tool and place single textures. This is especially handy to use to add little grass and dirt tiles in certain areas.
Note: You can set the texture type on Floors and Walls, but the game engine will add the variations and differences to the floor. So cracks in the floor or wall, or other details are handled by the game engine itself.
Warning: Do keep in mind that re-using a Flood Fill in a room will remove all the single tiles! So the single tile option is often used when the room layout is completely done.
Once the room is textured you can check in the Errors dialog to see if it has now detected a room (and it should). So let’s tackle the other issues we had, we need to add a Squad starting spot, and we need to add at least One mission marker. So locate the tools required from the “Tile type” panel and place both a starting spot and a mission marker inside the room at any location.
Now we need to add one more thing and that’s an Exit door otherwise the player can’t exit the mission. So, again, open up the Tile Type panel and look for the door that says EXIT. An Exit door is always placed at the end of a level area, so there’s always a single room linked to the door. To place the door you select a part of the wall and the engine will automatically know if the door has to be placed horizontal or vertical. So pick a nice spot, and place the door!
With these three tiles added to the level, our Error box returns into a green Okay and we just made the smallest possible level for Regulator City!
Save the level using the Save tool, and then you can actually Playtest it inside the game using the Play Level tool where you can then select a few different settings on how you want to test the level: Different mission type, Flip the level horizontally (during a game this is done at random), show the level during a Rain storm, and/or at Night.
And that’s it! Your first basic level made!
