Experiments and Miscellaneous Stuff
Types of Objects
Courtesy of Kwakstur, all game elements can (currently) be categorized into the following categories. Note that text in blue is
unconfirmed.
Tiles:
Click here to view the secret text
×The following elements are tiles. You can have unlimited of these, and tile-occupying objects can exist on them (but, of course, if it's something like a wall, most objects would not move onto it).
All of these appear in the editor. Groups of tiles are listed with the number of tiles in that group in parenthesis.
Empty Floor
Marble
Water
Fire
Quicksand
Square Wall
Rounded Walls (5)
Glass Wall
Decorative Wall (21)
Steel Wall
Decorative Steel Wall (4)
Background
No Scrolling Beyond This Point
Dirt (2)
1-Time Passage
Exits (2)
Save Disk
Doors (4)
Gates (4)
Ports (7)
All equipment except Dynamite (7)(the Dynamite item is an object so that it can blow up when harmed)
Stopwatch
Munchkin
Detonator
Lightbulbs (2)
Fragile Wall
Wall Containing X (4)
Fragile Wall on Icy Floor
Star Block
Conveyors (5 in editor, 11 total)
Barriers (4)
Cloners (4)
Trap
Sparkle
Conveyor Switches (3)
Barrier Switches (2)
Cloner Switches (2)
Trap Switch
Mover Switches (7)
Hint Boxes (8)
Glue
Ice
Motion Field (9)
Teleporter
Raft
Toll Sign
Spike
Transmuter (2)
Duplicator
The following are tiles that do not appear in the editor:
Skull sight
Objects (elements that occupy squares):
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×Objects are moving elements. They have properties, like x, y, and item being held. The point is, they get special treatment, and the game can only have 1998 of them at a time.
Only one of these can exist on each tile. Presumably this is to allow for easier reference (perhaps there is a 2-D array listing which object occupies each tile?).
First, things in the editor. Groups of objects are listed with the number of tiles in that group in parenthesis.
Players (2)
Slimeys
Spiders
Cryo Birds
Firedrakes
Wraithwings
Movers (5)
Seekers
Poltergeists
Skull
Gems (3)
Egg
Rock
Bomb
Grenade
Key (4)
Quantum Stone
Orb
Balloon
Elevator
Crate (3)
Safe
Explosive
Pillow
Ice Block
Dynamite (item)
Flowstone
Expanding Wall
Next, things not in the editor. These are created in the middle of the game, but are full-fledged objects, not effects.
Explosions (including 3x3, 1x1, and cross)
Ruby generating a laser (but a ruby in the middle of a laser is just a regular ruby)
A moving copy of a tile exiting a Cloner
Dynamite placed by a Player (that's blue because, although it's a simple test, I haven't gotten to it yet)
Effects (objects that don't occupy squares):
Click here to view the secret text
×Not all objects need the square all to themselves. Some objects don't need to know when an object enters/leaves its vicinity, or whether or not it was blown up. Some just appear on the screen, do a little dance, maybe send messages to other objects and/or modify tiles, and then vanish on their own accord.
Here's a documented list of them and what they appear to do.
Visual Effects from tiles changing
These only serve to make stuff look pretty. The tiles will change even without them.
(What Causes Transformation) Initial -> Final (Visual Effect)
(Rock or Bomb) Fragile Wall -> Empty (Shatters)
(Player) Dirt -> Empty (Wiped Away)
(Ice Block) Ice -> Fragile Wall on Ice (Purple Sparkle)
(Player) Exit -> Square Wall (Purple Sparkle)
(Player) Door -> Empty (door opens)
Purple Sparkles that affect things
These may just appear to be visual effects like those above, but if these sparkles don't appear, the stuff won't change.
1. The ones created by stepping on a yellow Sparkle that do many things.
2. The ones that appear when you hit a Star Block to remove fragile walls and such.
Level scanners for switches
Barrier, Mover, and Conveyor switches (all the round switches... coincidence?) create an invisible effect object that scans the level for things to change. I'm still uncertain why this is, but my best guess is that it has something to do with simultaneous switch hitting. But note that a separate effect is generated for each switch hit.
Other switches don't do this. This includes Untrap, Clone, Clone All, and Detonator.
Laser (including through glass walls and gems)
I think each square of it produces the next. Depending on what tiles/objects are under a laser, it may use a different graphic (for mirror, gems), change path (gems), generate a 1x1 explosion, or provoke the object to explode.
Explosion Speeds
I tested out as many of the explodeable objects as I could think of over a very long distance (with the same objects placed side-by-side) to see how long it took each type to reach the end of an explosion chain. These were all conducted over a long distance in a short time (under 1 game second). Note that most of these should be functionally the same under a short chain or distance.
1 - Lasers
2 - Orbs placed side-by-side over a very long distance (note - the distance must be quite large for this, otherwise Skelwings are faster over the shorter distances)
3 - Cyrobird
4 - Player 1
5 - Player 2
6 - Skelwing
7 - Mines
8 - Balloons
9 - All other explosions
A laser technically isn't an explosion, but it can near-instantaneously hit anything over a huge distance.
The orbs, players, cyrobirds and skelwings, should all be considered the fastest explosions.
Mines and balloons explode similarly (the cross shape) but mines are slightly faster than balloons.
Finally, all the other explosions seem to go at the same speed.
____________________________
SubTerra
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- 2009 level design contest, 2nd place
[Last edited by Danjen02 at 04-05-2009 06:56 AM]