Content:

1.

Installing the editor

2.

Creating a levelset

3.

Editing a World

3.1

Tilemap editor: Map

3.2

Player start position and map borders

4.

Creating a level

4.1

Tilemap editor: Level

4.2

The player's start position and level borders

4.3

The background

4.4

The monsters

4.5

Triggers

4.6

Flying platforms

4.7

The Bosses

4.8

Save the level

4.9

Level properties

5.

Back to the levelset: The Common file

6.

Back to the map: Map triggers and Map objects

6.1

Map objects

6.2

Map triggers

6.3

The level slot list

Appendix 1

Complete list of the monsters and their parameters.

Start up the editor by typing editor\edit() or simply select the program «edit» from Var-Link (press 2nd and "-").

When the program starts up, the main menu will pop up. The main menu has the options "New", "Edit" and "Quit".

We want to make a new levelset, so we select "New".

This takes us to a new menu. Here you select what you want to create/edit: A world, or a levelset.

We select a levelset here.

A levelset is simply a bunch of worlds that is linked together.
A levelset file contains the following stuff:
A list of which worlds that is included in the levelset, and the sequence they are to be played. A common file:
This is a level file which is not a regular world. It contains some levels that are shared throung all the worlds. Some examples are: The mushrom house, the treasure Ship, Warp Zone etc. We will look closer at the common file later.
Additionally, your save games will be stored in this file.

This will prompt for a folder name.

This is the name of the folder in which all files belonging to the levelset will be saved. Type in a desired folder name and press enter. The folder must not exist already.

Now a dialog box will appear. This will ask you to type in a name for the levelset.

Additionaly, it will ask for a file name. This is the name of the levelset file, the "control file".

After typing the names you want, press enter.

Finally, we get to edit the levelset itself. The levelset screen will look like picture to the left.

The right part of the screen will have some help texts to guide you.

The options and their meaning:

Arrows: Move the cursor up/down and left/right

+/-: Move the selected world up or down in the list

Home: Add an existing world to the levelset (worldfile will be copied to your folder)

Mode: Create a new world

Clear: Remove a world from the levelset (worldfile will not be deleted)

Apps: Edit properties: This brings up the dialog box we saw earlier.

Enter: Edit the selected world.

Sto: Save the levelset

The very first thing we will do is to create a new world.

As you can see from the help texts you must press "mode" to do this.

A message box will prompt for a file name. This file will be containing all maps

and levels in the world we are about to create.

After typing in a name, an empty world file will be created. You will see that the file name then appears

in the list in the left part of the screen. This is the list of all worlds in the levelset and the sequence they will be played.

Lets create another world before we do anything else. Press mode again, and repeat the procedure with another filename.

Now you will see that there is two items on the list. You can select any of them by using the arrow keys up and down.

Pressing +/- will now move the selected item up/down in the list etc.

This is a good time to save our work. Press "sto", and confirm by pressing enter.

If you didn't enter a file name in the beginning, you must do that now.

At the top right part of the screen you will see there is another field with the title common file.

The Common file

You can swap between the common file and the world list by using arrows left/right.

All world list comands (except move up/down) are also valid for the commonfile. We will come back to this later.

Now, lets start making something out of the worlds we just created. Select one of the files and press enter.

A dialog box will ask you to save the levelset. If you haven't saved yet, you should do it now.

Next, another dialog box wil pop up.

This will ask you for the height and width of the map.

The map dimensions must be at minimum 10x15 (height x width) and maximum 255x255.

If you enter dimensions out of the range an error message will pop up.

After entering the map dimensions, it takes you to a blank map.

You'll see a black square cursor. Move it with the arrow keys. Press diamond to speed up the navigation.

Also, on the bottom of the screen there is a short help text saying "2nd: Select tile Enter: Apply tile".

This indicates that you now are in the tilemap editor. Those help texts will follow you in most parts of the editor.

Tilemap editor: Map

Complete Map Tilesheet

Let's draw some tiles! To display the tile sheet, press "2nd".

The tiles are logical grouped together. You navigate using the arrows.

To select a tile you press "enter". This takes you back to the map editor. Pressing enter again will

paste the selected tile to the map. It's as simple as that.

Lets say we draw some paths with a couple of levels in it like shown in the picture below:

A simple map.

We'll take use of those level tiles and other stuff later.

Player start position and map borders:

Now it's time to add the player's start position. First, we find the tile with the text "START" on it and put it on the map, if we haven't already.

Second, press "F4". Now the helptext says "Select player start position". Move the cursor to the "Start" tile and press enter.

The start position can be anywhere, it's not limited to the "Start" tile.

Next, the help text will change to "Select border LEFT". A thick black line will indicate the current border setting.

You move the border with the left/right arrays and select it's position with enter.

A border is simply an invisible line that the player can not pass or see behind.

Often those are the outermost borders of the map, but they can be used to split up the map in different parts.

Some parts of the map can be available only through wrapper pipes, for instance. The image to the left illustrates this.

The borders we set now is the borders that will be valid when the player enters the map.

After selecting the left border, you will be prompted to select the right border.

NOTE: The distance between the borders must be at least 15 tiles!

This is the same distance as the width of the Ti-92+/V200 screen.

Now we have the basic stuff to make a playable map. (But there are also a couple of other map objects you can add.

We'll come back to those later.)

The red lines represents where the borders are located in world 8 of SM68K.
This map is split up in three sections.

Now, let's create a level!

To be able to manipulate the levels, press "F5".

Now the help text says "Levels: Arrovs: Select Enter: Edit"

Move the cursor to level tile "1" and press enter. This will bring up a menu with the options:

New level: Create a new level in this slot

Edit level: Edit an existing level in this slot

Swap with...: This lets you swap this level with another one in the same world. For example you can swap level 1 and 3.

Copy to...: This will duplicate the level in another level slot in the same world. The level will not be saved twice, it will just

be linked to two different slots.

Delete: Delete the level. If level is duplicated with the command above, the level won't be deleted, the current slot will just not link to it anymore.

Tilemap editor: Level

Select "New level" and press enter. This will bring a dialog box asking for height and width.

The max and min sizes are the same as for the map, min = 10x15 and max = 255x255

After entering desired height and width, you appear on a blank level. The help text now says "2nd: Select tile Enter: Apply tile",

which indicates that we now are in the level tilemap editor. Use the same approach as for the map to draw some tiles.

You can now display the tileheet by pressing "2^nd". The procedure is the same as for the map tile editor:

Navigate with arrows, select tile with enter and paste tile with enter.

Complete Level Tilesheet

Some special tiles:

There are some special tiles we will take a closer look at.

Hostile tiles: Those will kill Mario!

After working with your level for some time you might need to insert some rows and columns here and there, or maybe remove some of them.

You can do this by pressing shift.

A menu will reveal itself. If you select to insert rows/columns you will be asked how many rows/columns to insert.

I recomend you to play around a little bit with the tilemap editor and the different tiles.

Now, let's say that we draw the level described in the picture to the below. We'll need those pipes later.

The player's start position and level borders:

To select where the player will start when entering the level, press "Mode".

The help text will now say "Select player position:". Use the arrows to navigate, and enter to select the desired position.

Now the help text will change to "Select border LEFT:" and a thick black line will indicate the current border setting.

You move the border with the left/right arrays and select it's position with enter.

This border has exactly the same function as the map borders we looked at previously.

It is an invisible line that the player can not pass or see behind.

They can be used to split the map up in different parts separated by Wrapper pipes/Triggers. This way you can hide secret areas.

After selecting the left border you will be asked to select the right border.

The background:

Selecting background and it's vertical position

Now, let's see how you can change the background image of the level.

First you need to press "F2". The help text at the bottom of the screen should now say "Left/Right: Select BG Up/Down: Move BG Up/Down".

And that's exactly what nou need to do: You can browse through all the available backgrounds with the Left/Right arrow keys.

When you have found the background you want you can adjust it's vertical position with the up/down arrows.

When finished, press enter.

This should take you back to the tilemap editor.

The monsters:

Now it's time to add some action to our level!

To enter the enemy editor, press "F3".

If there is no enemies in the level already, a dialog will ask you to add a new enemy.

When this dialog box doesn't appear automaticly, press "2nd" to add a new enemy.

Press enter to answer yes. Now a goomba will appear, and the help text will say "F1/F2: Select monster Arrovs: Move".

This means that you can browse through all the different types of monsters with F1/F2 and select it's position with the arrow keys.

Diamond speeds up movement as usual.

Let's select a turtle this time. Press F2 once, and the turtle should appear.

When you have selected the desired location and the monster you want, press enter.

Many of the monsters have more parameters and options that just type and position. Our turtle, for example.

In those cases a dialog box will appear.

For eaxmple, the Turtle's options dialog will look like the image to the left:

In the first dropdown you can select which starting direction, and speed the turtle will have.

Note that "Fast left" and "Fast right" are twice as fast as the normal speed of the turtle.

The second dropdown describes which pattern the turtle will walk.

"Free": It will walk in the starting direction until it meets an obstacle, then turn. It will fall down edges, if any.

"Limited": It will walk in the starting direction until it meets an obstacle or an edge, then turn.

"Limited n": It will walk n tiles in the starting direction, then turn.

"Lenght": This is only valid if mode is set to "Limited n". This inputbox takes the distanse the enemy will walk before turning.

"Respawn": If you check this checkbox the enemy will respawn after getting killed. It will respawn when it is outside the screen.

Use the up/down arrows to move between the different dialog elements.

Press enter to save your changes, or esc to cancel.

Click here to view a complete list of the monsters and their parameters..  

Two monsters in our level

Let's add another enemy. Press "2nd" again. Browse with "F1/F2" until you get the goomba with wings, then press enter.

This didn't bring up any dialog, so this means that this enemy has no other parameters than type and position.

Now we have two enemies. The help text should now say "Monsters: 2nd: New Enter: Select".

Now you can browse through the enemies you have added by using left/right arrows. The square cursor will indicate which monster is selected.

If you now press enter, you will go through the same precess as previously. You will be able to edit the all the parameters for the monster including type and position.

That's basicly how the enemy editor works.

If you want to get back to the tilemap editor you can press "F1", or "F2" to go to the Background selector.

Triggers:

The next thing we will look at is the triggers. Triggers are a level component that introduces more interactivity and complexity into the game play.

In short, we can say that their function is to take Mario from one place to another.

The wrapper pipes are handled by triggers, so are the the Dark Note Block and the Doors.

As mantioned, a trigger takes Mario to a new position. But also, a trigger can alter the background,

and the Motion borders.

The structure of a trigger:

A trigger contains 9 elements:

X:

Y:

NewX:

NewY:

Border_left:

Border_right:

Anim:

NewBg:

NewBgOffset:

X &Y:

The X & Y coordinate of the position of the trigger, i.e. "start position"

NewX & NewY:

The X & Y coordinate of the position to transfer Mario, i.e. "New position"

Border_left & Border_right:

The left and right side border to apply after Transfering Mario to the nev position

The borders are very useful when making complex levels: They let you create secret areas easily.

They let you divide your level in different sectors that you can only travel between through doors/pipes etc.

Anim:

This tells which animation to use after transfering mario.

Available options:

-No animation: Often used by doors

-Out of pipe:Up/Down/Left/Right

-Flying up: Often used by the Dark Note Block

-Exit level: Completed.

-Exit level: Not completed.

We will look at those two "Exit level"-options when we look at the map triggers and the common file.

NewBg:

This holds information on whether or not to apply a new background after transfering Mario to the new position.

This is very useful when transfering Mario between areas with two different themes,

like from outdoors to underground, or up to the skies etc.

NewBgOffset:

This holds the Background Y offset to apply after transfering Mario, if the background has been changed.

Confirm adding a new trigger

First we need to make sure that there are a couple of wrapper pipes in our level.

You can go to the tilemap editor by pressing "F1" and add some wrapper pipes to your level.

After doing this you press "F4" to go to the trigger editor.

If you haven't added any triggers to the level already, a dialog now should ask you "Add new trigger?".

If it doesn't appear, press "2nd" to display it.

Press enter to answer yes.

The first thing we need to do is to select the trigger's starting position. The help text should now say "Select start position:".

There are some limitations where a trigger can start. They can only start from a pipe, a door or a dark note block.

Previously we added a couple of wrapper pipes, let's use one of those! Move the cursor to the top of the pipe, and press enter.

Now the help text asks us to select the player's new position. That is where Mario will appear when executing the trigger.

Now you can select any position, there is no limitations here.

Locating a new border to be valid after the trigger is executed

The next thing you need to do is to select the new borders. Those borders are the same stuff as we edited earlier, when we selected

the player's start position. But the borders we set now will be valid after the trigger has been executed.

The help text will now say "Select NEW border left" then "Select NEW border right".

The new borders are quite handy because it makes it possible to transfer mario to a different section of the level which is not accessable elsewhere.

After setting up the new borders a dialog will pop up. It asks if you want to add a new background.

The meaning of this is:

If you answer yes by pressinging enter and select a background, the new background will be applied after executing the trigger.

If you answer no by pressing esc, the background will not change when the trigger is handled. Both of those can be useful.

You select the background the same way as earlier: Browse through the backgrounds with left/right and adjust it's position with up/down.

After finishing the trigger, you should return to a screen that looks like this:

Our level with triggers at the pipe's location

The black rectangular cursor is now positioned at the new trigger's position.

As the help text says, you can now press "2nd" to add a new trigger. If there is more than one trigger you can browse through

them with left/right. You can delete the current trigger with the "Clear"-button.

By pressing enter you can edit the selected trigger. The procedure will be the same as when we added a new trigger.

But, if you press "Diamond" a dialog box will appear. Here you can edit the trigger's properties numerically.

The first tab is called "Pos" for positions.

"X and Y position" are the starting positions for the trigger, while "New X and Y position" is the new positions (Mario's new position) after the trigger is executed.

The field "Animation" tells which animation will be used at the "end" of the trigger, at Mario's new position. For example, Mario will rise up from a pipe etc.

When the NEW position is at a pipe, the animation will be selected automaticly.

At the bottom of the list you'll see the options "Exit, not completed" and "Exit, completed".

When using those the trigger will be the end of the level, treating the level as completed/not completed.

We will look at the use of those when we look into map triggers.

The next tab is called "Borders", and the two fields is simply the new borders to be used after the trigger is executed.

The final tab is called "BG" for background. Here you can select whether or not to apply a new background after the trigger is executed.

The field offset describes the vertical position offset (the same as moving it up and down with the arrows in the background selector).

Enter will save your changes and esc will cancel, as usual.

To go back to the tilemap editor, you can now press "F1", or "F2" to go to the background selector etc.

Flying platforms:

We will look at the flying platforms next.

The flying platforms are all those pieces of wood that flies through the air, up and down, left and right, or diagonally.

Some of them are stationary until you step on them. Then they start to fall.

To go to the Flying platform editor you need to press "F5".

Now a dialog should ask you to add a new platform (if you haven't done that already).

The controls are exactly the same here as for the enemies:

Left/Right to browse between existing platforms, press "enter" to edit, "clear" to delete and "2nd" to add a new one.

After answering "yes" to the new platform dialog, a cursor appears on the screen and the help text says "Select position:".

You select the flying platform's initial position with arrows and enter as usual.

Then a dialog box pops up. The first element is a dropdown menu that lists the different options that are available.

The options and their meaning:

The second element is a text field called "Width":

This is the width of the flying/falling/floating platform in tiles. Width = 2 will give two tile widths = 16*2 = 32 pixels wide.

The minimum width is 2.

Now, if you selected "Falling" or "Floating in water" the platform is finished and should appear in your level.

But, if you selected "Flying" another of those dialog boxes will pop up. This one is titled XY-motion platform.

There are 2 dropdowns and a text field.

The dropdowns is called "X speed" and "Y speed". Those menus holds all the available speed and direction options available.

For "X Speed" there are "0","1","2" and "4". 2 is the most commonly used speed in the SM68K levels.

For "Y Speed" there are some more options: "-4","-2","-1","0","1","2" and "4".

The negative numbers indicates motion in the negative Y direction. THAT IS UPWARDS! It might seem illogical to some, but that's

the way it is. So, negative Y-speed and the platform travels upwards from it's start position, and positive y-speed will make it go down.

And, of course a speed of "0" in any direction will make it not move in that direction ;-)

The text field at the bottom is labeled "Motion length":

This is the motion length in tiles.

"Motion length" = 4 will give 4*16 = 64 pixels motion length.

If Both X and Y motion is enabled the traveled distance in the X direction (horizontally) will determine when the platform turns and moves in the opposite direction.

For example:

"X speed" = 2

"Y speed" = -4

"Motion length" = 4

This will make the platform turn and start moving back when it has moved 64 pixels (4 tiles) rightwards.

At this point it also has moved 128 pixels (8 tiles) up, since the Y speed is set to twice as fast.

After selecting the X and Y speed and motion length the cursor will indicate the end position of the platform, i.e.

how far it will travel before it turns and starts going back.

If you are satisfied with this position you can press enter,

or press esc to change the speeds and motion lenght, as the help text indicates ("End position: Enter: Accept Esc: Back").

After pressing enter the platform will appear in your level at it's start position.

Now you can browse through all the platforms in the level in the same manner as you browsed through the enemies earlier:

"Left/Right" to browse, "clear" to delete, "Enter" to edit the current platform.

Also, "2nd" will add a new platform.

The three available boss types

The Bosses:

The last, but not least element you can add to your level is the boss.

To add a new boss (or edit an existing boss) press "Home".

If there is no boss in the level already, a dialog will ask you to add a new one, as usual.

Now a boss sprite will appear on the screen.

The help text will now say "Arrows: Move F1/F2: Type".

You select it's position with the arrow keys.

"F1" and "F2" will let you browse through the available boss types. When you have selected the boss type and the position

you want, press enter.

To go back and edit the boss, press "Home" again.

NOTE:

If you select Bowser, that level will end the entire levelset when Bowser is defeated!

Save the level:

Saving the level.

If you change the filename, the level will be saved in another file. The file must already exist.

Now it's time to save the level. Press "Sto->" and a dialog box will ask you to confirm the save.

Whern you confirm, another dialog box will ask you to confirm the file name. The file name field will already hold the current filename,

This way you can copy a level between different files.

Level properties:

Edit the size of the leel

Now when we have been through all the parts that can make up a level it's time to have a look at the level properties dialog box.

Press "APPS". Now a little heavier dialog box will appear.

At the top you see some tabs. The first tab will be named "Size".

The two text fields will hold the level's height and width. You can change the sizes here,

and a dialog will ask you to confirm after pressing enter. If you do resize the level, the new rows will be added at the bottom and

the new colomns will be added at the right edge of the level. The content will be preserved.

Below those there is a text field indicating how much RAM the level will require in it's current state, to be able to play.

View object count

To switch to the next tab, press "APPS". The next tab is called "Objects" and indicates the number of different objects like enemies, triggers and flying platforms.

There's nothing to edit here.

The next tab is called "Events". Here you can add an event that will occur under some given circumstances when the level is completed.

The first dropdown is called "Event" and has the following options:

Condition:

This indicates when the event is supposed to occur. If you enter "50" in this text field, the player have to collect exactly 50 coins

in the given level to trigger the event. (not valid for "Mushrom House - End", "Doom Ship" and "End - No Ship")

X Position Map and Y Position Map:

Those are the Map coordinates for which the event will occur, where the mushrom house/card game/treasure ship will appear.

The next tab is called BG, short for BackGround.

The first dropdown will let you select which background to use.

The field called offset is basicly the same as moving the background up and down in the background selector ("F2").

The field scroll rate describes how fast the background will scroll relative to the foreground (tilemap).

For example, entering "1" will make the background scroll at the same speed as the foreground, "2" makes it scroll at halv speed, "3" at one third of the speed etc.

Note that This is the initial Background settings. Triggers can change the Background ant the offset, but NOT the scrollrate.

ss

The next tab is called "POS", for Position.

debug it!

To close the dialog box and save the changes press enter, or press esc to cancel.

Now, let's go back to the levelset. You can press esc to exit the level and return to the map, then press esc again to go to the levelset editor.

The things we'll look at now is the common file.

The common file:

The common file is a level file that contains elements that are shared through all the worlds. That can be stuff like:

The mushrom houses, the money ship, the map monsters, passages used in map triggers etc.

First, we need to create a file for it. When you are in the levelset editor you press right so that the cursor is in the common file field.

Then press "Mode", as the instructions to the right indicate.

Enter the file name you want in the dialog box and press enter.

Now that file name will appear next to the text "Common file:".

Press enter to edit this file.

Now a list menu will appear.

This is a list of all the 21 elements you can add to your common file.

The elements are:

"Warp zone"

"Mushrom house"

"Monster 1-6"

"Title screen" (Yes, you can add a custom title screen to your levelset :-) )

"Treasure ship"

"Slot 8-10 and 12-19"

The elements who have specific names (like mushrom house, monsters etc.) are dedicated to have those functions.

The elements named "Slot x" are free to be used to anything you want.

One thing you might add to your common file are the passages that are used in the wrapper pipes on the map.

The mushrom house and the title screen will already exist by default, but you are free to change them.

Scroll up/down to the element you want to edit and press enter. The same menu as when we created a level from the map will appear.

The options are:

"New level"

"Edit level"

"Swap with..."

"Copy to..."

"Delete"

I guess you are familiar with the meaning of those now.

Now, let's add a map monster. Scroll down to "Monster 1" and select new level.

Those map monsters typically don't have a large space, so let's size it to 10x15 for now.

First we should add a floor and maybe some other tiles if you want.

Then let's add the monster itself. Press "F3" and use "F1/F2" to scroll to the boomerang/hammer man monster. *Link to monster list*

You don't need to select a treasure here, that will be handled by the map trigger, which we will look into later.

Now we should save and exit the level.

We now return to the list of the common file slots.

What we will do next is to add a Passage, or underground tunnel that will link together two of the wrapper pipes we are going to add on our map.

Scroll down to one of the slots that doesn't have any specific function, for example slot 8.

Select "New" and enter the dimensions you want. Let's keep it small for now, for example 10x15.

Let's draw an underground passage, like shown in the image. We'll need this one later when we look into the map triggers.

Then we add the two pipes, and create a trigger at each of them.

But in this case, the new position and the borders we set doesn't matter at all. They won't be used. The reason for this that you will exit the level through the pipes.

After adding the two triggers it is important that you select the Anim option "Exit, NOT completed" by editing the trigger properties, for both of the triggers.

Select the trigger with the arrow keys and press «Diamond» to do this. This is the mechanism that makes the trigger an exit from the level.

When we have done this, save the level and exit.

Now we have what we need for the next things we'll look into:

Map triggers and map objects.

Go gack to the levelset editor by pressing esc.

Now we'll go back to the same map as we edited previously. Select that world in the world list and press enter to edit the map.

Map objects:

The map objects are all free moving object on the map. Some examples are the map monsters that you meet in almost every world in SM68K, and also the boats in world 3 and 6 and the moneyship, card game etc.

Map monsters and boats are the only types of map objects you can add directly. We'll look into the monsters now.

To go to the object editor you need to press «F2».

As usual a dialog will ask you to add a new object, or you can press «2nd».

The first thing we'll do is to select the object's position, as the help text indicates.

Next, a dialog box appears. Here we select if the object will be a Map Monster or a Boat.

Let's select Monster this time.

Now another dialog box appears. This has two dropdowns. The first one is called «Monster Level» and the second one is called «Treasure».

The first one describes which of the monster level slots in the common file to load when mario encounters this specific monster. So, since we added a monster level in the slot called «Monster 1» we'll select Monster 1 for this one. We'll see that the small monster level we made will be loaded when mario meets this creature.

The second dropdown simply tells which item Mario will win if he defeats the monster.

If you select «Random» here, he will get either a Mushrom, a Fire flower or A Racoon Suit.

When pressing enter you'll see that the monster appears on the map. While playing the monsters will move randomly around on the map.

Like all the level objects we have been through you can browse through the map objects if you have more than one, and edit them by pressing enter.

NOTE: It is important that you place the monsters in road nodes only. By road nodes i mean all places mario can stand, like the «dots» on the roads, level / castle / pipe / mushrom tiles, the «Start» tile etc. If not, they might start moving in a weird pattern.

Map triggers:

Now it's time to look at the map triggers.

The map triggers are quite similar to the level triggers:

They take you from one location on the map to another. Additionaly, they can take you to another map. This is used in the warp zone.

However, there are some differences:

When a map trigger is handled, like when the player enters a map pipe, a level is loaded. The MAP trigger specifies one of the LEVEL triggers of that level that is considered as an exit. When this LEVEL trigger is handled, the level is considered as completed. And the player arrives at the new map position.

The new borders will now become active.

However, if the player exits the level through another level trigger, the level is considered as NOT completed and the player stays at the current map position.

The content of a map trigger:

X & Y:

The position of the trigger

NewX & NewY:

The new position, i.e. where you arrive when executing the trigger

LevelNr:

Describes which level to load when entering a trigger (Like the underground tunnels found in world3 of

sm68k or the castle that brings you up to the skies in world7 of sm68k).

LX & LY:

This is the players start position in the level. The start position specified by the MAP trigger is used, the start position specified by the level itself is ignored.

Exit:

Describes which of the LEVEL TRIGGERS in the selected level that is used as an exit. When this exit trigger is handled (the player enters the selected pipe ) the level is considered as completed, and the map trigger is handled: The player arrives at the New position and the new borders become valid.

NewMap:

This tells if, and which map to load when the trigger is handled. This is used in the warp zones, though it is fully possible to use it on a regular map (this has been accidentaly tested... ).

No level is loaded in this case.

NewBorder_left & NewBorder_right:

Similar to the level borders: You can not access the area behind the current borders. Can be used to hide certain parts of the map. An example is world7 of sm68k. After completing the first pipe you arrive on a sky part of the map, and the ground is now not accessible.

Color:

This specifies which color theme the new map segment has. This is used when breaking rocks, unlocking "map doors" etc. The reason this field exists is for the game engine to know which color of the tile to substitute the rock/locked door with.

This will possibly be handled automaticly in a future version of the editor.

Before we can add the first map trigger we should add a couple of pipes to our map like shown in the image.

Then we press «F3» to go to the trigger editor. As usual a dialog will ask us to add a new trigger. If not, press «2nd».

The first thing we'll do is to add the starting point of the trigger. Lets select one of the pipes.

Now a dialog pops up. This one asks for the destination map. That is which map Mario will appear on when the trigger is executed. So if you select «Current world» mario will appear on a new location on the same map. If you select «New map» he will be transferred to another world. This is what is used in the warp zone. In this case we will select «Current world»

Then the help text on the bottom of the screen asks us to select new position. Now we should select the second pipe.

After that have to select the new borders. This is the map borders to be used after the trigger is executed.

After this another dialog box appears. This one want us to select «level source», that is from which file the trigger level will be loaded. As you can see, you can choose between the common file and the current world, i.e. The world we are working on at the moment. It is recomended to keep trigger levels that is used in more that one world in the commonfile to save some space. We select common file here, so we can use the tunnel we made previously.

This brings up a list of levelslots in the common file. We select slot 8, where we saved our tunnel.

This will open the level itself. The help text asks us to select start position. That is where Mario's will appear in the level when he enters the pipe.

We select one of the pipes as the start position.

Next, we will be asked to select «Exit trigger». This is which of the triggers inside the LEVEL that will serve as an exit, i.e. Which of the two pipes Mario must enter to appear on the new map location. If he enters the other pipe he will NOT get transferred to the new spot.

The final thing that will happend is that another of those dialogs will ask us to select map style. This is the «style», or the look of the map in the new location.

We were using the «Grass» tiles in our map, and therefore we need to select «Normal». But if we used the white «Cloud» tiles at the new map location we would have to select «White» and «Dark» if we used the darker tiles (the «Bowser world» tiles). This will hopefully be handled automaticly in a future version of the editor.

This is used in some internal functionality of the game. If you select the wrong cathegory here, it's not critical. It will only trigger some cosmetic bugs in the map on rare occations (like a light ground tile in a dark style world etc.).

Now our trigger is finished.

Note that this trigger only works in one direction. If you want the map pipes to be bidirectional, you have to repeat the process again, in the opposite direction.

A trigger can be used to much more than just passages between two pipes. See World 7 of SM68k for an example. Here you need to make your way through a castle to reach the cloud part of the map.

The level slot list:

There is one more thing we should have a quick look at. If you press «Home» in the map editor you will be taken to a list of level slots. There are a total of 20 level slots available in each world.

The elements are:

«Level 1-8», «Fortress 1 & 2», «Castle/Ship», «Pyramid», «Quicksand», «Bonus», «Bowser Castle» and «Slot 13, 14 & 16-18».

As you can see, some of them is not assigned to a specific task, like those named «Slot x». Those can be used to for example trigger levels. Also, if you dont have a pyramid, Quicksand, Bowser Castle, Level X etc. In your map, that slot is also possible to use in a trigger.

To Edit or create a level in one of those slots you need to press enter.

This brings up a menu we have seen before, the level menu.