victords / super-bombinhas-editor

The level editor for the platformer game Super Bombinhas.

Super Bombinhas Level Editor

This is the level editor for the platformer game Super Bombinhas, built with Ruby and the Gosu and MiniGL libraries.

Running the editor

1. Install Ruby.
   • For Windows: RubyInstaller
   • For Linux: RVM
2. Install Gosu and MiniGL (see "Installing" here).
3. Clone this and the game's repository in the same directory.
4. Open a command prompt/terminal in the repository folder and run ruby main.rb.

Using the editor

In order for the editor to work properly, you must have both this and the game's repository cloned in the same directory. The editor loads and saves files directly from the folders of the game's repository.

Editing stages

After you launch the editor, in order to edit an existing stage, type in the fields at the bottom the world, stage and section numbers. These numbers will compose the path and name of the file to be loaded, following the pattern "<game repository>/stage/<world>/<stage>-<section>". For example, if you leave the default values and click "Load", the file "data/stage/1/1-1" from the game repository will be loaded. When you click "Save", the same fields and pattern will determine the file that will be saved (if the file already exists, there will be a confirmation to overwrite; otherwise, a new file will be created).

Level properties

On the top panel there are the properties of the level (more specifically, the section) being edited. These are:

• The width and height, in number of tiles. Edit the values in the fields and click OK to change the size.
• The number of the background image. It will identify the background to be used using the pattern "<game repository>/data/img/bg/<number>.png".
• The background music identifier. It will identify the background music to be used using the pattern "<game repository>/data/song/<identifier>.ogg".
• The type of exit of the section. The first 4 options, which represent arrows pointing up, right, down and left, indicate that if the player touches the corresponding edge of the level, it will be automatically transported to the default entrance of the next section (more on entrances later). The last option "-" indicates that touching the edges of the level will have no effect (except dying by trespassing the bottom edge).
• The "dark" checkbox. If checked, this section will be in complete darkness except for a small area around the player and some other specific elements that cast light.

Entrances

To place an entrance on a section, use the "Bomb" button, at the right, and press Enter on the keyboard to make the "arguments" field appear. Fill in the entrance number, press Enter again and then click on the position of the map where the entrance should be. A stage will not work unless there is at least an entrance for every section. Furthermore, the number of the entrance must be unique across all sections of a same stage. The "default" check box must be used for only one entrance per section. This will be the starting point of the first section of the stage, and, on other sections (not the first), it will be the point where the player is placed when it leaves the previous section by touching one of its edges. The entrance numbers can be used as arguments for other elements such as doors and check points.

Terrain

The terrain components can be found in the left panel. They are:

• Tileset selector: the dropdown allows the selection of the tileset to be used in this section. The available tilesets will be all the PNG files in the "<game repository>/data/tileset" directory. Tilesets must be 10 x 10 tiles, 32 x 32 pixels each tile (so the overall image must be 320 x 320 pixels). The tiles used for walls, passable blocks and ramps must be in predefined positions; refer to existing tilesets to see the pattern.
• Wall: a solid block that can't be entered by the player from any direction.
• Pass: a "passable" block, which serves as floor, but the player can go through it from the sides and from below. These are placed in rectangular areas, click and hold on the top-left corner and release on the bottom-right corner. Hold ctrl while doing this to make it be placed behind other blocks.
• Hide: a foreground tile that can hide any elements behind it. In the game, it will appear very similar to walls.
• Ramp: opens a menu with the predefined ramp sizes (in tiles). Click on the desired size and then on the map to place the ramp.
• Other: choose any of the other tiles from the tileset. The behavior of this tile will be defined by the value of the dropdown below, as follows:
  • w: the tile will work as a wall.
  • p: the tile will work as a passable block.
  • b: the tile will be background (no interaction with the player)
  • f: the tile will be foreground (no interaction with the player)

Elements and Enemies

To place interactive elements, items and enemies, use the "OBJ" and "ENEMY" buttons on the right. Both when clicked open a panel of elements to choose from. Many elements and enemies allow arguments that change their behavior (and for some of them the arguments are required). You can define arguments in the same way you define entrance numbers (the field can be showed by pressing Enter or clicking the "args..." button in this same panel). To find out which arguments are supported for each element, you can check the constructor of the corresponding class in the "items.rb", "elements.rb" or "enemies.rb" file from the game's source code (the name of the class shows up when you hover over the element); the "Board" element corresponds to the "BoardItem" class in the "items.rb" file.

The elements and enemies that show up in the editor are defined by the images placed in the "data/img/el" folder. The file name must follow the pattern "<code>-<name>.png", where "code" is the key of the corresponding class in the ELEMENT_TYPES hash in the "section.rb" file of the game project. Enemies are separated from the others by having a "!" at the end of the file name (before the extension).

Erasing

Use the right mouse button to erase. By default, it will erase everything in the current tile and keep erasing as you move, but you can hold Ctrl to erase one element at a time (each click will erase a single element).

The offset functionality

You can move everything in the stage or a selection by a number of tiles, both horizontally and vertically, using the offset functionality. You can open the panel by pressing Tab on the keyboard or clicking the "offset" button in the right panel. To make a selection, hold Alt and click and drag from the top-left to the bottom-right corner of the area you want to select.

Remarks

• The source code is distributed under the GNU GPLv3 license and the image assets (contents of the folder "data/img") under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license.
• This is a summary of how to use and extend the editor, but if you need more details you can always reach out to [e-mail].
• As this editor was originally designed only for my own use, there are many things you can do in the editor that will break the actual game. I didn't program any validations regarding the arguments of the elements, for example; moreover, the interactions between every combination of elements haven't been tested, so it is very likely that you find combinations that generate strange behaviors or even cause the game to crash.

Contributing

Feel free to fork the project and send pull requests if you want to contribute with the code. Also, you can support my work by purchasing Super Bombinhas on Steam or itch.io.