DESIGNER'S GUIDE

A WORD TO THE GAME DESIGNER

Overview

This chapter describes the major steps required in order to design your own Gold Box adventure. It assumes that you are already familiar with ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS Gold Box adventure games, and know how to play them on a computer. You should read this chapter to find out about the differences between UNLIMITED ADVENTURES and previous Gold Box games. If you just can't wait to try out the complete adventure supplied with UNLIMITED ADVENTURES, read the box Playing an Adventure Right Now.

In the past, you had to wait for a new AD&D Gold Box game to appear in the stores before you could start a new adventure. Now UNLIMITED ADVENTURES allows anyone familiar with AD&D Gold Box games to design and play their own, unique adventures.

Designing a new adventure is easy if you begin by modifying and extending parts of an existing design. For example, a complete adventure, The Heirs to Skull Crag, has already been designed for you, and is included in this package. The following chapters provide a step-by-step tutorial that leads you through the process of modifying an incomplete adventure, the Tutorial Design. By reading these chapters in order, and carrying out the described steps on your own computer, you learn to use the major features of UNLIMITED ADVENTURES.

Besides modifying adventures someone else has designed with UNLIMITED ADVENTURES, you can also design completely new Gold Box adventures yourself. You can create your own maps and events, fill them with characters and custom monsters of your own specification, and - if you wish - draw your own art. What's more, you can share adventure designs with other licensed owners of UNLIMITED ADVENTURES (see the appendix entitled Sharing Adventures). Any complete adventure design can be played just like one of the previous Gold Box Adventure games you purchased. The number of new Gold Box adventures you can play really could be unlimited!

Playing an Adventure Right Now:

To start UNLIMITED ADVENTURES, refer to the directions printed on the supplied data card. After the credits have been displayed. the first screen you see is the design menu. The bottom half of this screen has two columns of menu buttons. In the top half of the screen you see the phrase current game design.

Be sure the name displayed here is HEIRS TO SKULL CRAG. If some other design name is displayed, press the button labeled SELECT A DESIGN and choose the name HEIRS T0 SKULL CRAG in the list that appears. Once the correct design has been selected, press PLAY THE GAME. Now everything works like any other Gold Box adventure game. The first pan of the Designer's journal. the Rule Book, provides information that will be useful while you are playing.

Designing an Adventure

Each adventure you design with UNLIMITED ADVENTURES includes four essential pans: the places a party can go, the events that can occur there, the characters the party can meet, and the art items that are displayed to represent all of this.

Places One adventure design may include as many as 40 different places: thirty-six different dungeons, and four different overland regions. Each dungeon and overland region is described by a map which you create and modify in the map editor. A map is a grid of up to 576 squares. By drawing in the map editor, you place doors, walls, and backdrops into the squares of a map, thus building up a town, dungeon, or wilderness for the player's party to explore.

Events In some map squares, you may want to place specific events. You can choose from a wide variety of pre-defined types of events. Each type - a combat encounter, a text statement, a treasure discovery, and so on - is specified by filling in a brief questionnaire in the event editor. Each questionnaire poses a set of related questions about one type of event. Which monsters does the party fight? What text does the player see? How much treasure does the party discover? Since these questions already have pre-defined, default answers, editing an event is easy. You just change the parts of a questionnaire that need non-standard answers for the specific event you wish to design. Leave all the rest of the default answers unchanged.

Characters Any monsters or non-player characters (NPCs) encountered during an event are specified in the monster editor. Much like the event editor, the monster editor consists of a set of questionnaires, one for each type of monster or non-player character. These questionnaires ask about such attributes as a character's race, ability, class, or alignment. You need only be concerned with those questions of which the answers require a custom, non-standard value for the specific monster or NPC you have in mind.

Art Drawing a map, planning an event, or creating a special character generally includes making decisions about what art to display on the computer screen. Some types of art are used to show the background as the player's party moves, or as it engages in combat in a dungeon or an overland region. This art consists of various sets of walls, floors, and ceilings, as well as overland regions and combat terrain. Other types of art, such as pictures and combat icons, are used to illustrate events and to depict characters.

UNLIMITED ADVENTURES comes supplied with a wide assortment of each of these types of art. The art gallery allows you to view available art items and select one to display. If you own one of several paint programs supported by UNLIMITED ADVENTURES, you can also use the art gallery to replace individual items of art with items you have drawn yourself (see the chapter entitled Customizing Art).

New Interface Features Finding your Way Around Every editor in UNLIMITED ADVENTURES has a distinctive appearance, and displays information to help you keep track of what is currently being edited. You can only design one particular adventure at a time, and the name of that adventure is prominently displayed by the various editors. One adventure may include up to thirty-six dungeons and four overland regions, each of which is designed as a separate module. Only one module of an adventure may be edited at a time. The name of the current adventure module is always displayed next to the name of the adventure you are designing.

The design menu allows you to select an adventure design to work on. This is the menu that first appears every time you start UNLIMITED ADVENTURES. In the design menu, you can select, delete, or create a brand new adventure design; you can choose to edit art, monsters, or general information about your current adventure design; you can begin playing a completed adventure; or you can quit the program.

From the design menu, you can also select which module of the current adventure design you would like to edit. Selecting a module takes you immediately to the map editor. There, you can design the dungeon or overland region associated with the module you select. Certain actions in the map editor, such as placing an event, transfer you to other, specialized editors. When you press the OK, Select, Cancel, or LEAVE button in one of these other editors, you return to the map editor.

Normally, you select one module to work on, make some changes to it, and then save or discard your changes and select a new module. You can perform these three steps again and again, without ever leaving the map editor. Choosing Open... from the map editor's file menu list, as described below, allows you to edit a different adventure module. When you are ready to return to the design menu, choose Leave from this file menu list. If any changes to the current adventure module have not been saved when you choose Open... or Leave, you are given a chance to save those changes before continuing.

Using Menus and Controls While many of the controls used in UNLIMITED ADVENTURES may be familiar to players of AD&D Gold Box games, some are different. To avoid frustration, you should review how these new controls work before starting to design an adventure.

As in other Gold Box games, a few commands that you perform frequently appear at the bottom of the screen, in the form of menu buttons. Instead of commands for playing the game, however, menu buttons in the map, event, and monster editors, and in the art gallery, represent commands to help you edit an adventure design.

A novel feature of the map editor is that many additional commands are accessible from menu lists. If you hold down the mouse button while the cursor is over one of the names, File, Map, or Utilities, at the top of the screen, a list of commands appears. As you move the mouse cursor over each available command in this menu list, the command is selected and its name becomes highlighted. Releasing the mouse button while a command name is selected performs that particular command.

Some commands are helpful or sensible when performed in one editing context, but not in another. For example, placing a new event in the map editor is a potentially complex action that cannot simply be reversed. Thus, after you place a new event, the UNDO command does not make sense. When a command is temporarily inappropriate like this, it becomes inactive: its name appears dimmed, and you cannot press that button or highlight that item in the menu list.

As soon as the editing context changes so that an inactive command makes sense, that command becomes active again. For example, placing a new wall in the map editor is a simple, reversible action. After you place a new wall, the UNDO button at the bottom of the screen appears in normal type, and you can press this button.

Menu buttons at the bottom of the screen can be accessed from the keyboard. Just as in other Gold Box adventure games, simply type the first letter of a command's name as it appears highlighted on the button. This feature differs in one important respect, however, from previous games. Keyboard shortcuts for menu buttons are not available in UNLIMITED ADVENTURES when you are editing a text box in a questionnaire (see below). In this context, typing the first letter of a menu button's name merely inserts that letter into the text you are editing. As soon as you finish editing the text by pressing the Enter Key, keyboard shortcuts become available once again.

Menu lists in the map editor can also be executed without using a mouse. Hold down the command key on your keyboard (it is identified in the data card) and type the first letter of the menu list you wish to display. To execute a command, select it with the arrow keys and then press the Enter Key, or simply type the first letter of that command's name. Press the escape key to cancel without executing any command.

Several new control types appear inside the dialogs and questionnaires of the map editor, event editor, monster editor and art gallery. Text boxes are used to name objects and m enter messages for the player to read. These controls appear as rectangles large enough to hold either a few words or six full lines of text. Clicking the mouse cursor on a text box highlights that box, and allows you to enter or edit a text message.

Number boxes are employed wherever a quantity must be specified in a questionnaire. These controls look like small rectangles, large enough to hold the biggest number allowed in the given context. When you click on them, number boxes highlight, allowing you to enter a number much like an electronic calculator. Note that decimal fractions cannot be entered; only whole numbers are used in UNLIMITED ADVENTURES games.

When the valid answers to a question comprise a small set of fixed alternatives, these answers are listed for you in a pop-up menu. Pop-up menus appear as rectangles one character high, something like a text or number box with a thicker border below and to the right of the rectangle. They work like menu lists in the map editor, with one exception. Occasionally, a small scroll arrow appears at the top or the bottom of a pop-up menu list, indicating more choices are available. Simply move the mouse cursor over the scroll arrow, while continuing to hold down the mouse button, and the list scrolls to bring other choices into view.

If a question can be answered by a simple yes or no, it is represented by a yes/no button. This small, round circle is either on or off. When on, a yes/no button appears highlighted, meaning the question to its right is currently answered with a yes. When a yes/no button is off, it is not highlighted, and the answer is no. To change the state of a yes/no button from on to off, or vice-versa, click on it with the mouse.

Fixing Mistakes Since making mistakes and changing your mind are normal parts of any design process, UNLIMITED ADVENTURES makes it easy to undo changes.

In the Map Editor, you can reverse many simple actions. Immediately after you place a wall, backdrop, or zone, for example, the UNDO button at the bottom of the screen becomes active. Pressing this button takes back the most recent item placed on your map. Pressing the UNDO button a second time restores the last item placed. Note that this only works for the most recent change made. For example, as soon as you place a second wall in the map editor, the first wall you placed can no longer be changed; pressing the UNDO button now takes back or restores the second wall.

Unlike the map editor, editors such as the event editor, the monster editor, or the map or game global information editors do not have an UNDO button.

Instead, the changes that you make inside these questionnaire-based editors can be undone as a group. When you enter one of these editors, a copy is made of the particular questionnaire you have selected to edit. Any changes you make to answers in this questionnaire are actually made to the copy. When you exit the editor by pressing the OK button, the copy with all your changes replaces the original questionnaire. If you press the CANCEL button instead, the copy is discarded, and the original questionnaire remains unchanged. The only way to restore your changes, after you have pressed the CANCEL button, is to go back to that editor and make all the changes again.

You can still undo your work, even after you have accepted a group of changes in one of the questionnaire-based editors by pressing the OK button, or after you have made several changes inside the map editor. This is possible because of the way UNLIMITED ADVENTURES Uses memory on your computer.

When you select a new module to work on, its file is opened on your hard disk and the information in that file is read into working memory. None of the changes that you make are really permanent, as long as they are only in working memory. You must save the current adventure module in order to write the information in working memory back to your hard disk, permanently replacing whatever was there before.

Saving is as easy as choosing the Save command from the map editor's file menu list. Each time you open a new adventure module, and when you leave to return to the design menu, the map editor checks to see whether any changes have been made since the last time the current module was saved. If any changes have not been saved, you are asked whether you want to save them or not. Press the SAVE button to save the changes and continue, or press the DON'T SAVE button to discard all your changes since the last time you saved. In this context, pressing the CANCEL button sends you back to the map editor without doing anything.

Another way you can discard all the changes you have made in the map editor since the last time you saved the current adventure module, is to choose Revert to saved from the file menu list. This command discards the information in working memory and reads the information that is saved in the current adventure module's file on your hard disk. Note that reverting to the last saved version is a change that cannot be undone.

If you save changes and later wish you hadn't, you might be able to recover the earlier version. It is always a good idea to back up your work, by copying the entire subdirectory of any changed adventure design to floppy diskettes when you have finished an editing session (see the appendix entitled Sharing Adventures). That way, if your hard disk is ever damaged, or if you wish to discard all the changes that you just saved, you can replace the adventure design on your hard disk with the subdirectory on your backup floppies. The two supplied adventure designs, The Heirs to Skull Crag and the Tutorial Design, can both be restored by re-installing UNLIMITED ADVENTURES from the original floppy diskettes that came with this package.

CONSTRUCTING PLACES: THE MAP EDITOR

This chapter begins a series of tutorials that introduce all the major features of UNLIMITED ADVENTURES. The first tutorial describes the map editor, the single most important tool for designing and modifying adventures.

Features of the Map Editor Each adventure module defines its own two-dimensional grid, or map, at least eleven by eleven squares in size. A square is one portion of a dungeon or overland region just large enough to contain the party. As in most Gold Box games, the party is always located in a particular map square in the current dungeon or overland region.

The map editor displays either a 3-D view of a single square, or an area view of a large group of squares, in the map of the current adventure module. You edit this map by drawing on it with an imaginary pen. When you select new attributes for various map features, such as corridor walls or ceilings, this changes pens: drawing on the map now has a different effect than before. To draw, you simply click the mouse or the Place button on one square in the map. This transfers the current pen settings to that particular square, replacing whatever was there before.

Views The map editor has two distinct visual appearances, depending on the view selected in the map menu list. In 3-D view, a single square in the current map is displayed as a player would normally see it. A compass indicates the current direction, and a small overhead map shows the immediate neighborhood of the current square. The usual mouse and keyboard commands change the current direction or square, just as they turn and move the party during an actual game. For example, clicking the mouse near the bottom of the square, or pressing the down arrow key, turns the party around to bring the opposite wall into view. Pressing the PLACE button transfers the pen settings to the displayed square or, if you are drawing walls, to the edge of the square you are currently facing.

In area view, on the other hand, you see a large grid, depicting an overhead view or map of up to twenty rows by twenty-one columns. By placing the mouse cursor just outside the edge of this map grid and clicking, you can scroll the map to bring a hidden portion into view. The squares of the map are color-coded, to help you identify their current features. The location and state of the square currently under the mouse cursor is displayed in more detail to the right of the map grid. In area view, you can draw on any visible map square by clicking it with the mouse.

Note: On some computers with no color capability, the map editor uses monochrome patterns instead of color-codes to display settings. Consult the data card that came with your UNLIMITED ADVENTURES package for information about the correspondence between monochrome patterns and the color-codes mentioned in this Design Guide.

Modes Four kinds of features may be placed in a map and the map editor has a corresponding mode for each kind. Depending upon which mode is selected in the map menu list, drawing with the current pen places walls, backdrops (floors and ceilings), map zones, or events in selected squares.

Each edge of a dungeon map square may be unobstructed, so the party may cross it freely, or it may be blocked in some fashion. Normally, any square edge that is assigned an obstruction is also assigned a wall image. Wall images are pieces of art depicting solid walls, doors, archways, stairwells, and so on. Some images depict outdoor obstructions, such as shrubs, trees, or underwater reefs. Wall art comes in sets of five images; all the images in one set share a general appearance, such as walls built of a uniform building material, or vegetation from a particular kind of forest.

Up to three sets of wall images can be loaded into each adventure module. Thus, a single map can have, at most, fifteen different wall images. In the map editor, you set the current pen to any one of these fifteen images - or to no wall image, if you wish to remove an existing image. You also set the pen to one of sixteen different obstruction levels. This new image and obstruction level is placed wherever you draw on the map. If you load a new set of wall images into the adventure module, all the walls assigned images from that set change appearance. By default, three standard wall sets are loaded in a dungeon map; all the square edges are assigned no wall image and an obstruction level of open.

Maps for overland regions are much simpler than those for dungeons. These maps never appear in 3-D view, so they do not use wall images. The only levels of obstruction available are passable and impassable, and all four edges of a map square always share the same level of obstruction. By default, all the squares of an overland map are passable.

The floor and ceiling of a dungeon map square are changed together, by assigning the square a single backdrop image. Backdrops are usually chosen to correspond with the building material, or other general appearance, of one set of wall images. Outdoor backdrops, such as grass and open sky, come in pairs: one backdrop appears during the daylight hours in the game, and the paired backdrop appears automatically when the game is taking place at night.

Backdrop images are loaded singly, rather than in sets. Up to four different backdrop images can be loaded into each adventure module. Unlike the case with walls, every map square must be assigned some backdrop image to display. By default, four standard backdrop images are loaded in a dungeon map, and all the squares are assigned to display the image loaded in backdrop slot 1.

Note that backdrops for map squares are different from the backdrops that represent combat terrain. If the party encounters monsters and engages in combat during the game, a set of combat-terrain images appears underneath the combat icons for the party and the monsters. Only two different sets of combat terrain images may be displayed in a single dungeon adventure module: one during indoor combat, and the other during combat outdoors, Since these combat terrain sets

belong to the entire map, they are not placed in individual squares. Instead, their images are assigned in the map global information editor.

Overland maps differ from dungeons in this respect as well. No backdrops are assigned to the individual squares of an overland map, since these maps never appear in 3-D view. Overland maps are always displayed using an overland map picture. The individual grid squares of an overland map are apparent only while editing, never during play.

Each adventure module may be divided into as many as eight zones. Zones may be assigned to group the squares of a dungeon into neighborhoods - for example, to mark off an outdoor field, or to distinguish different wings of a castle. The squares of one zone could also be scattered throughout a dungeon. Different events may be assigned to occur while the party is resting in each particular zone or after the party has taken a fixed number of steps in certain zones.

Unlike walls and backdrops, zones have no associated images. The zone to which a square is assigned is only displayed while the map editor is in zone mode, and this assignment is not apparent from the 3-D view itself, or during the game. By default, all the squares in a map are assigned to the first zone. The default name of this zone is Zone 1 ,' but you can rename it in the map global information editor.

Zones are particularly important in overland maps, where they distinguish different kinds of outdoor terrain. While a dungeon module only displays two different terrain images during combat, an overland module may use as many as eight; one combat-terrain image for each zone. A distinct message may also be assigned to each zone in an overland module, to be displayed when the party attempts to enter that zone.

The principal action of a game takes place through the events you create. Some events, such as those that take place during rest periods, are associated with the map as a whole. They are assigned in the map global information editor. Other events are placed in individual map squares with the map editor; these events happen when the party enters that particular square of your dungeon or overland region. A single adventure module may contain no more than one hundred different events.

When the map editor is in event mode, the pen may either be set to place any event or no event (useful for erasing). When you place an event in a map square, you are presented with a list of event types to select from, and then transferred to the event editor. In this editor, you may chain additional events onto the first, so that one event takes place right after another. Only the first event in a chain is anchored to a particular square; this is the event that appears when you quit the event editor and return to the map editor. By default, no events are assigned to a dungeon or overland module.

Pens The map editor's pen always draws the feature corresponding to the current editing mode. Each feature has several possible settings. For example, walls can be set to one of a variety of images and levels of obstruction. In wall, backdrop, or zone modes, change these settings by pressing the SELECT button. In event mode, the pen is set to place any type of

event and the SELECT button is dimmed. You can draw with the current pen settings either by pressing the PLACE button or, in area view, by clicking or dragging the mouse over the area map.

If your mouse has more than one button, you can temporarily change the current pen settings to the defaults by clicking with the right-most mouse button. With a one-button mouse, or while in 3-D view, you accomplish the same effect by holding down the Shift key while you click the button. Drawing with the default settings in wall mode or event mode erases any existing walls or events. In zone mode or backdrop mode, by contrast, it simply forces map squares to be in zone 1 or to display the floor and ceiling loaded in backdrop slot 1. You may wish to keep this feature in mind when deciding how to use zone 1 and what art to load in backdrop slot 1.

Tutorial: Editing a Map The first step in this tutorial is to add a new corridor to an existing dungeon. You learn how to select a module and enter the map editor, and how to interpret the information you see there. You assign walls, backdrops and zones to various squares in the map and practice undoing some of these changes.

Selecting a Design and Adventure Module To start UNLIMITED ADVENTURES, follow the directions in the data card that came with your package. Near the top of the screen that appears following the credits, you see the words UNLIMITED ADVENTURES, just above a version number and date. This is the design menu. It also displays the name of the current game design, which by default is THE HEIRS TO SKULL CRAG.

To change the current game design to the Tutorial Design, press the button labeled Select a design. A vertical list appears, showing the names of every UNLIMITED ADVENTURES design found on your hard disk. Click once on the name TUTORIAL DESIGN in the list to highlight it. Click a second time on the highlighted name, or press the SELECT menu button, to confirm this choice and return to the design menu.

The name of the current game design, displayed above the double column of menu buttons, should now be TUTORIAL DESIGN. Later, when you are ready to exit UNLIMITED ADVENTURES, you can press the menu button labeled QUIT FROM GAME. For now, press the menu button labeled EDIT MODULES instead.

When you press the EDIT MODULES button in the design menu, or when you choose Open... from the file menu inside the map editor, a vertical list appears. This list displays the names of every possible dungeon or overland region in the current adventure design.

By default, modules in an adventure are named Overland 01 through Overland 04 and DUNGEON 01 through DUNGEON 36. Later, you will see how to change these names to something more interesting. For now, scroll the vertical list until the name Dungeon 36 - Sample Dungeon is visible. Highlight this name, then press the OPEN button to confirm your choice and enter the map editor.

You should see a 3-D point of view window showing a burning torch on a rough stone wall. Beneath this window, the design information panel should confirm that you are editing the SAMPLE DUNGEON module of the TUTORIAL DESIGN.

Note: It is important that you select Dungeon 36 - Sample Dungeon, or else the tutorials do not make sense. If you select some other module by mistake, just try again; hold down the mouse button over the name File at the top of the map editor's screen, and select the Open... command. Choose Dungeon 36 - Sample Dungeon in the vertical list that appears.

This Design Guide leads you through the process of making changes to the Sample Dungeon adventure module. You need to make a working copy of this dungeon, so you won't have to re-install UNLIMITED ADVENTURES if you decide to start over at the beginning. Hold down the mouse button over the name File at the top of the map editor's screen, and select the Write to... command.

You now see the vertical list of adventure modules again. The map editor is asking you which of the thirty-six dungeons in this design should be replaced by a copy of the current adventure module, the Sample Dungeon. Highlight the name Dungeon 10. Now press the SAVE (WRITE T0) button to copy the Sample Dungeon to this new module. In the map editor, you still see the window with the burning torch, and the current adventure module, Sample Dungeon. You are now editing a copy in dungeon 10, however, rather than the original in dungeon 36.

Viewing a Map The compass to the right of the 3-D point of view window indicates that you are currently facing east. To the right of the compass, you see that you are editing the square at column O, row O, in a map of which the total size is twenty-four by eleven squares. Above the compass you see a small overhead view, or map, of your immediate neighborhood; a yellow arrow marks the current square in this map, and points in the direction you are facing.

To the right of the small map, the map square information panel displays the state of the current square. What you see in this panel depends on which mode the map editor is in. Since it is in wall mode by default, the information panel shows the current obstruction settings of the wall to your left, the wall you are facing (the east wall at column O, row 0), and the wall to your right. Notice that all these wails have an obstruction level of blocked, represented by the color-code yellow.

The edges of the grid squares in the small overhead map are also color-coded. In the overhead map, each corner of a grid square is a white dot. The color of the line drawn between two white dots corresponds to the wall image assigned to that edge of the map square. For example, the yellow arrow in the small overhead map points to a light green line. This color corresponds to the image of a torch on a rock wall, which you can see straight ahead (toward the east) in the 3-D point of view window. On each side of this light green line, a narrower line represents the wall's obstruction level. In this case it is yellow, for blocked. These color-codes are more helpful when you have gained some experience editing maps.

Movement works just as in any Gold Box game. For example, to turn to the left, move the mouse over the left-hand side of the 3-D window until the cursor shape changes to an arrow bending left, and click. You see a blank rock wall straight ahead, while the burning torch is on your right. The compass shows that you have turned to face north, and the yellow arrow now points straight up in the map (if you turn the wrong way, keep turning until the compass says N).

The map square information panel now reports in both text and color that the walls toward the left, straight ahead, and toward the right (the west, north, and east walls of this map square) all have a blocked obstruction level. The square edge toward which the yellow arrow points is drawn as a dark blue line, representing the wall image you see straight ahead in the 3-D point of view window. To the left of the yellow arrow, another blue line marks a similar wall image on the west side of the current square; you see this image as the left wall in the picture.

Now use the down-arrow key or the mouse to turn around 180 degrees, so you are facing the opposite wall in this map square. You should see the burning torch on the wall to your left. The compass should point to S, and the yellow arrow in the small map should point down. Notice that even the south edge of the current map square is blocked by a solid wall. If you try to move forward by clicking the mouse near the top of the 3-D window or pressing the up arrow key, nothing happens except a beep. This adventure is going to be pretty dull if the party can never escape from this rather boring room! It's time for some renovations.

The current state of the drawing pen is displayed in the pen information panel, below and to the right of the compass. By default, the pen is set to draw a wall with no image and an obstruction level of open. This is indicated by the empty black rectangle in the pen information panel, and by the word open next to a

color-code of black. In effect, the pen is currently set to remove any existing wall image and obstruction when you next draw on the edge of a map square.

Be sure that the compass is still pointing to S. Then, bust out of here by pressing the PLACE menu button. Now you can see beyond the edge of the currant square, to a narrow corridor leading south. In the small map, them is no line connecting the tiny white dots at the bottom edge of the map square at column O, row O. If you press the wrong button by mistake, and place a blank wall on some other square edge, press the UNDO button and try again.

Adding a Corridor Move one step forward, into the first square of the corridor to the south. The yellow arrow in the small map also moves one square to the south. In the map square information panel, the top and bottom pair of lines show that the wails on both sides of you are blocked, while the middle pair reports that the way is open straight ahead.

You should be able to see a gap ahead in the wall on your left. Move forward a second step, so that a large open space appears immediately on your left. Turn left to face this open space. The compass should now read E and, to the right of the compass, your current grid location should be reported as col 0 row 2. Move one morn step forward, into the open space to the east.

The party is likely to get lost in the vast open room ahead. Build a corridor hem, to guide the party east. First, change the pen settings. Press the SELECT button, and a menu of miniature wall images appears. These images are arranged in three rows: each row shows the set of five wall images currently loaded in one of the three slots of the tutorial adventure module. Above the first row of wall images, a black rectangle has a white flame around it. This indicates that the current selection is no image.

Move the mouse cursor over some image of a solid wall, such as the first image in the top row, and click the mouse button once. The wall image you selected now has a white flame around it, indicating that the map editor's pen is set to draw this image when you press 0K. Beneath the selected wall image, a small square shows the color-code used for this image in the map. The color-code for the first image in the top row, for example, is dark blue.

You have selected a new wall image, but you have not yet changed the obstruction level; it is still listed as open at the bottom of the screen. To the right of the wall-image menu, you see a list of all the obstruction levels a wall can assume. Each level has a button to its left. The button beside the obstruction level OPEN is highlighted, to indicate that this is the current setting.

Unless you want the party to be able to walk through your wall, select an obstruction level of BLOCKED. Click this name in the list of obstructions. The button just to the left of the name BLOCKED should now be highlighted, while the button to the left of the word OPEN should appear normal. Notice that the color-codes for walls and obstruction levels overlap. The color yellow can be used not only to indicate a blocked obstruction level, but also an image of a torch burning on a marble wall. The significance of the colors depends on the context in which they are used.

Once an appropriate wall image and obstruction level have been selected, return to the map editor by pressing the 0K button. The image you selected should now appear in the pen information panel. Just below this miniature wall image, you should see the word blocked next to a patch of yellow. If you still see an empty black rectangle and the word open instead, you probably pressed the CANCEL button by mistake. In that case, press the Select button in the map editor and try again.

Another way you can cancel your most recent pen selection is by pressing the UNDO button. Try this now. The pen information panel shows that no wall image and an obstruction level of open are selected. To restore your new wall image and blocked obstruction, simple press the UNDO button a second time. This works until you make a new change in the map editor.

Make sure your wall image and the blocked obstruction level are now displayed in the bottom right-hand side of the screen. You should be at column 1, row 2, facing east. Press the button labeled LEFT at the bottom of your screen, and then press the button labeled RIGHT. The wall you selected should now appear immediately to your left and right in the 3-D point of view window. The map square information panel now reports that the walls to the left and right are blocked. In the overhead map, you should see a horizontal line just above and below the yellow arrow. If you selected the first wall image in the first row, for example, these lines appear in the color dark blue. Just inside these horizontal lines, under the arrow, you should see two narrower lines of yellow indicating a blocked obstruction level.

Now draw the rest of the corridor. This is easy: just take four more steps forward, pressing the LEFT and RIGHT buttons after each step. As you take the fourth step, notice that the small overhead map scrolls, so that the yellow arrow remains centered in the displayed grid. You should now have bumped up against a solid marble wall, located on the east edge of the grid square at column 5, row 2. In the overhead map, this wall image is represented as a vertical line drawn in light cyan.

Turn this solid marble wall at the end of your new corridor into a locked door. Press the map editor's SELECT button to go to the wall menu. Select a door, such as the third image in the bottom row. Select an obstruction level of LOCKED. Press the 0K button to return to the map editor. Be sure you are still facing the east wall at column 5, row 2. You should see your new door and locked obstruction settings in the pen information panel. Replace the solid wall in front of you at the end of the corridor with this locked door. Take one more step forward, to move through the new door.

Oops! The party can't move through your new door, unless it can force it by bashing the door in, for example, or picking its lock. You can cheat in the map editor by switching to free movement. Select the command Move through walls from the map menu list now. Notice that the phrase movement blocked beneath the 3-D window has now changed to read free movement.

Now try taking one step forward again. If you succeeded in switching to free movement, you will cross the locked door. Turn around in place, to face the opposite direction. You should now be at column 6, row 2, facing west. Correct your position and direction now, if necessary.

Notice that you only succeeded in drawing a door on the east side of the grid square at column 5, row 2. The west side of the square at column 6 still shows a solid wall. This is because drawing walls in 3-D view only affects the inside edges of the current square - the ones you can actually see in the picture. Make sure you are still facing the west wall at column 6, row 2, and then press the Place button. Now your new door looks and behaves the same on both sides. This will certainly be less confusing for players. Once in a while, of course, you may wish to be sneaky. You can deliberately create a one-way door or a door that is secret on one side, just like some of our Gold Box authors have done in our games.

Editing in Area View Placing individual doors or corridor walls is easy in 3-D view. Some changes are easier to make, however, when the map editor is in area view. Examine the map menu list for a moment. Notice that the current view and editing mode are always indicated in this menu list by a check mark. Select the Area view command now.

You now see a large overhead map of the current adventure module. The pen information panel remains in the same position as before, but the design information panel has moved to the upper right-hand corner of the screen. Between these two panels, you see the map square information panel. Although a yellow arrow still marks the last square you visited in the map, the map square information panel does not describe that marked square (unless you have no mouse). In fact, if the mouse cursor is not directly over the area map on the screen, no map location or direction is reported at the top of the map square information panel.

Try moving the mouse cursor slowly over the edges of the square in the top, left-hand corner of the area map (the one at column O, row 0). The map square information panel reports the location, direction, image and obstruction of whatever square edge is currently under the mouse cursor. For example, if you move the mouse cursor over the light green vertical line representing the east wall at column O, row O, a miniature image of a stone wall with a burning torch will appear in the center right of your screen. Area view allows you to get a quick overview of a large portion of the adventure module at one time.

Up to twenty rows by twenty-one columns of the current adventure module are displayed at once in area view. To see portions of a module that is bigger than this, you must scroll the map. Try scrolling east now. Click on the frame just beyond the east edge of the map, or hold down the shift key while pressing the right arrow key. Scroll west again. Notice that vertical scrolling does nothing here, since no part of this short map is hidden above or below the frame.

The stone floor and wooden ceiling looked fine in the corridors with wails made of stone. They do not look so good, however, in the rooms with marble walls. You can change floor and ceiling images when the map editor is in backdrop mode. Select Backdrop placement now from the map menu list. The pen information panel shows that the pen is set to place a backdrop instead of a wail. Notice that the walls in the area map appear simpler, since obstruction levels are only shown in wall mode.

Change the current pen setting by pressing the SELECT button. At the bottom of the screen, you now see a vertical list of backdrop slots. Above this list you see the floor-and-ceiling image loaded into the currently selected backdrop slot. Select backdrop 2 in the list; this image looks appropriate, since it depicts a tile floor and a marble ceiling. Examine the images in the other backdrop slots. Notice that two images are displayed when backdrop slot 4 is selected; this is an outdoor backdrop, which has a different image for daytime and for nighttime. Now confirm the choice Backdrop 2 and return to the map editor.

The pen information panel should now show that the pen is set to draw the image in backdrop slot 2. You should see the image of a tile floor and a marble ceiling, along with a patch of the color-code dark blue. If you accidentally selected some other backdrop slot, press the SELECT button and try again.

Notice that the LEFT and FLIGHT buttons are now dimmed at the bottom of the screen. The PLACE button works just as in 3-D view, drawing in the square marked by the yellow arrow. If you have a mouse, however, the easiest way to place a feature is to click directly on the area map. Try this now: click the mouse on the square at column 6, row 0 (if your mouse has more than one button, use the left one).

If you did this correctly, the color-code for backdrop slot 2 - dark blue - will now fill the grid square at column 6, row 0. The map square information panel should now display the marble ceiling instead of a wooden ceiling. Notice that the square edges - which are color-coded light cyan here, for the image of a solid marble wall - do not change when you place backdrops. Keep drawing in the map squares surrounded by light-cyan; click and drag the mouse from column 7, row 0, to column 9, row 0.

The entire row - from (6, 2) to (9, 2) - should now be filled with dark blue in the area map. If you went too far, and drew in a map square you didn't intend to fill with this new backdrop, you can easily restore backdrop slot l. When you hold down the shift key, the drawing pen temporarily changes to the default settings, allowing you to place backdrop slot I. Practice drawing with the mouse, until all the squares between columns 6 and 9, from row 0 through row 5, are filled with dark blue.

Global Replacement From the map menu list at the top of the screen, choose the command Zone placement. Notice that the colors inside the grid squares have changed; now these color-codes represent the map zone assigned to each square. As you move the mouse cursor over the different regions of the map, you see that three map zones have already been assigned to this module: zones 1, 2, and 4. All the map squares in the rooms with marble walls, as well as in the corridor you completed, are filled with dark cyan, indicating they have been assigned to My Zone #4.

You should change the zone assigned to the marble rooms and to your new corridor from zone 4 to zone 3. Press the

SELECT button and choose the name My Zone #3 in the vertical list (in the chapter entitled Extending a Design, you will see how to give these zones more interesting names). You should now see the words My Zone #3 below a patch of light green in the pen information panel.

Stop! Don't draw anything yet. One way to make this change would be to draw over every square that is currently assigned to zone 4. You could then correct any mistakes by drawing again with the shift key or the right mouse button held down. A faster method is to replace every assignment of zone 4 in the map with an assignment of zone 3. Select the command Replace globally from the utilities menu list.

The map editor is now asking you to identify which map zone should be replaced everywhere by the current pen setting. Since zone 4 (color-coded dark cyan) is the one you want to replace, select the name My Zone #4 in the vertical list. You will now be asked to confirm that zone 4 should be replaced by zone 3 in each of the thirty-three squares where it was found in this map. Press REPLACE to confirm this change. In the area-view map, you now see that all the squares in the marble rooms, as well as in the corridor you completed, are colored dark green - the color-code for My Zone #3'.

If, by accident, you selected My Zone list, you are told instead that there was Nothing to replace. If this happens, just try again: choose Replace globally from the utilities menu list again.
 * 1) 3 (the current pen setting) in the vertical

Quitting UNLIMITED ADVENTURES In this chapter, you have seen how to use the map editor to place walls, backdrops and zone assignments in individual squares of the map. You have seen how to use both 3-D and area views. You have practiced drawing with the mouse, correcting your mistakes, and undoing your work. You have also seen how to change many map squares with a single command.

At this point, you should save your work, so you don't lose all the changes you have made so far to the Sample Dungeon. Select the Save command in the file menu list now. Examine the file menu list again for a moment. Notice that the Save command is dimmed when no new changes have been made since the last time the current module was saved. To exit the map editor, select the Leave command now in this menu list.

If you had forgotten to save your work, you would now be asked whether or not you wished to save your changes. Since you just saved this adventure module, the map editor quits without asking, and returns directly to the design menu. Press the QUIT FROM GAME button, and smile; you have successfully edited your first adventure design module!

PLANNING ACTIONS: THE EVENT EDITOR Now that you have modified a location for your adventure design, you are ready to make something happen in that spot. The tutorial included in this chapter describes how to use the map editor to place events. If you have not yet completed the tutorial in the previous chapter, go back and finish it before continuing to read this chapter.

Event Questionnaires Placing events in the map editor takes you to the event editor. Here you can specify what type of event you wish to place in your map, and what will happen when that event takes place during a game. You do the latter by filling in the answers to a questionnaire describing the specific type of event you have placed.

Event Types UNLIMITED ADVENTURES supplies questionnaires for many different types of events, including events that lead to combat with monsters and events that help the party recuperate afterwards. Anything that can happen to the party during a game is represented in UNLIMITED ADVENTURES by a specific event type.

Each time you place a new event in a map, a copy is made of the appropriate questionnaire for the type of event you select. An event questionnaire inquires about every aspect of that type of event that you could possibly change. For example, the questionnaire for combat events asks what types of monsters will be encountered, how many monsters of each type there will be, what those monsters will look like, and so on. All the questions on a new copy of the questionnaire are automatically filled in with standard, default answers. You can leave many of these default answers unchanged. To edit a new combat event, for example, you need only be concerned with changing the answers that are different for combat that takes place in this particular map square.

Pages Questionnaires are generally divided into logically related groups of questions, each on a separate page. UNLIMITED ADVENTURES displays one page of a questionnaire on your screen at a time. You do not necessarily have to examine every page in order to edit a new event. By pressing the NEXT or the PREV (previous) button, you can skip to any page of interest.

Page 1 of every event questionnaire concerns the logical conditions that must occur before the event takes place. The default answers to these questions are most often sufficient. Thus, when you first enter the event editor, the first screen to be displayed will always be page 2.

Tutorial: Designing a Combat Event This tutorial will lead you through the steps of placing and editing a combat event in the corridor you constructed in the previous chapter. You will change the answers to several important questions in a copy of the questionnaire for combat events. Answering these questions will introduce you to several of the new types of controls used in UNLIMITED ADVENTURES. If you quit UNLIMITED ADVENTURES at the end of the previous chapter, you should start it again now. In the design menu, first make sure that the name of the current adventure is still Tutorial Design. Then press the button labeled EDIT MODULES, and select the name

Dungeon 10 - Sample Dungeon in the list of adventure modules that appears. Now you are ready to continue editing the tutorial adventure module.

Creating a New Event When you enter the map editor, it remembers the last mode and view you used, but the marked square is set to a default, Change to 3-D view now, to examine the east wall of the marked square at column 0, row O. You should again see a burning torch on a solid rock wall. The name SAMPLE DUNGEON should be displayed in the upper righthand corner of the screen. If you opened the wrong module by mistake, select Open... from the map editor's file menu list and try again.

Make the party fight a battle before it can enter the hall with marble walls. Move south and then east, until you reach the map square at column 4, row 2. From the map menu list, select Event placement. The pen information panel now reports that the pen is set to place any event. Notice that the SELECT button has dimmed. Since you can place only one event at a time, you will be asked each time what type the new event should be.

Make sure that you are at column 4, row 2, facing east, with the pen set to place events. Now press the PLACE button. A vertical list will appear, showing all event types. Highlight the name Combat, if this choice is not already selected, then press SELECT to go to the event editor. On the screen, you now see page 2 of a copy of the questionnaire for designing combat events. If the top of this page does not say Combat Event, you selected some other type of event by mistake. If this happens, just press the CANCEL button to return to the map editor, and then start over by pressing the PLACE button again.

Using Text Boxes In the questionnaire on your screen, a large, nearly empty rectangle takes up six lines near the center of the page. The phrase Player reads: appears just above this rectangle, and the default message MONSTERS ATTACK! is displayed inside it. This large rectangle is a text box used in UNLIMITED ADVENTURES for entering messages. During the game, any message in this box is displayed just before actual battle begins.

You can delete the default message and enter something more specific. Click the mouse near the bottom of the large text box. It highlights, and the text-edit cursor appears at the end of the default message. If the text-edit cursor appears in the middle of the message MONSTERS ATTACK! instead of at the end, click again to the right of the word ATTACK!

To erase the default message, hold down the backspace key on your keyboard (it is identified in the data card that came with your package). Any valid characters that you type now will be inserted in the highlighted text box. Consequently, one-letter shortcuts for menu buttons don't work when a text box is active. Type the message: A hoard of Beholders comes down the passage! exactly as you see it here. When you are done, press the Enter Key to accept this new message.

On second thought, it might be better to say a horde of beholders. You can edit text messages as easily as you can delete them. Click the mouse over the letter R in the word hoard in your new message. The text box becomes active and is highlighted again. Now the text-edit cursor is displayed over the letter R.

Press the backspace key once to delete the character A. Use the right-arrow key to move the text-edit cursor past the letter D in hord, and then type the letter E. Notice that new text is always inserted under the text-edit cursor, pushing any existing text toward the right. Finish editing this message any way you like, and then press the Enter Key if you want to accept your changes. If you decide that you prefer the message the way it was first entered, press the escape key on your keyboard instead; this will discard all the changes you have made since the text box last became active.

Using Pop-up Menus In the lines immediately below the large text box, two pop-up menus allow you to control the initial location of the monsters. These pop-up menus work just like menu lists in the map editor. By default, monsters are Up close and In front of the party, no matter what direction the party approaches from. You should change these settings so the monsters are closer and surround your party in the corridor.

Hold down the mouse over the words Up close, next to the phrase Monsters are, to display a list of valid choices. Select the word Nearby from this pop-up menu list. Similarly, change the pop-up menu to the right of the phrase of the party from In front to E,W (you will probably have to scroll this menu list, to see all the choices). The answer E, W indicates that monsters will be located both to the east and to the west of the party. This page should now report that monsters are Nearby and E, W of the party.

This is a good example of the care that must be taken when changing default answers in a questionnaire. East and west are actually the only reasonable compass directions for combat in an east-west corridor one square wide. It is certainly possible to select an answer from the pop-up menu that includes the directions north or south (N' and '%). If you do so, however, when the actual combat occurs some monsters might end up on the other side of the corridor walls. That would make these monsters extremely difficult for the party to engage and defeat!

The text message you entered sounds as though the party will be taken by surprise, when this battle begins. Find the pop-up menu labeled Surprised. The default setting of this third pop-up menu is Neither, meaning neither side begins the battle in a state of disarray. Select Party instead - your player friends will love you for this!

Answering Yes/No Questions Since the monsters are no longer up close, you can choose to have them approach the party automatically in this corridor when combat is about to begin. Below the Surprised pop-up menu, find the phrase Auto approach. This is an example of a question that can only be answered by yes or no. By default, the yes/no button to the left of this phrase is off, and does not appear highlighted. Click this button to turn it on. Your yes answer will cause the monsters to approach automatically from nearby when combat begins.

While there is no UNDO button in the event editor, you have seen that it is easy to discard your changes to a text message. The answers to yes/no questions, or questions with pop-up menus, are also easily changed. Even if you have made changes to a long series of questions, on several pages of a questionnaire, they still have not been incorporated into the current adventure module. By clicking the CANCEL button, you could discard all the changes you have made since entering the event editor, and throw away your new combat event as well. That would be a shame! For now, keep your changes and return to the map editor by pressing the OK button instead.

When you return to the map editor, it is still in 3-D view. Note that in the small overhead map, the current square, at column 4, row 2, is filled with white. In event mode, a white map square indicates that an event has been placed there. To the right of the small overhead map, the map square information panel reports that the event in the current square is type combat. In a later chapter, you will actually try out your new combat event. The tutorial in the next chapter will first show you how to make further modifications to this event. Remember that any changes you have made to the current adventure module - even the ones you accepted by pressing the OK button in the event editor - are still only in working memory. They do not become permanent until the current module has actually been saved to your hard disk. Use the file menu list to save this adventure module now.

SELECTING IMAGES: THE ART GALLERY

In the last chapter, you created a custom combat event that forces the party to battle monsters when it traverses your new corridor. The tutorial in this chapter continues the process of editing this new event by specifying art items to display.

Art Types Clicking the mouse on the name of an art item in an event questionnaire transfers you to the art gallery. This is yet another tool for creating your adventure design. With the art gallery, you can modify what images the player will see during a game.

The appearance and behavior of the art gallery changes slightly, depending upon what type of art item you are selecting. Nine different types of art are used during games in UNLIMITED ADVENTURES. You have seen that Wall sets depict wails, doors, or other obstructions in a 3- D view of the current dungeon map square. Backdrops are also familiar they are the floors and ceilings (or the grounds and skies) on top of which wall images appear. Sprites are images shown in front of walls and backdrops. They generally depict the 3-D view of some monster, as seen from the current map square. Each sprite can be displayed at any one of three distances: far away, nearby, or up close. When the image is shown at each distance in rapid succession, the monster appears to be dashing toward you in the 3-D view. This is what is meant by auto approach.

The 3-D display window is also used to show a Picture. This is the portrait of a specific character, monster, place, or object. Some pictures flicker or change as you watch them on the screen. A variation is a Big Picture, which takes up half the height and virtually the entire width of the screen. Big pictures are used to display major events or panoramic views. Overland Maps are specialized big pictures. The terrain of an overland adventure module is represented during a game by the image in one overland map.

When a battle occurs, Combat icons are used to represent the characters and monsters. These icons are shown on top of various pieces of combat backdrop art. Dungeon art sets include the walls and backdrops displayed during indoor combat, while wilderness art sets include the ground, trees, and other terrain that appears during combat outdoors.

Tutorial: Selecting a Sprite and a Combat Icon

You will learn in this tutorial how to customize a combat event by adding art items to display. Using the art gallery, you will learn how to view and select these art items. This tutorial will introduce two specific types of art: sprites and combat icons. You will also learn more about saving and deleting your work.

Editing an Existing Event If you have been following the tutorials in order you should now be in the map editor, in 3-D view and event-placement mode, editing the SAMPLE DUNGEON module of the TUTORIAL DESIGN adventure. Make sure you are still located in the map square at column 4, row 2, facing east.

You should see a marble door straight ahead, at the end of a stone corridor in the 3-D point of view window. The grid square under the yellow arrow in the small overhead map should be filled with white. The map square information panel reports that a combat event has been placed here.

Notice that the pen information panel now says Edit event instead of Place event. The PLACE button also behaves slightly differently. When an event has already been assigned to the current map square, pressing this button takes you directly to the chain-of-events editor. Try it now.

You should see an information panel in the bottom half of the screen, stating that you are in the chain-of-events editor. This panel also reports that you have used two of the one hundred events allowed in a single adventure module (one was already placed for you, before you started these tutorials). The limited amount of room for text messages in this adventure module is still 99% free. When you entered a message about beholders in the combat event during the previous tutorial, you used up a tiny fraction of that room. If you run out of events, or use up all the text space for messages, you will have to delete events or clear existing messages in the current module before you can add any more.

Now examine the vertical list in the top half of the screen. It reports that the current event is a combat event, assigned to the map square at column 4, row 2. As you will see in another chapter, it is possible to link several events together into a chain, so that one event happens right after the other. Since you placed this combat event in a map square, rather than linking it to some other event, there is no previous event or next event here. To edit the combat event, press the EDIT button.

Entering the Art Gallery

Pressing EDIT in the chain-of-events editor takes you to the event editor, and displays page 2 of the current event. Your text message, a warning about beholders, should now be visible in the large text box near the center of the screen.

While you have already customized the answers to many of the questions on this page, there is a glaring oversight here. You have specified that the monsters be shown nearby just before the battle, and approach the party automatically. You have also entered a message about beholders to be displayed at the same time. Just above the large text box, however, this questionnaire says the player will see the image of a Kobold. You need to change this default art item to the image of a beholder.

lust to the right of the phrase Player sees: click on the button labeled Kobold'. You are immediately transferred to the art gallery. In the top half of your screen, you now see the art item whose name - Kobold - is currently selected in the vertical list. The information panel suggests that you select an image of a sprite for the module SAMPLE DUNGEON.

Selecting an Art Item

Use the arrow keys, the mouse, or the Menu PgUp and Menu PgDn keys to examine as much of this list as you like. As you scroll, notice that different types of art are displayed. The information panel changes to show which type of art is currently selected.

When you select a picture art item, it is displayed just as it will appear during play: in a standard, 3-D window frame, possibly with animation. Big pictures also appear as they will during a game.

When you select a sprite, however, you see three monster images in a row. Each sprite image is displayed inside a stone corridor. From left to right, these three images depict the selected monster as it appears when far away, nearby, and up close, respectively.

By default, the art item you highlight in the list is also displayed at the top of the screen. If you know the exact name of the art item you wish to select, however, you may wish to turn off this art display. Press the View button now. You see a longer list of names, with no information panel or an-display panel. Since the list is longer in this alternative view, and no art needs to be drawn, scrolling through a long list of names will be faster. Experiment to see this for yourself.

The combat-event questionnaire will accept any art item listed here. However, since you have specified that monsters should approach automatically from nearby, it would make the most sense if you chose a sprite - a beholder, for example. Highlight the name Beholder, and then use the View button to restore the display of art images. You should now see the three images of a sprite, each showing a rotund, brown monster abundantly supplied with colorful eyes. Confirm this choice and return to the event editor. The questionnaire should now state that the player sees a Beholder before combat begins.

Adding Monsters

So far, you have customized the answers to questions only on page 2 of this copy of the combat-event questionnaire. A few important questions remain, for which you might want to supply non-standard answers. To see these additional questions, press the NEXT button now.

Up to six different types of monsters may be included in one combat event. On pages 3 and 4 of this questionnaire, you can specify which types of monsters, and how many of each type, will be encountered during this particular event. For now, examine monster number t .. You see the name and image of the default monster, a kobold. This is not a very appropriate type of monster for the party to encounter during battles in this particular corridor. Click on the button labeled Kobold to select a different choice.

You are now back in the art gallery. The art item you see on your screen differs, however, from what you have viewed previously. Each of two images now shows a fragment of a standard combat backdrop for dungeons, including stretches of a rock wall. Near the bottom of each image, you see a small figure with sword and shield. The left-hand image shows a kobold at rest, while the right-hand image shows it in action.

The information panel suggests that you select a combat icon. If you scroll through the list of names, you will notice that combat icons are the only type of art listed. This time, you are answering a question about what type of monster to include during combat. The art gallery has consequently restricted your choices to the small icons used to represent monsters during a battle.

Highlight the name Beholder' in the vertical list. When you examine this selection, you see two images of a rotund monster looking something like an optometrist's nightmare. In the right-hand image, the beholder's fangs are bared. Ugh! Confirm this choice and return to the event editor.

Now the button you clicked before, on page 3 of the event editor, is labeled Beholder' instead of Kobold. The combat icon for a beholder at rest is displayed beside this button.

Using Number Boxes

A final change you might make here is to alter the number of beholders the party will encounter. To the left of the button labeled beholder, a number box shows that the current quantity is ten.

For combat that occurs in your corridor, assume this is a good season for beholders and increase the number of monsters. Click once on this number box to highlight it, and type the number twenty. Notice that, unlike a text box, you cannot move the cursor in a number box. Any existing digits move left to make room for the new digits you type, just like the display on a simple hand calculator. Press the Enter Key to accept this new value.

You can also edit a number box in a way simple hand calculators won't allow. This time, click twice on the number box. Now the current value is accepted, and the digit on the right side of the box, 0, is highlighted for editing. Try pressing the up-arrow key. The number twenty will change to twenty-one. If you press the down-arrow key twice, you can change this number to nineteen. While this is useful for making fine adjustments to a number quickly, you might want to jump by a large amount. Press the Menu Up key. The value in the active number box drops to the smallest valid answer, which in this particular case happens to be zero.

Zero beholders doesn't promise an exciting battle. Try pressing the Menu Down key. Now the value in the number box jumps to the largest valid answer - thirty-one, in this case. Press the right-arrow key on your keyboard, and the value thirty-one shrinks to three. You might wish to play with this number box for a while, to get used to its behavior.

While up to thirty-one monsters of one type may be included in a single combat event, note that the grand total of all types of monsters combined can never be more than fifty. Some types of monsters are so fierce, they count as two in this reckoning.

While you are considering the value to enter here, remember that if the party does not survive this combat event, it will never get the chance to see whatever you place in the marble rooms. You can discard all the changes you have made since the last time this number box became active, by pressing the escape key. Do this now. If you leave the number of beholders at twenty, the party will not be bored!

To accept all the current answers to your copy of the combat-event questionnaire, press the 0K button. You are now back in the chain-of-events editor. The vertical list here still shows the current combat event at column 4, row 2. If you had made several changes to this combat event, and then regretted it, you could have exited the event editor by pressing the CANCEL button. Canceling a brand new event deletes that event altogether. Canceling an existing event, however, merely restores that event to the state it was in when you last pressed EDIT in the chain-of-events editor.

Saving, Deleting, and Restoring

Even existing events can be deleted, if you wish. An easy way to do this is to go to the map editor, and press LEAVE in the chain-of-events editor. Be sure to save your work now, before continuing this tutorial,

Note: It is very important that you save your work now. If you do not, you could have to repeat the last two tutorials. To make sure your work is saved, examine the file menu list. If nothing has been changed since the last time the current adventure module was saved, the Save command will appear dimmed. If the Save command is not dimmed and you are able to select it, do so now.

When you are sure any changes to the module SAMPLE DUNGEON have been saved onto your hard disk, hold down the shift key on your keyboard. The pen information panel now reports that the pen is set to place no event. Earlier, you saw that holding down the shift key temporarily sets the pen to draw with default values. In event mode, the pen is temporarily set instead to delete any existing events. To delete the event in the current map square, continue to hold down the shift key while pressing the EDIT button.

When you do something dangerous in UNLIMITED ADVENTURES, such as deleting an event you worked hard to modify, a warning message appears. On your screen you now see the message Delete 1 event (cannot undo)? You can back out now by pressing the CANCEL button. If you are sure you saved your work, press the OK button instead. In the small overhead map, the square under the yellow arrow is no longer filled with white. The map square information panel reports that no event is assigned to this square. Do not save your work yet!

You will need your new combat event in the next chapter. Fortunately, you can still get it back. Remember that the changes you make are only in working memory, until you save them to your hard disk. You can still restore the current adventure module to the state it was in when you last saved. Select the Revert to saved command from the map editor's file menu list.

Once again, a warning message appears. This time, you see: Revert to saved (can't undo)? If you have been following this tutorial faithfully, the only change you have made since the last time you saved the current adventure module has been to delete an event you badly need. Press the OK button now to undo that deletion.

The Revert to saved command loads the current adventure module's file from your hard disk, replacing whatever is in working memory with the contents of that file. Since your new combat event was only deleted from working memory, after it had previously been saved to your hard disk, it is restored by this load process. The map square information panel now reports that a combat event is in the current square. In the small overhead map, the grid square under the yellow arrow is filled with white again. As long as you remember to save your work carefully, before taking any drastic actions or starting a new series of changes, you will be able to recover with the Revert to saved command.

Whew! If you want to take a break now, select Leave from the file menu list. You should go directly to the design menu, without seeing any warning messages. Now you can press the QUIT FROM GAME button to exit UNLIMITED ADVENTURES.

If, when you try to leave the map editor, you see a message asking whether you want to save your changes, you probably did not revert to the last saved version. If this happens to you, press the CANCEL button to return to the map editor. Look carefully to see whether or not your combat event has actually been restored. If it is not in the map, hopefully it will still be on your hard disk. Select Leave from the file menu list again, and this time press the DON'T SAVE button when the warning message appears. Not saving your work when you leave has the same effect as reverting to the last saved version.

Now you have learned how the art gallery is used to select various types of images for display. You have seen how an event is edited and deleted. You have also discovered that even serious mistakes can be undone when working with UNLIMITED ADVENTURES.

TESTING A DESIGN: THE ADVENTURE INTERFACE

Now that you have created a new combat event, it would be nice to see how it works. The best way to test how your design will actually look and feel to a game player is to play yourself. UNLIMITED ADVENTURES makes this easy. The tutorial in this chapter introduces a quick method for playing part of an adventure you have just designed.

The Starting Location

UNLIMITED ADVENTURES permits the game designer to assume, temporarily, the role of a game player in order to test portions of a design. When play begins, the party is located in a map square you select, in the adventure module of your choice. As the party moves through this dungeon or overland region, events occur just as they would in a real game. At any time, the designer may stop this simulated play and return to editing the adventure design.

The initial location of the party, when it enters a particular dungeon or overland region, is specified with an entry point. This consists of a column and a row number, plus a compass direction. As many as eight different entry points may be set in each adventure module, depending upon how many ways there are for the party to enter that particular dungeon or overland region. When you first begin playing an adventure, the party starts out in the module and entry point specified in the game settings.

Tutorial: Testing the Combat Event

In this tutorial, you will learn how to test the features of an adventure module by playing it. You wily see how to specify where in your map the party will start out, and how to examine what squares they will be able to reach. You will also explore a combat event, and learn how to quit combat quickly, so you can return to your design work.

Placing a Map Entry Point

Before testing this adventure module, you need to specify a starting location for the party. To see which entry points have already been placed in the current map, select the command Entry points from the utilities menu list. You see an area map of the current module, in which the entry points flash briefly to help you locate them. Notice that the menus at the top of the screen have disappeared, and the menu buttons at the bottom are different.

Each map square where an entry point has been assigned is now filled with a number between one and eight. By default, all the entry points in a map are assigned to the square at column O, row 0, facing east. Since lower numbers appear on top of higher numbers, you now see only the number one in the square at (0, O) in your area map.

To review a list of all the entry points, look in the pen information panel. Beside each entry-point number from one to eight, you see a column number followed by a row number and a compass direction. All the entry points in this module, except the second one, are currently assigned to column O, row O, facing east.

Note that the second entry point has been assigned to column 21, row 9, facing west. To see this entry point, scroll to the area map to the right. When columns 21 to 23 first scroll into view, you see the digit 2 flashing in the square at column 21, row 9.

To reassign one of the eight entry points, you can click the mouse on a map square. Try this now: move the second entry point from the corridor into the large hall by clicking on the left edge of the square at column 16, row 6. A vertical list appears, beneath the message Place which entry point at 16, 6? Reassign the second entry point to this square by selecting the item that says Entry 2: 21, 9 West.

Note: If you have no mouse, you will have to return to the map editor and move to the square at column 16, row 6, facing west. From this location, you can select Place entry from the utilities menu list to set the second entry point.

You now see the area map again, with a flashing digit 2 inside the large hall in the center of the area map. The pen information panel reports that the second entry point is now at (16, 6) WEST. If the direction does not say west, you probably hit the wrong edge of the map square, and should try again. When you are satisfied with the new location of the second entry point, press the OK button to accept your changes and return to the map editor. The menus now reappear at the top of the screen, and the information panels show wall settings again.

Marking a Square

You can easily check your map to see what rooms the party will be able to visit. First, however, you need to mark the square where the party will start. If the map editor is not in area view, change to this view now. You can easily mark the map square where you placed the second entry point, at column 16, row 6. Use the mouse (if you have one) to press the MARK button. Now click on the left edge of the map square at column 16, row 6. The yellow arrow marker should jump to this square and point toward the west. If you have no mouse, you should use the arrow keys to move the yellow arrow marker to this location.

One way to discover where the party might go is to explore the dungeon yourself. If you have been following this tutorial faithfully, you haven't yet examined the large hall where column 16, row 6 is located. Look at this hall now. First, make sure the command Move through walls is not checked in the map menu list. Then change to 3-D view.

If you succeeded in marking the west wall at column 16, row 6, you now see a tiny torch burning on a stone wall in the far distance. You are clearly in a vast hall; no walls are visible to your left or right. Turn to examine the view in the other three directions. Try walking around the stone pillar, until you reach the torch on the wall at column 18, row 7. If you get lost, look at the yellow arrow in the small overhead map. When you reach the torch, select Area view again from the map menu list.

Notice the current position and direction of the yellow arrow in the area map. Each time you move in 3-D view, the square you are in becomes the new marked square, and the direction you are facing becomes the marked direction. When you return to area view, the yellow arrow marks the last square you visited in 3-D view. If you want to mark a different square in area view, you can always use the MARK button. For now, just leave the current marked square as it is.

Checking Accessibility

Clearly, exploring a map step by step could be a long process. Fortunately, there's a better way. In the utilities menu list, select the Display Access command. Notice that most of the squares inside the large stone hall, at the center of the map, are now filled with white. The pen information panel has changed to report Access. The different levels of access distinguished here are based on what obstructions the party will have to overcome, in order to reach various rooms. The first level of access is listed beside a patch of white. All the squares now filled with white in the area map can potentially be reached by a party from the currently marked square, without any special abilities or equipment. The pen information panel reports that a total of seventy-six map squares could be visited at this level of access.

Notice that some map squares in the area map are now filled with light yellow. Scroll the map to the left, to examine this more closely. You now see that the corridor between columns 0 and 1, in row 9, is filled with white. Any party will potentially be able to reach this far (if the party moves east beyond the edge of the map at column 23, row 9, it will wrap around to the map square at column 0, row 9). However, no party will be able to visit the eight yellow map squares in the small hall located between columns 2 and 4 and rows 8 and 10 unless it is able to penetrate locked doors.

An even more interesting fact emerges from this access display. Examine the corridor you placed in row 2, from column 1 to 5. This corridor is not filled with any of the colors representing different levels of access, but instead is still black. This means that no matter what items the party possesses, or how powerful its members are, the party will never reach your new corridor from column 16, row 6 by any ordinary means.

This inaccessibility does not necessarily mean there is something wrong with the adventure module. Later, you will see how to bridge two otherwise disconnected portions of a map, so that in certain circumstances the party may cross from one to the other. For now, check which rooms the party will be able to visit, if it starts out in your new corridor. Press RETURN to go back to the map editor.

Instead of pressing the MARK button and then clicking on a map square, you can use a short cut in area view. Move the mouse cursor over the map square in the middle of your new corridor, at column 3, row 2, but do not click the mouse button. Make sure the map square information panel says you are facing EAST. Now, press the MARK button. The yellow arrow jumps to mark the east edge of the square at column 3, row 2.

When you are satisfied that you have marked the correct square wall, choose Display access again from the utilities menu list. This time, none of the squares in the rooms on the east and south sides of the map are filled with any color; each part of this map is currently inaccessible to the other. However, all the squares inside the stone corridors and the marble hall in the northwest portion of the map can be reached from the marked square.

Of course, the party will need to pass through the locked door at the east end of your corridor, in order to reach the 24 squares in the marble hall. Press RETURN to go back to the map editor.

Note: Display access quickly detects leaks in what are supposed to be solid walls. When you use this command in your new corridor, you may see hundreds of squares, rather than just a few, filled with white. If so, one or more of the walls you placed probably had an obstruction level of open instead of blocked. You should go back now and redraw those walls using a blocked obstruction level.

From the map menu list, select 3-D view again. Where are you? Notice that before, when you changed from 3-D view to area view, the last visited square remained marked until you deliberately changed it with the MARK button. When you change the other way, from area view to 3-D view, you find yourself inside whatever square is currently marked - in this case, the map square in the middle of your new corridor, at column 3, row 2, facing east.

While you are here, assign a special entry point to help test your new combat encounter. The map editor should still be in 3-D view. Select Place entry from the utilities menu list. In the vertical list of entry points that appears, select the item that says Entry 8: O, 0 North. Now entry point 8 has been assigned to the currently marked square: the one at column 3, row 2, facing east.

Changing Game Settings

By default, adventure designs are set to begin the game at entry point 1, in the first overland region. You must change these settings in order to test the new combat event in the corridor of your Sample Dungeon module. Settings that belong to the adventure design as a whole, rather than to one individual module of that adventure design, cannot be changed inside the map editor. You must return to the design menu.

Select Leave now from the file menu list. When you are asked whether or not you want to save your changes, be sure to press the SAVE button. If you don't save the changes you have made to the entry points in the Sample Dungeon module, the rest of this tutorial probably won't make any sense.

In the design menu, press the button labeled GAME SETTINGS. You see the message GAME SETTINGS PAGE 1 at the top of your screen. Here you can change the name of your adventure design and alter settings as experience, equipment, and spec)al inventory items the party starts with.

For now, just change the location where the party starts the game. The button beneath the phrase The adventure begins in: currently displays the name of the first overland module. Press this button, and select the name Dungeon 10 - Sample Dungeon in the list that appears. To the right of the button, beside the phrase at entry point, change the value in the number box to your new entry point: 8. Now the game settings editor should say that this adventure begins in the SAMPLE Dungeon at entry point 8. Press OK to accept these changes and return to the design menu.

Notice that there is no Save command in the design menu. The changes that you make inside the game settings editor are discarded, if you exit by pressing the CANCEL button. This works just like the event editor inside the map editor. Unlike the event editor, however, exiting the game settings editor by pressing OK saves immediately to your hard disk any changes you have made.

Testing the Adventure

Notice that the design menu includes a button labeled PLAY THE GAME. This is the button you would press if you had completed your adventure design and wanted to try it out as any ordinary player would. Players don't have the special game powers that designers have, however. While you are still working on a design, it is much faster and easier to test an individual adventure module from the map editor. When you do this, you get to play a portion of the game while retaining the special powers of a designer.

Re-enter the map editor now, by pressing the EDIT MODULES button, and select the name Dungeon 10 - Sample Dungeon in the vertical list that appears. Once again, you should see your corridor in the 3-D point of view window, looking east from the map square at column 3, row 2. Finally, you are ready to test your new combat event. From the utilities menu list, select the command Test Module.

When you test an adventure module as a designer, you do not go to the standard game starting menu. Instead, you are assigned a default party, and you go immediately to the game adventure menu. This menu looks something like 3-D view in the map editor. Unlike the menu buttons in the map editor, these menu buttons (at the bottom of your screen) let you switch to AREA view, CAST a spell, VIEW the character summary, and so on.

The 3-D window should still display the corridor you constructed out of stone walls. A marble door should appear at the end of this corridor. The compass needle should still point to E and, to the right of this compass, you should see the map coordinates 3, 2.

If the compass does not point east, perhaps you marked the wrong wall of the square at column 3, row 2. Try turning around until the compass displays E. If you are located at square (0, 0), perhaps you assigned some entry point other than Entry 8 to the map square in the middle of your corridor. Alternatively, you may not have correctly set the starting entry point to 8 in the game settings editor. If this happens, don't worry - you are still nearby. Just walk through the corridors until you arrive at map square (3, 2).

Now press the AREA button. The 3-D point of view showing the current map square is replaced by an area point of view showing a small overhead map. Notice that maps are not color-coded here: they reveal no details about obstruction levels, events and so on. For the moment, you have assumed the role of a game player, and can see and do only what the player can see and do (with a few important exceptions).

Press the AREA button again, to return to 3-D view. Now, move forward one step. By entering the map square at column 4, row 2, you have activated the combat event you placed in that square. You see your text message in the bottom of the screen: A HORDE OF BEHOLDERS COMES DOWN THE PASSAGE! The sprite you selected - a drooling, ugly eyeful - runs at you from the east. Ugh!

Begin fighting the battle between your default party and the twenty beholders to the east and west. Notice that, even though your testing party is quite strong, it isn't a completely trivial matter to defeat this horde. Perhaps you should design an easier combat here, so an ordinary party will have a better chance of reaching the marble hall. If you get tired of fighting this battle, you can quit early. Unlike the real game player, designers have special, magical powers. One of them is represented by the button labeled WIN at the bottom of your screen. Press WIN now.

Returning to the Map Editor

The message The Gods intervene! is displayed on your screen, and then you are asked whether or not you want to Continue Battle? For now, press the NO button. You will see a message informing you that The Party has won. Isn't it nice to have friends in high places? Press the Return Key on your keyboard, to return to the game adventure menu.

If you liked, you could now move around some more in the Sample Dungeon module, exploring its other features. This module still requires several changes, however, to make it more fun to play. For now, press the ENCAMP button. You find yourself at the edge of a roaring camp fire. If you were really playing this adventure, instead of only testing one module of it, you could save your game or load another one here. Designers don't have these options. In their place, however, new options have been added, such as the option to return immediately to the map editor. Do so now: press the DONE button at the bottom of the screen.

In this tutorial, you have seen how to mark your place in a map, and how to test where the party can go from that marked square. You have seen how to designate any square as an entry point into the current adventure module. By setting the starting module and entry point for the current design, you learned that you can easily become a temporary player at any location in the adventure module you are editing.

FIXING A DESIGN: THE CHAIN-OF-EVENTS EDITOR

When you first begin a new adventure design from scratch, you will want to spend lots of time with pencil and paper, planning the major features of your game. The modular nature of UNLIMITED ADVENTURES helps you to think about breaking your design down into independent parts which you can work on separately.

The tutorial in the next two chapters emphasize some later steps in the design process: the repetitive cycle of modifying one existing module of your design, testing those modifications, and then modifying that module again. When this cycle eventually finishes, you will have completed another dungeon or overland region in your adventure.

Tutorial: Building a Chain of Events

You will learn in this tutorial how to link one event to another, so the second happens immediately after the first. You will also practice editing the resulting chain of events.

Entering the Event Editor from Area View

The combat event you tested in the last chapter seemed too difficult for an ordinary party. While difficult battles can be fun in a game, generally you will want to reserve these for particularly important stages of your adventure. lust entering the marble hall at the end of your corridor shouldn't be quite that hard.

To edit your combat event, make sure the map editor is still in event mode, and change to area view. Notice that two map squares are filled with white in this mode: one event has been placed in your corridor at column 4, row 2, and another event exists near the great stone hall, at column 20, row 6. If you move the mouse cursor over each white square in the map, you can see in the map square information panel what type of event has been placed there.

In a later chapter, you will see how to make use of the teleport event in the great stone hall. For now, click the mouse once on the white square at column 4, row 2, inside the corridor you built.

Changing the Monsters Encountered

In the chain-of-events editor, press the EDIT button to edit your combat event. Use the NEXT button to move to page 3. Click twice on the number box displaying the value twenty for the number of beholders. Use the down-arrow key to reduce the number of beholders encountered here, from twenty to something more manageable.

Use your judgment about what the new value should be, based on how difficult you thought the combat was when you tested it. Try to keep some target player in mind - this will not necessarily be an expert. Remember, as well, that traversing this particular corridor is not meant to be the turning point of your game. If you like, you can reduce the number of beholders even further, and then introduce additional types of monsters into combat that takes place in this corridor. For example, if you put a few kobolds back into this event, it will prove interesting later on.

When you are satisfied with the monsters encountered, press the 0K button. Back in the chain-of-events editor, you can make another kind of change to your combat event. It might be nice if the player gained a substantial treasure by defeating this ugly horde. One way to do this would be to place a give-treasure event in the square just to the east of this one. That method would only work, however, if the party approached from the west every time. Another way to make two events happen one after the other, no matter what direction the party approaches from, is to build a chain of events in a single map square.

Inserting a Combat-Treasure Event

A special type of event, combat treasure, will be useful for this task. When a combat-treasure event occurs just before a combat event, it modifies that combat event so the party obtains a prize when it wins the battle. In the chain-of-events editor, you can insert a new event of type combat treasure at column 4, row 2 - before your combat event. Now there will be two events here, forming a chain. It won't matter whether the party enters this square from the east or the west, the combat-treasure event will always occur first, followed immediately by your combat event.

At the moment, the only event in the chain is your combat event. To insert a new event before this current event, press the INSERT button now. In the vertical list of event types that appears, select the type combat treasure. The questionnaire, of which the second page you now see on the screen, asks questions related to a pre-combat event for assigning treasure.

Locate the questions related to money. Click once on the number box to the right of the word PLATINUM. Type the number 1000 and then press the Tab Key on your keyboard. The new value in the platinum number box is accepted, and the next number box, beside the word GEMS, becomes highlighted. Type the number 100 and press the Tab Key again. Now type the number 100 in the number box beside the word JEWELRY, and then press the Enter Key.

You can also assign special items the party can gain by winning a battle in this map square. Locate the first button underneath the word ITEMS. Click on this button and select a useful prize from the vertical list that appears. For example, select POTIONS. A second list appears, displaying a variety of potions from which you can choose. Select the POTION OF GIANT STRENGTH. In the event questionnaire for pre-combat treasure, you now see POTION OF GIANT STRENGTH listed as the first item. If the party wins the combat event that follows, it will find this potion lying on the battlefield. By using this potion, the party can improve its ability to bash in the locked door to the marble hall.

Viewing a Chain of Events

Press the OK button at the bottom of the current page in the event editor to accept your new combat-treasure event. This time, when you return to the chain-of-events gallery, the vertical list in the top half of the screen has changed. Now the current event is the new combat-treasure event, and the combat event is listed below it as the Next event. You have succeeded in creating a chain of events consisting of these two links.

Because you inserted the new combat-treasure event before the first event placed at column 4, row 2, this combat-treasure event has become the first event in the chain; it is anchored at column 4, row 2, in the map of the Sample Dungeon. Try pressing the LEAVE button now; you see the area-view map again. When you move the mouse cursor over the white square at column 4, row 2, you see that a COMBAT TREASURE event has been placed here, not a COMBAT event. The only event reported in the map square information panel of the map editor is the first event in a chain - the one anchored to the map.

Now click on the white square with the COMBAT TREASURE event at column 4, row 2. The chain-of-events gallery lets you see all the events in a chain. Press the button labeled NEXT, at the bottom of the screen, to scroll the list of events. The combat event becomes the current event in the vertical list, and your new combat-treasure event is now listed as the Previous event. When you press the NEXT button again, the chain-of-events editor shows that no event currently follows combat in this chain.

Appending a Text Statement Event

You could give the player one additional bonus for defeating these beholders. After the battle, the party might discover a clue, in the form of a fragment torn from a scroll. You can accomplish this by displaying a message with an event of type text statement after the combat event in this corridor.

Make sure the current event is still the empty link at the end of the chain; the combat event should be listed as the previous event. Now press the INSERT button. In the vertical list that appears,

select text statement. You should now see a questionnaire asking what message the player will read, and how it will be formatted on the screen.

As many as five different messages can be displayed on the player's screen, one after another, during a single text-statement event. The text box for the first message, Text l, appears on this page of the event editor; the second and subsequent messages may be entered on pages 3 and 4 of this questionnaire. One reason for distributing a statement among several text boxes is to control the formatting and timing of the statement's appearance on the screen.

For now, click on the text box labeled Text 1 to activate it. Enter a sentence, such as THE PARTY DISCOVERS ONE FRAGMENT OF A SCROLL. Be sure to leave a space after the period at the end of this sentence. Press the Enter Key to accept your new text. Just below this text box, click the yes/no button beside the phrase MUST PRESS RETURN so the button is no longer highlighted. Press NEXT to go to page 3.

Continue entering the text statement seen by the player; click in the text box at the top of the page, labeled Text 2. In this second text box, enter the literal message fragment written on the piece of scroll. To help the player recognize that you are quoting this passage, enclose it in quotation marks. For example, an appropriate fragment might be something like: ...PROTECT THE MARBLE HALL AT ALL COSTS! THE SECRET OF THE SIXTH ROOM MUST NOT... Leave a space after the final quotation mark. Press the Enter Key now, to accept the changes to this second text box.

By convention in Gold Box games, literal messages are not only quoted, they are also displayed in highlighted characters when they appear during a game. Turn on the yes/no button next to the word Highlight below the text box labeled Text 2. To complete your message, click on the text box labeled Text 3. Type a sentence such as DESPITE A CAREFUL SEARCH, THE REST OF THIS SCROLL CANNOT BE FOUND.' Press the Enter Key to accept this new text.

The sentences in the two text boxes labeled Text 1 and Text 2 will be glued together during the game into a single paragraph. Only the second sentence in this paragraph - the message you entered in the text box labeled Text 2 - will appear highlighted. The player will have to press a RETURN button in order to read the sentence in the text box labeled TEXT 3.

Press the OK button to accept your new text-statement event. In the chain-of-events editor, the vertical list now displays the new text statement as the current event. There should be no next event, and you should still see combat listed as the previous event. Press the PREV button to scroll up to this combat event, and then press the EDIT button. In the event editor, press the PREV button to display page 1 of the questionnaire for combat events. Near the bottom of this page, notice that the button beside the phrase CHAIN EVENT now says TEXT STATEMENT.

Press the CANCEL menu button to return to the chain-of-events editor without making any changes. Now there are three events in this chain. All three events will happen sequentially when the party enters the map square at column 4, row 2, of your Sample Dungeon.

Examine the information panel in the chain-of-events editor. Note that four of the one hundred possible events in the Sample Dungeon adventure module have now been used up. The space available for text messages in this adventure module has also been reduced by a percent or two.

Testing an Event Chain

When you are finished viewing the chain of events, press the LEAVE button. It doesn't matter which link in the chain is the current event; all these events have already been added to your current adventure module in working memory. Save this version of the Sample Dungeon adventure module on your hard disk now. To test the new chain of events in your corridor, select Test module from the utilities menu list. Don't forget that you can quit the battle early, by using the WIN button.

After you have tested this new chain of events, return to the map editor from the game's encamp menu by choosing DONE. Click on the combat-treasure event at column 4, row 2, to enter the chain-of-events editor.

If you wanted to adjust the treasure received by the party after the battle, you could edit the combat-treasure event. If the number and type of monsters required further adjustment, you could edit the combat event instead. For now, concentrate on the text-statement event. The message about a scroll fragment is a little disconcerting when it suddenly appears after the battle. A picture of a scroll would be useful here.

Scroll until the text-statement event is the current event, and then press EDIT. On page 2 of the event editor, beneath the phrase PLAYER WILL locate the word SEE: Click on the button labeled NO ART. In the art gallery, select the picture named ITEM: SCROLL and return to the event editor. If you had selected a sprite instead, the pop-up menu labeled distance would now be used to set the range at which that art image should appear. This pop-up menu has no effect on your picture.

Save your work, and then test this module again. This time, your text statement should be easier to understand. You see a picture of a scroll instead of the corridor walls, while you pause to read the scroll fragment. When you are finished, return to the map editor.

This tutorial has guided you through the process of building and editing a chain of events anchored in one square of a map. You have practiced going back and forth between making small changes and testing them as a player. In the process, you have seen how to create several new types of events.

EXTENDING A DESIGN: THE GLOBAL INFORMATION EDITOR

The edit-and-test process you carried out in the last chapter will be repeated many times until you have built a complete dungeon. The kinds of changes you will make and test, however, are not all the same. So far, we have focused only on changes related to a particular location in the current adventure module. This chapter introduces other changes you can make, by editing global information about the adventure module as a whole.

Tutorial: Changing the Map Global Information

This tutorial explores the enhancements you can make to a design, by changing the global information pertaining to an entire adventure module. You will learn here how to name an adventure module and its zones, how to load different sets of art, and how to use a step encounter to create a wandering monster.

You should be in the map editor, working on SAMPLE DUNGEON of the TUTORIAL DESIGN. The currently marked square should be at column 0, row O, facing east. Switch to wall mode and 3-D view, if necessary.

Renaming a Module

You cannot change information about the current adventure module as a whole by drawing on individual squares in a map. Instead, you must use the global information editor. Select Global Info' in the file menu list. The top of your screen should now state that you are editing page 1 of the questionnaire about GLOBAL MAP INFORMATION.

The name Sample Dungeon is not really very helpful as a description of this particular adventure module. Locate the rectangle beneath the phrase ADVENTURE MODULE NAME. This rectangle is actually a text box. It differs from the ones you have seen before, because of the limited nature of this question. Instead of six lines of text, you may enter, at most, fifteen characters of the name of an adventure module.

Click on this small text box to highlight it. Replace the existing name with anything that will help you to identify this particular module (the player will never see this name, only you will). Notice that the global information editor just beeps if you try to enter more characters than will fit in a module name. Accept your changes by pressing the Enter Key, or revert to the original name by pressing the escape key now.

While you are at it, give the zones in your map more useful names. Remember that all squares in a map are assigned to zone l, by default. In this particular adventure module, we have given all the rooms other assignments, so that only the inaccessible space remains in zone I. Click once on the small text box beside the phrase ZONE NAME l :', near the center of the page. Type the word INACCESSIBLE. Press the Tab Key on your keyboard, to select this name and move to the text box for zone 2.

All the rooms in the great stone hall have been assigned to zone 2. Type GREAT HALL here, and press the Tab Key again. For zone 3, enter the name MARBLE HALL; you reassigned these rooms from zone 4 to zone 3 in the chapter on using the Map Editor. Since you haven't used any other zones in this module, just press the Enter Key to accept this name.

Loading New Wall Art

Press the NEXT button to go to page 2 of the global information questionnaire. On this page, you change the wall art, backdrop art, or combat-terrain art loaded in the current module's slots. Remember that wall art, for example, is loaded in three sets of five images. If you load a new art set into wall slot 1, this will not change the image numbers assigned to the various square walls in your map. Instead, it will change the meaning of those numbers; all the square wails currently assigned an image number between one and five display images from whatever wall set is currently loaded in slot 1. By loading a new wall set in slot 1, you change instantly the images all these walls will display.

Try this now: locate the phrase PICK WALL ART SETS near the top of page 2 in the global information editor. Click on the button next to the phrase WALL ART SLOT 1 '. In the art gallery, you see the five images of the wall set named ROCK A'. Select the wall set named BRICKS. You return to the global information editor, where page 2 should now say that WALL ART SLOT 1 is the set named BRICKS.

Press the OK button to accept these global changes and return to the map editor. Notice that the walls to the left and right of the burning torch have changed appearance; they now display the smooth blocks of the BRICKS wall set, instead of the rough stones of the set named ROCK A. The color-code of these smooth walls - dark blue - is still the same in the small overhead map; their wall numbers have not changed, only the image referred to by those numbers. Why is the torch still burning on a wall made of rough stones?

Once again, examine the overhead map closely. The color-code for the wall of rough stones with a burning torch is light green. Press the SELECT button, and examine the right half of the wall-menu screen. Notice that the light green color-code and the burning torch are located at the end of the middle row of wall images. They are in wall-set slot 2. You changed only the wall art loaded in set 1, which is displayed in the first row of five wall images.

To make the east wall at column 0, row 0, fit the new corridor appearance, you need to change the rough-stone wall with a color-code of light green into the smooth-block wall color-coded dark blue. Click now on the left image in the first row, color-coded dark blue. Change the obstruction level as well, from the default OPEN to BLOCKED. By replacing one wall with another that has the same obstruction level, only the image will actually be changed. When the new wall and obstruction settings are correct, press the SELECT button to return to the map editor.

The pen information panel should now display the image of a blank, smooth-block wall, and the obstruction level of BLOCKED. Make sure you are located at column O, row 0, facing east toward a burning torch. Press the PLACE button. The wall in front of you should now be made of smooth blocks, just like the walls to the left and right. Be sure to save your work now.

You might have loaded a new wall set into slot 2, instead of changing the number assigned to the east wall at 0, 0. However, that would have had the effect of changing all the wall images from six to ten throughout the entire map. Switch to area view now; notice that the walls of the Great Hall are mostly color-coded brown. These walls are part of the set in slot 2. While your corridor now appears to be made of smooth blocks, the Great Hall still appears to be made of rough stone.

Changing the Map Size

It might be nice if the narrow corridor in the Great Hall were longer than it is now. One way to do this, might be to erase the existing walls in the southwest comer of the map (between columns 0 to 5 and rows 8 to 10), and redraw them further east. A much easier way would be simply to stretch the map, making it wider. Scroll the map so the east side at column 23 is displayed.

Return to the global information editor. On page I, notice the line immediately below your name for this module. The map is currently eleven rows high and twenty-four columns wide. Click twice on the width text box. Use the up-arrow key to stretch this width to twenty-six, and then press the Enter Key. Now press 0K. In the map editor, the map size is now listed in the design information panel as WD 26 HT 11 .. Click again just past the right (east) side of the map. Now the map scrolls to reveal two new, empty columns: 24 and 25.

To fill in the corridor walls, press the SELECT button and choose the wall image on the left side of the middle row: the one color-coded brown. Leave the obstruction level at BLOCKED, and select these new pen settings. Draw a horizontal wall from the north edge of the map square at column 24, row 9, to the north edge of the square at column 25, row 9.

A horizontal brown line, edged with the obstruction color-code yellow, should now extend all the way to the right edge of the map on the north side of this narrow corridor. If you made a mistake, erase by clicking with the right mouse button (or holding down the shift key while you click the left button). This will restore the default of no wall and an obstruction level of OPEN. Once the north wall looks right, repeat this process a second time; draw a horizontal wall on the south side of the corridor in row 9.

Mark the east edge of the square at column 23, row 9 (if you don't remember how, refer to the chapter entitled Testing a Design). Switch to 3-D view, and move east along your new corridor, until you bump into the door of iron bars at column 1. Notice that when you moved past the new east end of the map, at column 25, you stepped into the map from the west, at column 0. The map wraps around during a game, so you can never fall off the edge.

This new corridor now seems too long a walk; the map needs to be shrunk to a width of only twenty-five columns. Select Global Info from the file menu list again, and change the number box next to the word WIDTH from twenty-six to twenty-five. Now press the OK button. When you try to shrink a map, notice that you are warned first that data will be lost, and given a chance to cancel the size change. In this case, the corridor square at column 25, row 9 will be discarded when the map shrinks to twenty-five columns. Press 0K to accept the new size and return to the map editor. To the right of the compass in 3-D view, you should now see WD 25 HT 11.

If you now turn around and move west down the rough-stone corridor, you should cross from column 0 to column 24 when the map scrolls. The corridor should now be one square shorter. Check your work in area view as well. Remember that you can always undo these size changes, by selecting Revert to saved from the file menu list. Save your work on the hard disk when you are sure that your size changes are satisfactory.

Creating a Step Event

Yet another change you can make in the global information editor is to implement a wandering monster. First, change the map editor to zone mode, using the map menu list. Notice when you move the mouse cursor over the dark green squares, zone 3 (named MARBLE HALL) is reported in the map square information panel. The dark blue squares all belong to zone 2, the GREAT HALL. Scroll the map in area view to display the new corridor square you created, at column 24, row 9. Notice that this square still has the default zone setting, zone 0. Press the SELECT button, and choose the zone named GREAT HALL. Click once on the map square at column 24, row 9, to assign this new square to zone 2.

Now, use the file menu list to return to the global information editor, and press the NEXT button until you see PAGE 3 in the top, right-hand corner of the screen. Near the top of this page, you should see the phrase DEFINE STEP EVENTS 1-3. Up to eight step events may be specified in any one adventure module. A step event is an event that occurs after the party has taken some predefined number of steps inside the map zones you select.

A step event may be of any type. For example, you could specify that a combat event occurs every time the party moves a single step inside any of the eight map zones. If you did so, your players would probably come after you with something uglier than a beholder.

Locate the three lines near the top of the page, to the right of the label 1). Change the number of steps required before this first step event takes place, by clicking once in the number box between the phrase HAPPENS ON STEP and the phrase IN ZONES. Type a more reasonable number of steps between combat events, such as fifteen, and press the Enter Key.

Instead of counting steps in all the map zones, restrict this event just to steps taken while the party is inside the Great Hall: in zone 2. Click the yes/no button to the right of the number 1 to turn it off. Turn off the yes/no buttons to the right of all the numbers 3 through 8 as well. The only zone in which the yes/no button is still turned on, and appears highlighted, should now be zone 2.

What this means is that the first time the party enters a map square assigned to zone 2 (the Great Hall), a counter will be set to zero. Each step the party takes while inside the Great Hall will add one to this counter. Counting will stop as soon as the party moves out of the Great Hall into a map square with a different zone number (how this move can be made is dealt with in a later chapter). If the party re-enters any map square belonging to zone 2, counting will start up again where it left off. As soon as the counter for this step event reaches the number fifteen, the counter is reset to zero and the designated event occurs.

The only thing you have yet to specify is what type of event this will be. Just above the number fifteen, find the button labeled NO EVENT. Click once on this button to bring up a vertical list of event types. Instead of selecting an ordinary combat event, select a random combat event.

Random-combat events are like ordinary combat events, with one important difference: in random-combat events, the party does battle with only one type of monster at a time. Which of the six specified monster types attacks the party is determined at random, each time this event occurs. By selecting a random-combat event for your step encounter, you are creating a scenario in which the party is attacked every so often while inside the Great Hall - each time by a different kind of monster. It is as though six different groups of monsters were roaming separately around the Great Hall, periodically bumping into the party and attacking it.

Testing a Step Event

For now, accept all the default answers for a random-combat event, and just press the OK button. Page 3 of the global information editor should now say that a RANDOM-COMBAT happens on step 15 when the party is in zone 2. Press the OK button again to exit the global information editor and return to the map editor. From the utilities menu list, choose Entry points. Entry point 2 should still be inside the Great Hall, at column 16, row 6.

Since you have been using entry point 8 to test your module, and the game settings still declare eight to be the starting point for this module, move entry point 8 into the Great Hall; click once on the west edge of the square containing entry point 2, at column 16, row 6. In the vertical list of entry points that appears, select Entry 8. The last line in the pen information panel should now report that entry point 8 is at (16, 6) facing West. Notice that you can't see entry point 8 in this map; small numbers appear on top of larger numbers, and eight is obscured by two. When the pen information panel displays the correct setting for entry point 8, press the OK button.

You may wish to save your changes at this point. Now, from the utilities menu list, choose the command Test module. Walk around inside the Great Hall, or out in the rough-stone corridor, while counting your steps. Since both the hall and the corridor are assigned to zone 2, you should run into a monster mob every time you take another fifteen steps. When you get tired of this harassment, encamp, and press DONE to return to the map editor.

You can go back to the global information editor, if you like, and adjust your new step event. For example, you can change the number of steps between occurrences of this event to make traversing the Great Hall easier or more difficult. When you are satisfied with this step event, save your changes.

You have learned in this tutorial how to modify features of an entire adventure module, such as changing the module's name or the names of the map zones. You have seen the effects of loading new art into your module, and of stretching or shrinking the map. You have also learned one important use for a step event, and how a step event is created and tested.

CONNECTING ROOMS: LINKING SQUARES IN A MAP

Although you now have some interesting features in your sample module, including chained and step events, the map squares of one half of your map are still inaccessible from the other half. In this chapter, two different methods are presented for connecting otherwise inaccessible locations in an adventure design.

Stairs vs. Teleporters

The first method for linking mutually inaccessible regions in a dungeon map is to place teleporter events in the different regions. Each event can be set to carry the party to a different region of the map. A second method involves linking two modules together with stair events. While teleporter events occur after the party enters a designated map square, stair events occur before the party enters a specified square. Usually, teleporter or stair events are placed in pairs, so the party can return the way it came.

Tutorial: Placing Stair and Teleporter Events

In this tutorial, you will learn how to place teleporter and stair events, so they link different parts of a dungeon. You should now be in the map editor. Make sure you are in event mode and area view.

Creating a Teleporter Event

Place a new event at column 6, row 1 in the map. In the vertical list that appears, select the event type teleporter. Page 2 of the event editor should now display questions concerning what the party will see before it is teleported to a different map square. Accept the default answers on this page, and press the NEXT button.

Locate the phrase AFTER THE PARTY MOVES near the top of page 3. Below this phrase, click once on the number box labeled COL: and type the number twenty. Press the Tab Key once, and change the row to six. Press the Enter Key, and then select the direction WEST from the pop-up menu next to the word FACING. Now, if the party is able to penetrate to the sixth room of the marble hall, it will find an easy way of entering the Great Hall.

In the large text box on this page, enter a message that will give the player some clue where the party has been teleported. For example, this event will take the party to a room with rough, stone walls and an underground feel. You might enter: THE AIR SMELLS DAMP AND MUSTY. YOU HEAR WATER DRIPPING. When you are satisfied with your message, press the Enter Key, and then press the 0K button.

In the area map, examine the map square at column 20, row 6, by moving the mouse cursor over this square. Note that the map square information panel reports that an event of type Teleporter has already been placed here. Click once on this square, and then press the EDIT button in the chain-of-events editor. Press NEXT to see where this teleporter event leads: back to column 6, row 1.

Placing two teleporter events like this, each pointing to the other event, sets up a two-way transportation system. Generally, unless there is a special reason for giving the party a one-way ticket, and some other means exists for returning, you should create teleporter events in pairs. Now press CANCEL to exit the event editor without making any changes.

Testing a Teleporter Event

Return to the map editor and save your work, then choose Test module from the utilities menu list. You should be inside the Great Hall at entry point 8, facing west. Press the AREA button, if necessary, to orient yourself. Walk around the north side of the stone pillar behind you. You should see a door ahead on your right. Enter this door, and then turn toward the door of iron bars on your left (toward the east).

Walk forward one step, and you should be presented with a picture of a mystic gateway. Press the YES button to teleport the party. A message about birch wood should appear on your screen. Press the Enter Key. You see the mystic gateway again, but this time you should press N0. If you re-enter the teleporter, you will end up back where you started. Move forward one step into the marble room. Turn around to face south, and move forward again (if you get lost, try pressing the AREA button). This time, answer YES to ride the teleporter back to the Great Hall, and then press NO to get off.

Step forward (west) through the door of iron bars, then turn right (north) and move through the door with the small window. You should find yourself inside the Great Hall. Walk around. Try to get back to the entry point at column 20, row 6. What happens?

To get to the teleporter from entry point 8, you had to take several steps in zone 2. These were counted by step event 1. The steps you took inside the Marble Hall weren't counted, because they were in zone 3. When you teleported back to the Great Hall, and started walking around, step event 1 started counting where it had left off. When the step count was reached (it's fifteen, unless you changed it), the party was attacked by random monsters.

To get out of combat early, press the WIN button. Encamp, and then press the DONE button to return to the map editor.

Working with Stair Events

Note that, to get to the teleporter inside the Marble Hall, the party will have to fight its way past hordes of beholders in your corridor at column 4, row 2. It might be nice, if there were another way to get to the Great Hall from entry point 1 (at column 0, row 0). In fact, you can use a pair of events of type stair for this purpose. In the map editor, make sure you are in area view, and move the active square to the west end of your smooth-block corridor. Mark the square at column 0, row 2, facing north. Double check to make certain you have marked the correct square edge.

When specifying where a stair event will take the party, it is easier to refer to an entry point rather than fill in a row and column number and select a facing direction. Since you can place entry points while you are still looking at the map, you won't have to remember any map coordinates. Place an entry point at the currently marked square wall, by selecting the Place Entry command from the utilities menu list. You haven't used entry point 3 for anything yet; in the vertical list that appears, click twice on the line that says Entry 3.

Now switch to 3-D view. Turn around to face south. The little nook you are facing, to the south of your east-west corridor, is the location where you will build a stairwell. The first thing you need to do is to place a wall here that looks like a set of stairs.

Make sure the map editor is in wall mode, and then press the SELECT button. Choose the middle wail in the first row (the one with the dark cyan color-code). Check that the current obstruction level is OPEN. Now press SELECT to return to the map editor. Check that you are at column O, row.2, facing south in 3-D view. Press the PLACE button. A smooth-block wall should appear in front of you, depicting stairs leading off ambiguously into the gloom.

You are now ready to place an event of type stair in the nook at column O, row 3 ~ behind the stair-like wail. As you have seen, an event of type teleporter allows the party to enter the map square where that event is located. The party may even be given a chance to remain in the square, rather than be teleported. By contrast, the party is never actually allowed to enter a square where an event of type stair is located. This type of event behaves as though it were in the previous square - the one the party left when it entered the map square containing the stair event.

Switch to event mode and step into the square at column 0, row 3. Now press PLACE. In the vertical list of event types, select the name Stairs. The questionnaire you now see in the event editor is essentially the same as that for a teleporter event. You do not need to change the default answers on page I; press the NEXT button.

Near the top of page 3, locate the pop-up menu labeled PLACE, just below the phrase AFTER THE PARTY MOVES, select AT AN ENTRY POINT from this pop-up menu. Change the value in the number box beside the words ENTRY POINT to the number four (not the number three). Click in the large text box below the phrase THE PARTY READS. Type some clue to the party's new location, for example: THE AIR HERE FEELS DAMP. Press the 0K button to accept your changes to page 3 and return to the map editor.

Change the map editor to wall mode, and switch to area view again. Mark the east wall of the map square at column 4, row 9 (be sure that the yellow arrow mark faces right in the map). From the utilities menu list, select Place entry. Now click twice on the item that reads Entry 4. This is where the party will end up when it tries to move south from column 0, row 2. Turn around to face the west wall at column 4, row 9. Switch to 3-D view, and press the SELECT button. Choose the middle wall image in the second row - the one that looks like an entrance to a stairwell in a rough-stone wall. Since the color-code for this wall image is dark gray, you will not be able to see any special patch of color below the image. Check that the obstruction level is set to OPEN, and select these new pen settings. In the map editor, press the PLACE button. Step forward into the square at column 3, row 9. Switch to event mode, and then press the PLACE button again. In the vertical list that appears, select an event of type Stairs.

Once again, just press the NEXT button in the event editor to accept the default answers on page 2. Change the pop-up menu to the right of the word PLACE so it reads AT AN ENTRY POINT. In the number box labeled ENTRY POINT, enter the number three (do not enter four here). Click on the large text box beneath the phrase THE PARTY READS. Enter a message such as: THE AIR HERE FEELS WARM AND DRY. Press the OK button to accept your changes and return to the map editor.

Now, when the party tries to cross the south wall of the map square at column 0, row 2, it will end up facing east at column 4, row 9 (at entry point 4), after seeing a message about dampness. If the party tries to move west from column 4, row 9, it will find itself at column 0, row 2, facing north (at entry point 3). The message displayed will say something about dryness. To the player, it will seem as though the party can descend a winding stairwell at column 0, row 3 to a damp stone cellar, or ascend a winding stairwell at column 3, row 9 to a dry first floor.

Try it yourself. Save your work, if you like, and then choose Test module from the utilities menu list. You should find yourself at column O, row O, facing a blank wall to the east. Turn south, and walk down the corridor until you come to the wall showing a set of stairs. Step forward, then press YES indicating that you wish to enter this stairwell. At the bottom of the stairs, try turning around (west) and stepping forward up the stairs again. After pressing YES, you should find yourself back in the smooth-block corridor, facing north. Press the AREA button, and try these stairs again. When you get bored, encamp and return to the map editor.

In this tutorial, you have learned to use both teleporter and stair events to connect different parts of an adventure module. You have designated a new location of the party by specifying map coordinates, and also by referring to entry points. You have also seen how to let the party choose whether it will change location or not.

CONNECTING DUNGEONS: LINKING MODULES IN A DESIGN

So far, you have seen how to modify only one adventure module - your sample dungeon. If your adventure design is to extend beyond this dungeon, you will need a way to link two adventure modules together. You will accomplish this in the present chapter by linking your dungeon to an overland region.

Features of Overland Regions

Overland regions differ from ordinary adventure modules in several important respects. The size of an overland region is fixed at thirty-eight columns by fifteen rows. Moreover, an overland region never appears in a 3-D view. Instead, the player sees the overland map art item that is associated with the current adventure module. (You can view the overland map art items in the art gallery.) In the map editor, an overland region's map is shown in area view, superimposed on the associated overland map art item.

Since overland maps are never shown in 3-D view, their map squares are assigned no wall images. Overland map squares do make use of obstruction levels, however. All four edges of one overland map square always share a single obstruction level. This level may only be passable or impassable (similar to the dungeon obstruction levels open and blocked).

Tutorial: Editing an Overland Map

You will learn in this tutorial how to link a dungeon to an overland region. You will also practice editing an overland map. You will learn one method for simulating a market town, and in the process you will see how to create and edit simple branch points in a chain of events. You should now be in the map editor, working with the tenth dungeon module of the TUTORIAL DESIGN adventure.

Using a Transfer Module Event

To link your dungeon to a different adventure module, you will need an event of type transfer-module. This is really a variation on the stair and teleporter event types. Make sure the map editor is in area view. Mark the south wall of the map square at column 0, row 1, in the northwest (upper, left- hand) corner of the area map. Change to 3-D view. From the utilities menu list, select the command Place entry. Click twice on the name Entry 8 in the vertical list that appears.

Now turn around to face the north. Make sure the map editor is in wall mode, and then press the SELECT button. In the wall menu, choose the right-most (fifth) wall image in the first row; it should depict a brown, wooden door. Check that the obstruction level is OPEN, and then press 0K to return to the map editor. You should still be facing north at column 0, row 1. Press the PLACE button.

Now step forward through your new door to the square at 0, 0. Change to event mode, then press PLACE. Select the event type named transfer module. At the top of page 2 in the event editor, locate the phrase THE GATEWAY IS. Just below this phrase, a pop-up menu allows you to select whether this event will behave like a stair event or like a teleporter event. Make this event active when the party tries to enter the map square, so it behaves like a stair event.

Beneath the phrase BEFORE THE PARTY LEAVES, to the right of the words IT SEES, click on the button labeled No art. In the art gallery, select the picture named Tower 5. Click once in the large text box labeled ASK, and change the default message to a more specific question such as: DO YOU WANT TO LEAVE THE CASTLE?

Press the NEXT button to go to page 3 in the event editor. Just beneath the phrase AFTER THE PARTY MOVES, click on the button with the name DUNGEON 01 . From the vertical list of adventure modules that appears, select Overland 01 . In the pop-up menu next to the word PLACE select AT AN ENTRY POINT. Change the value in the number box next to the words ENTRY POINT to the number eight.

Click on the large text box in the bottom half of page 3. Enter a phrase the player will read, when the party emerges in the adventure module Overland 01. For example, you might enter: THE MOUNTAINS APPEAR TALL AND HAZY IN THE DISTANCE. Press the Enter Key to accept your new text, and then press 0K to return to the map editor.

Loading from Another Design

Before you can test your new transfer event, you need to set up the destination adventure module. Save your work, then open the module named Overland 01. The map you see is just a default map for the first overland region - nothing has been placed here yet.

A more interesting overland module exists in the default game, The Heirs to Skull Crag. From the file menu list, choose the command Copy from... In the vertical list of adventure designs that appears, select HEIRS TO SKULL CRAG. In the next vertical list, select the first overland adventure module: the one in which the name begins with OVERLAND 01. You should see a picture of a yellow wasteland crossed from north to south by a range of brown mountains. If you are still in event mode, the mountain range should be filled with small, white squares.

Notice in the design information panel that you are still working on the TUTORIAL DESIGN. The map you see depicting a yellow wasteland has been copied from the first overland module of The Heirs to Skull Crag adventure design. It replaced the (empty) first overland module in your Tutorial Design. To make this replacement permanent, choose the Save command now from file menu list.

Viewing an Overland Map

Since there are no wall images in an overland region, the area map you see has no colored lines on square edges, and no white dots to mark the corners of map squares. Instead, a small white square marks any map square in which the four edges have been assigned an impassable obstruction level. When

you move the mouse cursor over one of these squares, the pen information panel says NO EVENT POSSIBLE. Clearly, the party will not be able to cross these mountains in any ordinary way.

In an overland map, events anchored to map squares are not shown as solid white squares, since that would obscure too much of the overland map picture. Instead, map squares where events have been placed are shown as hollow white frames. When you move the mouse cursor over the map square at column 13, row 7, for example, you see that an event of type transfer module has been placed there.

Hold down the mouse cursor over the map menu list. Note that in overland regions the Backdrop placement command is dimmed, while the Wall placement command becomes Block placement. Select the command Block placement now. In this mode, the impassable map squares are shown surrounded by a thin, white line. This line represents an impenetrable barrier to the party.

By default, the pen is set to assign a PASSABLE obstruction level to all four edges of any map square you click on. For example, click now on the map square at column 20, row 14 ~ in the water at the lower, right-hand corner of this map. The thin border around this square disappears. Press the SELECT button. Instead of showing a wall menu, the map editor simply toggles the current pen setting to its opposite - IMPASSABLE. Now click again on the map square at column 20, row 14. Once again, the party is blocked from entering this square.

Change modes again, this time selecting the Zone placement command. A small patch of color in the middle of each map square now indicates the zone to which each square has been assigned. In overland regions, the backdrop art displayed during combat depends on which zone the party is in. Consequently, zones should be assigned according to the terrain depicted in the overland map picture.

Notice that in the mountains the small patches of color have white centers; when you move the mouse cursor over one of these map squares, the map square information panel reports that it is NOT ENTERABLE.

Transporting the Party in an Overland Region

Choose the Entry points command from the utilities menu list, and then click on the west side of the overland map square at column 17, row 3. Select the item Entry 8 from the list of entry points that appears. This is the entry point you specified when you placed a transfer-module event in your dungeon. When you are satisfied that you have placed entry point 8 in the correct place, press the 0K button to return to the map editor.

Change to event mode once again. The transfer-module events that have already been placed in this map are linked to various adventure modules. You will have to place your own event to link this overland map to dungeon 10. Click the mouse on the map square at column 18, row 3 - directly over the tiny image of a castle. In the list of event types, select Transfer module.

This event questionnaire should be filled out in much the same way as the one for the transfer-module event you placed in your dungeon. On page 2 in the event editor, set this gateway so it is active then the party tries to enter the map square. Click on the button labeled No art and select the picture named Tower 5 . Change the message in the large text box labeled ASK to read: DO YOU WANT TO ENTER THE CASTLE?

Press the NEXT button, On page 3, click the button that says DUNGEON 0l and change this selection to DUNGEON 10. In the pop-up menu next to the word PLACE, choose At an entry point. Change the number box next to the words ENTRY POINT from 1 to 8. Click the large text box labeled THE PLAYER READS and type something like: THE AIR HERE FEELS WARM AND DRY. A FINE LAYER OF DUST COVERS THE FLOOR. Press the OK button to return to the map editor. Your new event is displayed as a hollow white frame around the map square at column 18, row 3. Save your work.

Now you are ready to test your transfer-module events, Leave the map editor. In the design menu, press the button labeled GAME SETTINGS. Change the module listed below the phrase THE ADVENTURE BEGINS IN from your dungeon to Overland 0l. Press OK to return to the design menu. Press EDIT MODULES and open the Overland 01 adventure module. From the map editor's utilities menu list, select the command Test Module.

Your party should begin in the first overland region, just to the west of a castle. Move the party east toward that castle. When asked if you want to enter this castle, press the YES button. The party

should find itself in a corridor with smooth, block walls, facing a stairway in the distance. The air here should feel warm and dry. Turn around, and step forward through the wooden door. Answer YES again, and the party is transferred back to the Dyedand region, where it can admire tall, hazy mountains in the distance.

Creating a Special Event Chain.

Notice that the party can do little in this overland region, besides explore the dungeon you have been working on. If it moves west, the party cannot cross the mountains, as no more events have been placed on the east side of the mountain range. Encamp, and then press DONE to return to the map editor.

Make sure the map editor is in event mode, and scroll the map of the overland region so you can see everything on the east side of the mountains. Click once on the map square at column 26, row 7, directly over the small image of a town. One way to implement a town in an overland region would be to create an event of type small town. For now, select an event of type temple instead. Visiting a temple will give the party a chance to heal any wounds they might have received in your dungeon.

On page 2 of this event questionnaire, change the number box next to MAX SPELL LEVEL from seven to five. Only less serious wounds may be healed in this rural temple. Locate the pop-up menu beside the phrase COST FACTOR. The FREE setting in this pop-up menu makes healing spells available at no cost to the patient, while NORMAL assigns standard prices to all spells. In this temple, make the spells cost half as much as usual by selecting DIV 2 (for divide by 2).

Visitors who can afford it are expected to contribute to this temple's support. In the center of the page, turn on the yes/no button next to the question ALLOW DONATIONS? Set the donation threshold number box to 30 platinum. Click the yes/no button next to the question CHAIN WHEN THRESHOLD REACHED? to turn it on. Now click the button labeled NO EVENT, next to the word CHAIN.

You see the vertical list of event types again. You are being asked to select the type of event that will occur when the party has given enough to this temple. Choose an event of type teleporter'. Accept the defaults on page 2 of this teleporter questionnaire and go to the next page. Set the values in the number boxes and pop-up menu so the party is moved to COL: 12, ROW: O, FACING north. In the text box labeled THE PLAYER READS, you might enter: WELCOME TO THE WILDERNESS! Press OK to accept this teleporter event.

Editing Event Branch Points

In the chain-of-events editor, notice that the current teleporter event is listed as CALLED ON MADE DONATION from the previous event. Events are normally linked through the CHAIN EVENT button on page 1 of an event questionnaire. A few events, such as a temple, also allow you to link an event to some special condition - a temple donation, for example. If the special condition is ever satisfied (in this case, if the party donates enough), the event chained to that special condition will occur instead of any normally chained event. In effect, this creates branch points in a game's story line.

Edit the temple event again. Notice that the CHAIN button on page 2 is now labeled Teleporter. To complete the other side of this branch point, go to page 1 of this temple questionnaire. Click on the button beside the words CHAIN EVENT and select a training hall event. In the new questionnaire that appears, select Normal for the COST FACTOR. Go to page 1 of this training hall questionnaire, and click on the CHAIN EVENT button. This time, select a shop event.

In the shop questionnaire, click the button labeled TYPE 2, and select +0 ARMOR. On page 3, click to turn off any yes/no buttons next to weapons you wish not to be sold in this shop. On page 4, do the same thing for any armor items that should not be sold here. If you like, you can add more categories on page 2. When you are satisfied with this shop, press the OK menu button.

In the chain-of-events editor, scroll up to the teleporter event. Notice that the chain of events shown is the one linked through normal events. If a special event is also linked to the previous event in the chain, providing a branch point, the ALT menu button will be active. Press this button now. At the top of this chain, you still see the temple event anchored at column 26, row 7. But the normally chained training hall and its next event, a shop, have now disappeared. Instead, you now see the specially chained teleporter event. Press the ALT button again to view the normal chain.

Scroll up to the temple event, at the beginning of this chain. Press INSERT, and add a text statement to introduce this chain of events. In TEXT 1, enter a sentence like: AS YOU WALK THROUGH A CROWDED MARKET, MANY VENDORS COMPETE FOR

YOUR ATTENTION. You might select a sound such as Treasure, as well, and a perhaps a picture like Town 3' that suggests a market place. Press NEXT.

For TEXT 2, enter the sentence DISCOUNT HEALING! (with quotation marks). Turn off MUST PRESS RETURN and turn on HIGHLIGHT. For TEXT 3, enter the message: SHOUTS A CLERIC. YOU DECIDE TO ENTER HIS BOOTH. Press 0K. Now leave the chain-of-events editor and return to the map editor.

Scroll the overland map so you can see the west side. In the map square at column 12, row O, place another teleporter event. On page 3 of this teleporter questionnaire, set the new location to column 25, row 7, facing EAST. Enter a message such as: A SMALL TOWN APPEARS TO THE EAST, then press 0K.

You can now save your work and test this module again, using the teleporter to cross from one side of the mountains to the other. In order to enter the teleporter from the small market town, you will have to enter the temple and donate thirty platinum (you can make this donation over several visits). If you donate less, you will simply pass through the market place, visiting a training hall and a shop before you leave. When you have finished exploring these events, encamp and return to the map editor.

In this tutorial, you have learned how to link two adventure modules together to form a larger design. You have also learned how editing an overland region differs from editing a dungeon. You have seen one method for simulating a rural marketplace in an overland region, and you have learned how to create a branch point combining normal and special chaining in a single event.

CUSTOMIZING CHARACTERS: THE MONSTER EDITOR

The monsters you have included in combat events so far have been the standard monsters provided for you. UNLIMITED ADVENTURES also allows you to replace any standard monster with a custom monster you specify. The tutorial in this chapter guides you through the process of creating and testing your own monster.

Tutorial: Creating a Kobold Guard

In this tutorial, you will learn how to use the monster editor to replace one monster with another. You will also see how to restore the standard monster supplied in UNLIMITED ADVENTURES.

In the design menu, press the button labeled MONSTER EDITOR to display a list of monsters. Adventure designs come completely filled with default monsters; you cannot add a new monster to the current design without removing an existing one. The monster name you select now will be the one replaced.

For this tutorial, highlight the name KOBOLD' and note the image displayed. This is just a standard kobold, but for the Tutorial Design you might want a more formidable opponent such as a trained kobold guard. You can do this with the monster editor.

Transforming a Monster

Press EDIT to see page 1 of the monster-editor questionnaire. Click the text box labeled NAME and change it to read KOBOLD GUARD. Press the Tab Key to select HIT POINTS, and change this value to four. On the next page, change the number of experience points the party gets for killing this monster to fifteen.

Go to page 4 and find the label ATTACK 1 under COMBAT ATTRIBUTES. Since a kobold guard can do 1-6 points of damage, change the 4-SIDED DICE to read %. Modify the armor class for this monster by changing the number box labeled BASE AC to six.

On the next page, locate the three buttons under ITEMS. Click the button labeled DAGGER and select +0 WEAPONS B. In the next list that appears, select SHORT SWORD. Leave the item SHIELD unchanged, and click on the button labeled NO ITEM. Select +0 ARMOR and then choose RING MAIL. When you are satisfied with your changes, press 0K. You now see the name kobold guard in the list of monsters.

While this monster's name is now different and its capabilities have changed, the image displayed is still the same. This would be a serious problem if you were changing a kobold into an entirely different kind of monster. If you are not able to find a monster of suitable appearance to replace, you can change one of the standard monster's images. The next chapter shows you how.

Leave the monster editor and edit your dungeon (its name begins with DUNGEON 10 in the list of adventure modules). To test your new monster, make sure it is included in the combat event you created for beholders. Change the map editor to event mode, if necessary, and edit the chain of events at column 4, row 2. Examine page 3 of the questionnaire for your combat event. You may notice something strange here,

If you added kobolds to this event in the chapter entitled Fixing a Design, your event will now specify kobold guards instead. This is because monsters are remembered internally by the position they occupy in a list of all the supplied monsters. When you replace one monster with another, your new creation is automatically used in place of the discarded monster throughout the current adventure design. No other design is affected.

If no kobold guards exist in this combat event, add several now. Return to the map editor, and select Test Module from the utilities menu list. When play begins in the first overland region, move the party east to enter the castle. Follow the corridor with smooth block walls toward the marble hall, until the party is attacked by beholders and kobold guards.

Make sure the kobold guard behaves as you would expect during this battle. Though hardly of the same caliber as a beholder, your new monster should be more of a challenge than an ordinary kobold. When you have finished testing, quit and return to the map editor. Go back to the design menu and press MONSTER EDITOR again.

Restoring the Default Monster

You can also use the monster editor to restore a standard monster to the current design. Be aware, however, that your custom monster will be destroyed in this process. If you don't mind losing your kobold guard, try this now. Make sure the KOBOLD GUARD (or whatever you now call your custom monster) is still selected in the monster gallery, and then press the DEFAULT button. The highlighted name changes to KOBOLD. Now the DEFAULT button has dimmed, indicating this is a standard monster.

The characteristics of this monster have been restored to their defaults. Press EDIT and review the monster editor's questionnaire to confirm this. When you are done, click CANCEL. The standard kobold has now been restored everywhere in the current adventure design. For example, your combat event in dungeon 10 should now specify a kobold rather than a kobold guard.

Now that you have seen how to make a relatively minor adjustment to a monster, you might want to try something more ambitious. You could try turning a monster like the kobold into something completely different - a centaur, for example. For now the art will still be wrong, but you can test your monster in combat.

Note that a few characteristics cannot be changed in the monster editor. For example, if the standard monster you replace is of the complex variety, and counts double in reckoning the total monsters allowed during a combat event, your new monster will be like that as well. Since a kobold does not count double, you cannot replace it by a complex monster.

You have learned in this tutorial how to design and test your own custom monster. You have also seen how to discard your changes, and restore the standard monster supplied with UNLIMITED ADVENTURES. In the tutorial in the next chapter, you will see how add custom art to your design.

CUSTOMIZING ART: IMPORTING YOUR OWN DRAWINGS

lust as you are not limited to the standard monsters supplied with UNLIMITED ADVENTURES, SO YOU are not restricted to the standard art images. If you or a friend can draw well, and you own a copy of one of the supported paint programs (e.g., Electronic Arts' DeluxePaint or ZSoft's PC Paintbrush), you can create your own pictures, big pictures, combat icons, and sprites.

The tutorials in this chapter lead you through the process of creating and importing a custom sprite image. They do not describe how to accomplish specific operations in any given paint program. The more familiar you are with your paint program, the easier it will be to follow the first tutorial and to be creative in designing new art.

Features of Art Template Files

You can use the supplied template files to draw and import your own art images. These template files are located in the ART subdirectory, inside the directory in which you installed UNLIMITED ADVENTURES. File formats for a variety of paint programs and computers are supported - consult the data card that came with your UNLIMITED ADVENTURES package.

A separate set of template files is supplied for each supported paint program. Each of these sets contains one template file for each type of art you may import - pictures, big pictures, combat icons, and sprites. A template file is essentially a framed canvas prepared for your new art image. It displays instructions for creating the particular type of art you are working on, and provides one or more frames within which your new image must be drawn. For color art, the template includes a palette key explaining which portions of the palette you may use.

The Palette Information Key

All color art images in UNLIMITED ADVENTURES are drawn using the colors currently loaded in a palette with 256 slots. Since different types of art must share the screen at the same time, each art type is allocated its own range of slots in this color palette. When an art image is loaded from disk, only the screen colors in palette slots allocated to that art type are replaced by the new image's colors - other screen colors are not affected. You must be careful when creating a new color image not to rely on colors in any palette slot outside the range allocated to the particular type of art you are drawing.

Template files for color art include a palette information key to make this task easier. This key consists of a 16 x 16 grid, representing the 256 slots in the screen palette. Slots are counted from top to bottom in the key, one column at a time, starting with zero at the top of the left-most column. The palette information key clearly designates which palette slots are available for you to use and shows other information about the type of art you are creating. Some slots in the palette information key appear bright pink in color. These slots are off limits: they are allocated to other types of art than the one you are creating. Palette slots are not just reserved for the images you see in the art gallery, such as backdrops or walls, but

for all the images displayed by UNLIMITED ADVENTURES. For example, palette slots 16 through 3 1 are reserved for drawing window borders and controls such as menu buttons, If you draw with the colors in these bright-pink slots by mistake, it may look fine in your paint program, When you import such an image into UNLIMITED ADVENTURES, however, some of the image's colors will rotate in an alarming and unattractive manner.

This same phenomenon could happen, even if you are careful to use only the colors in palette slots allocated to the art type you are drawing. You must also be careful never to use any operation in your paint program that might re-order the color palette supplied with each template file. Otherwise, you will have to start over with a flesh copy of the template.

Note that palette slot 255 (the bottom of the right-most column in the palette information key) is reserved for the transparent color. This color is used only for types of art that move over a fixed background, such as combat icons or sprites. Any part of an image of one of these types which you draw with the transparent color will allow the background to show through, after you have imported the image into UNLIMITED ADVENTURES.

Frames

Each template file also contains one or more frames. These are hollow rectangles outlined with a bright pink border within which your entire image should be drawn. Frames mark a predetermined area which will actually be imported into your UNLIMITED ADVENTURES design, If you move a frame, or draw on or outside it in the template file, your art image will not be imported correctly.

Pictures and Big Pictures

Palette slots 32 through 254 are allocated to pictures and big pictures. You can manipulate these specific palette slots any way that you wish in creating your image. Do not use the color in slot 255 (the transparent color) - doing so will cause holes and black-and-white spots to appear in your image after it is imported. You will not be able to create pictures that pop outside the solid stone frame in the game, such as the dolphin, or pictures that animate, such as the sea dragon. You can, however, use color gradients and create pictures such as limbo that use color cycling if your paint program supports these features.

Combat Icons

Combat Icons are drawn in pairs, showing a monster at rest and in action. The template for a combat icon consequently shows pairs of frames. The image you draw inside the template flame labeled READY should show the monster at rest, while the image you draw in the frame labeled ACTION should show that same monster attacking.

A further complication is added by the fact that combat icons may be drawn in any one of four different sizes, depending on what size monster you wish to depict. The template for a combat icon includes four pairs of frames, one pair for each monster size. You should use only one of these pairs of flames to draw your monster. It is possible to create up to four different monsters, using a single template, but you could still import only one frame pair at a time into your game.

The smallest frames are one combat cell high and one cell wide; they are used most often for small monsters and human-like creatures. The tall frames, which are one cell wide and two cells high, are generally used to draw giant- like creatures. Four-footed monsters, such as hell hounds or gorgons, are typically drawn inside the wide flames, which are two cells wide and one cell high. The biggest frames are two cells wide and two cells high; these are used for exceptionally large monsters, such as dragons.

Palette slots 144 through 255 are reserved for combat icons. Do not change these palette slots! They are shared by all the combat icons in UNLIMITED ADVENTURES. Any part of the area inside the READY and ACTION frames that is not used to draw your monster must be filled with the transparent color: the color in palette slot 255. This is required so that the background will show through when the combat icon moves. For your convenience, all the frames in the template for combat icons are already filled with this transparent color. Note that combat icons ignore color cycling, even if your paint program supports it.

Sprites

Sprites are drawn in three different image sizes, depicting the same figure at three different distances from the viewer. UNLIMITED ADVENTURES can display all three images in rapid succession, creating the illusion that one figure is moving toward you. The first flame, on the left in the sprite template file, should show the figure up close. The middle frame is for the same figure seen nearby (in the middle distance). The third flame, on the right in the template file, should depict this figure far away. Besides varying the size of the figure, you should also subtly alter its posture in these three flames, so it will appear to be moving in some appropriate manner: walking, crawling, flying, or whatever.

Palette slots 176 through 255 are reserved for sprites. You may change and manipulate the colors in these palette slots, using color cycling if your paint program supports it. Just as with combat icons, any area inside the frames that is not used to draw your sprite must be filled with the transparent color.

Tutorial: Preparing Art to be Imported

You will learn in this tutorial how to use the supplied template files to create your own sprite. You will see how to select the correct template, where to place your image, and which palette slots to use for your colors. This tutorial assumes that you own one of the paint programs supported by UNLIMITED ADVENTURES (see the data card), and that this program is already installed on your hard disk. It also assumes that you are using a color computer; if you are working with a monochrome computer, you will use different templates, and you should ignore all references to a color palette.

Opening and Copying an Art Template

Quit UNLIMITED ADVENTURES and open your supported paint program. First, you must locate and open the correct template file for your paint program, and for the type of art you wish to create. The Template files are all located in the ART subdirectory, inside the directory in which you installed UNLIMITED ADVENTURES. When you try to open a file in your paint program, it may list only the appropriate files it finds. If not, you can identify which template files are suitable by examining the suffix of each file name. Consult the data card for more information.

The template files for creating sprites are all named DRAWSPRT. The names DRAWPIC, DRAWBPIC, and DRAWCPIC are used, respectively, for picture templates, big-picture templates, and combat-icon templates. Thus, if you were using DeluxePaint whose files have a .LBM suffix, for example, the file named DRAWSPRT.LBM would be the correct template to open now.

As soon as you have successfully opened the correct sprite template, use your paint program to save a copy of this file by a new name. This step is crucial! You should always draw on a copy of the template file, never the original. Otherwise, you might have to reinstall UNLIMITED ADVENTURES in order to recover the unspoiled templates. Save the template copy under a name that describes the image you plan to draw. In the next tutorial, you will replace the BLACK PUDDING with the image you draw here, so you might call this template copy a PUDDING.

Drawing in an Art Template

Now examine your new copy of the sprite template file. Across the top of the screen, you see three rectangles, each surrounded by a bright pink border. Do not move these frames, or draw on or outside the bright-pink border. Frames show only maximum dimensions - your figure might be shorter or narrower. A human-like creature, for example would fill less space than a large dragon. Always draw with this idea in mind: center each image horizontally in the frame, and align the bottom of each image vertically with the frame bottom.

As you examine your copy of the sprite template, notice the palette information key in the lower, left-hand corner. This

key shows the palette slots your sprite image may use. Any bright-pink slots are off limits. The other colors in this key represent the colors assigned to actual palette slots for your sprite. The transparent-color slot (255) is clearly marked. Notice that this color has already been used to fill the three frames in the sprite template.

The third portion of this template is an instruction panel, displaying a brief summary of the important points to remember when creating a sprite. Review these instructions now.

You are ready to draw your images in the three frames at the top of the page. For a sprite, you may change or manipulate the colors in palette slots 176 through 254, as indicated in the palette information key. Be sure, however, that the transparent color in slot 255 does not get mixed into the ordinary palette slots for your sprite. This transparent color must appear only in the unused space around your character. Do not perform any operation in your paint program that might change the order of the color palette.

Start with the frame at the left - the one labeled UP CLOSE. Draw an image of an interesting creature here, as if it were very close to you and moving forward in a menacing manner. Use only the palette slots indicated in the template key, and save your work often. When you are done, be sure the area inside the frame that is not actually used by your image is still filled with the transparent color.

Save your work so far, and start on the middle frame, labeled NEARBY. This frame should contain an image of the same creature, drawn in the same colors as in the first frame, but now seen from further away. You should vary the

posture of the creature in the middle frame to give the appearance that it is moving. A pudding, for example, might wiggle from one frame to the next. Keep the bottom of the creature aligned with the bottom of the flame in each view.

Finally, save your work again and draw the same character in the smallest frame, labeled FAR AWAY. Again, the figure should be nearly identical, only drawn considerably smaller, and with a wiggle or other appropriate motion. When you are done, check that all three figures are aligned with the bottom of their flames, and that all unused areas inside each frame are still filled with the transparent color. Review the color palette one last time, to make sure you have used the slots correctly. Save your completed work now, making sure it is saved in the ART subdirectory, where you found the original sprite template. Now you are ready to import the finished image into an adventure design.

In this tutorial, you have learned how to select the correct template and copy it for use. You have seen where to draw your custom art image inside the flames of the template, and how to interpret the key so you use only the appropriate palette slots for your colors.

Creating a picture, big picture, or combat icon is actually easier than creating a sprite. If you have successfully mastered the material presented in this tutorial, you should have no trouble creating these other types of art images. For example, if you created a centaur or some other interesting monster in the previous chapter, you could try drawing a combat icon for it now. In the following tutorial, you will see how to add your drawings to UNLIMITED ADVENTURES.

Tutorial: Importing and Restoring Images

Now that you have created a custom sprite image in the correct template, you will learn how to add your new image to a game design. The present tutorial shows you how to use the art gallery to import and view custom art images. If you did not complete the drawing exercise in the previous tutorial, you will still be able to follow most of the present tutorial.

Importing New Art

In the design menu of UNLIMITED ADVENTURES, press the button labeled ART GALLERY and select SPRITE. Notice that two new menu buttons have appeared at the bottom of the art gallery's screen: IMPORT and UNIMPORT. These buttons appear when you enter the art gallery from the design menu, provided you are editing sprites, combat icons, or pictures and their variants.

Search for the sprite named Black Pudding, which is the standard art image you will replace with the art you drew in the preceding tutorial. If you prefer the standard pudding to your own creation, don't worry. You will see later how to restore the standard image.

Since you are currently viewing a Black Pudding, whatever art image you import now will replace that sprite. Art images are remembered internally by their slot - the position they occupy in a list of all the supplied art items of the current type. Thus, anywhere in the current adventure design that a Black Pudding has already been specified - perhaps in a combat event, for example - the image you import will appear from now on. This situation will continue, until you unimport that specific piece of art, restoring the standard Black Pudding image.

Another peculiarity of art importing is the fact that UNLIMITED ADVENTURES cannot tell whether or not you drew the new art image with the template for a sprite. If in fact you drew this image using a picture template, for example, the image will look very strange indeed. Try this now: make sure Black pudding is still selected, and then press IMPORT. In the vertical list that appears, select TOWN.LBM from the list of file names. In the art gallery, be sure the VIEW button is set to display the currently selected image. You will notice that the picture of a town looks very strange when viewed as though it were a sprite.

Try the art image you designed in the previous tutorial. Press the IMPORT button again and look for the name pudding (or whatever name you used when you saved your new art work). If you do not see this name in the list, you may not have completed the previous tutorial. Perhaps you saved your work somewhere other than in the ART subdirectory. In that case, you will have to return to the previous tutorial and save your new image again. If you can find the name by which you save your art (e.g., pudding) in the list of files, select that name. After a certain delay, you should see your new image displayed as a sprite, in the top half of the screen. Hopefully, it will look like the creature you drew, seen at three different ranges. If the new sprite looks totally strange, as did the TOWN.LBM, you probably drew your new image using some template other than the one for spates.

If your new image is recognizable, but the colors are strange - particularly in the backdrop behind your sprite

image - you may have used one of the reserved palette slots, or failed to fill the frame with the transparent color. If this happens, you will have to go back and edit your art, being sure that the reserved palette slots contain the original colors used in the sprite template file.

It is possible that your sprite image will appear cut off, or in the wrong position. If this happens, you probably drew outside the frame on your copy of the sprite template. Only the part of the new image you drew that was inside the pink frames will be picked up during the importation process.

Restoring Default Art

If your new art image does not appear the way you thought it would, you can restore the standard art image of a black pudding. Simply press the UNIMPORT button now. The new image you drew is discarded from the current adventure design, and the standard image of a Black Pudding appears in its place. Note that the file containing your new image has not been destroyed. As long as this file can be found in the ART subdirectory, you can always import your image again. If you like, you can quit UNLIMITED ADVENTURES now and go back to your paint program to edit your new art image. When it looks the way you think it should, save it in the ART subdirectory again. Then start again at the beginning of this tutorial.

If you are satisfied with your image, or if you skipped the previous tutorial, you can try to import the image in the file TOWN.LBM again. Press LEAVE and select PICTURE. Highlight the name of any picture you would like to replace - Town 1 for example. Then press IMPORT and select TOWN.LBM in the list of files. You should now see a reasonable picture of a town on the screen. This particular image was drawn using the template for a picture; it looks much better, therefore, if you import it when you are editing pictures rather than sprites.

Renaming an Art Item

When you import new art into an adventure design, the image is changed, but not the name by which that image is listed. Your new art item may represent something quite different, however, from the default image it replaced. You can easily change the name of any sprite, combat icon, or variant of a picture.

Highlight the Black Pudding and press RENAME. In the text box that appears, enter a new name for this art item. When you are satisfied with the new name, press the RENAME button to accept this change. If you change your mind, you can discard the new name by pressing CANCEL. Note that the name you give an art item is for your own use when you view a list of items in the art gallery. The player will never see this name during a game, only the image itself.

In this tutorial, you have learned how to replace a standard art image with one you import from a file saved in the ART subdirectory. The process is exactly the same for files saved in a variety of different paint-program formats. You have also seen how to discard a custom art image, by restoring the standard art supplied in UNLIMITED ADVENTURES. Finally, you have learned how to change the name by which art items are listed in the art gallery.

PLAYING AN ADVENTURE: THE FINISHED PRODUCT

You have now modified one dungeon module and linked it to a copy of an overland region from the supplied game. You are ready to complete your new dungeon, copy more modules from The Heirs to Skull Crag adventure design, and play your completed game. The tutorial in this chapter guides you through the process of playing a completed design as an ordinary player - without any special powers or an unusually strong party.

Testing vs. Normal Game Play

You have seen that when you need to test a few events or rooms in an adventure module, the quickest and easiest method is to select the Test Module command in the map editor. Testing in this manner gives you special powers an ordinary player would not possess. It also gives you an unusually strong and able party. While this is good for testing purposes, it is certainly not challenging enough for ordinary play. Once you have completed a design, you will want that adventure to behave like any normal AD&D Gold Box game. To play an adventure in a normal fashion, you can start it from the design menu by pressing the button labeled PLAY THE GAME.

Tutorial: Playing the Tutorial Design

In this tutorial you will see how to conduct the ultimate test of your adventure by taking on the role of an ordinary player and starting from the beginning with a normal party. You will also learn how to protect your completed design so it cannot be examined or edited by a player.

Completing the Design

If you have been following the tutorials in this manual, you are almost ready to play your Tutorial Design adventure. Probably this design will be more interesting if you fill out Dungeon 10 a bit more. For example, you might place a give treasure event somewhere in the Great Hall or in the Marble Hall. You could add some new combat or trap events in key parts of this dungeon. With new text-statement events, you can provide special hints or give welcome messages in certain sections of the dungeon. Don't neglect the global information editor, where you can add events that occur while the party is resting or moving in selected map zones.

To make this adventure design more interesting still, you should copy all the named dungeon modules from the default game. Do this in the same manner that you copied the overland region. First, open an unused module in the Tutorial Design (start with

DUNGEON 0l ). Next, select Copy from... in the file menu list, and choose the module with the some number from the design Heirs to Skull Crag.

The transfer-module events that link dungeons and overland regions work internally by number rather than by name. Be careful, therefore, to copy each module into the dungeon in your Tutorial Design having the same number as that module uses in The Heirs to Skull Crag. You do not need to copy any unnamed adventure modules, since these are empty.

Examine the adventure modules you copied for examples of how to use all the types of events not explicitly discussed in this Design Guide. The time you spend examining these modules will be well rewarded as you pick up tips for designing a clever and entertaining game.

Adding Password Protection

When the Tutorial Design is completed to your satisfaction, make a last check of the game settings. Does the player start at the correct module and entry point? You may also wish to enter a password on page 1 of the game-settings questionnaire. If you do, the buttons in the right-hand column of the design menu will be inactive whenever this adventure design is selected. From now on, you will have to press UNLOCK EDITOR in the design menu and enter the correct password before you may edit this design. This feature works until you delete the password in the game-settings questionnaire.

Be careful to record any password that you enter. Should you forget this password, you will not be able to access the GAME SETTINGS button to find out what it was. In fact, you will not be permitted to edit your design at all! Of course, neither will anyone else.

To play the completed Tutorial Design, make sure it is selected in the design menu as the current game design and then press PLAY THE GAME. As play begins, note that you are now permitted to load a saved game. Try this now. Have the party make camp, and examine the menu buttons again. You can no longer press DONE; instead, you see the normal SAVE button. Games are saved in the directory of the design you are currently playing. You may also load games that were saved in a different design. When the party engages in combat, there is no WIN button. Such is life!

In this tutorial you have seen how to play a completed adventure design. You have practiced copying modules from one design to another, and you have learned how to protect a design so it can no longer be changed. You now have the basic tools you need to create and play unlimited adventures. The rest is up to you.

APPENDIX: SHARING ADVENTURES

It is easy to share adventure designs with another registered owner of UNLIMITED ADVENTURES. TO do this, you need to understand how designs are stored. UNLIMITED ADVENTURES is saved on your hard disk in the directory you named when you installed it. We will refer to this as the FRUA directory, since that is the default name.

Inside the FRUA directory, each adventure design is represented by a separate subdirectory. The name of a design subdirectory consists of the first few letters of the design's name followed by a .DSN' suffix. The name of the current design's subdirectory appears to the right of the phrase CURRENT GAME DESIGN in the design menu. For example, if you select HEIRS TO SKULL CRAG as the current game design, you see that it is stored in a subdirectory named HEIRS.DSN. All the information needed to define the adventure is stored inside this one subdirectory.

A variety of information is stored in a given design's subdirectory. For example, all the adventure modules you create or copy while editing this design, as well as any changes you make to the supplied art and standard monsters, are saved here. Default information shared by every game design - such as the standard art images and monster definitions - is not duplicated in adventure design subdirectories. instead, each design inherits such information from UNLIMITED ADVENTURES.

Before sharing an adventure design with a friend, be sure to protect it with a password unless you want your friend to be able to edit it (see the chapter entitled Playing an Adventure). Next, select your adventure in the design menu to find out the name of its subdirectory. Locate this subdirectory inside the FRUA directory on your hard disk and copy the entire subdirectory to a floppy diskette.

On your friend's hard disk, find the directory where UNLIMITED ADVENTURES was installed. Check inside that directory to be sure there is no subdirectory with the same name as the one you wish to

share. If such a subdirectory does already exist, you should rename it (just be certain the new name ends in .DSN). Now copy the entire design subdirectory from your floppy diskette into the FRUA directory on your friend's hard disk.

When you have finished, your adventure can be selected in your friend's registered copy of UNLIMITED ADVENTURES just like any other game design. If you did not protect your design with a password, your friend can also use the map editor to copy individual modules from your adventure.