Nibbler

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The Level Editor: As simple as it gets

This is the section perhaps least in need of documentation. It's slobberingly easy to use.

List of commands

Mouse buttons: Mouse left : Move grid cursor to square at mouse cursor; Mouse right : Copy/adjust/accept (same function as ENTER)
Basic Editing: Arrows : Move grid cursor; Shift + Arrows: Move grid cursor in 10x increments; SPACE : Paste clipboard contents; ENTER : Copy/adjust to clipboard what is under the grid cursor; DELETE : Delete sprite under grid cursor; TAB : Autodraw toggle; F : Fill background with clipboard background tile; S : Display number of sprites in level
Advanced Editing: F1 : Paste background; F2 : Paste item; F3 : Paste enemy; F4 : Paste obstacle

Placement Attributes

You can place floor tiles, enemies, and obstacles. Floors can be placed anywhere. Sprites can be placed everywhere except for the level boundary squares, and they cannot overlap.

How to interpret floor tiles

Floor tiles are the background that you see in the grid. Every square has its own floor tile. Just pick from the table to select the tile you want, and lo and behold, it will be there. If you want to place it at more than one location, you can paste it from the edit menu or press the SPACE key. You can create some attractive levels by making the background look nice.

But it has limits--you can't just place any tile anywhere and expect the level to function the way you want it. Each row of graphics has a different meaning. The first row contains water and acid. These tiles will automatically have the properties of water and acid when you play your level.

The second row contains "solid walls." These normally cannot be altered during the game. Within this row, there are two types of walls: the three on the left side that can be scaled and passed over if the snake climbs up a ramp, and the five on the right side which can't be scaled under any circumstances.

The third row contains "breakable walls." These act similar to solid walls, but can be destroyed (by rocks, cannonballs, etc.). The same "3 scalable, 5 unscalable" convention applies horizontally for breakable walls as well as solid ones.

The fourth row contains "true floors." These can be passed over by almost everything in the game. Note that a breakable wall, once broken, will be replaced by the floor tile directly below it in this table.

The fifth row contains "pits." These can act as a hole in which objects can fall, or a portal to another destination, or an exit, depending on how you want to use it.

Sprite Pop-up Menus

Enemies and obstacles often pop up attribute menus when they are placed or edited. These control things like initial direction, tag associations, etc.

Direction: If you've ever played spin-the-bottle, you know how to spin the direction pointer. Depending on the object, sometimes you will have a greater choice of angles to choose from.

Tags: Use tags to link pairs or greater numbers of objects to each other. In the editor, a switch with the same tag as a guillotine, cannon, or anvil will associate the switch with the respective booby-trap. You can link up to four individual booby-traps to one switch; more will just be ignored. Two portals with the same tags lead to each other. Tags must be greater than zero--zero is too vague and I have rigged Nibbler to trash all objects with zero tags. You can still use zero tags to mark such objects as a preliminary designs (before you implement a fully-functional level design).

The remaining attributes should be self-explanatory.

File Options

Grid size: Just increase the level dimensions to make them bigger. The x-size can vary from 20 to 80, and the y-size can vary from 12 to 48. Of course, it's a chore to design an 80 x 48 level! Sometimes, the best puzzles are really small ones. Note also that scroll bars appear whenever the level isn't confined to one screen. The operation of these bars should be self-explanatory.

Time: From 0-5000 seconds. Zero seconds gives an infinite amount of time to finish the level.

Background: Select from several themes. Hint: design a level with one theme in mind. It's a REAL PAIN for you to decide to change backgrounds and find out that your level aesthetics are ruined.

Level Number: This is just a way to mark levels when rank-ordering them. It's not that important for level design itself.

Powerup Order: This controls how bonuses for defeating enemies are awarded. The first killed enemy yields the first entry, the second yields the second entry, etc. If you want, add blank spaces to force the player to beat several enemies in succession before getting a powerup.

Completion: Criteria for finishing the level. Usually "Eat all fruit" suffices, but an additional "Find Exit" can make a level decidely more challenging. Use "Beat other snakes" in competitive multiplayer levels and single-player levels that have rival snakes. (Note: multiple snakes are not implemented in the Alpha Version).

Properties and guidelines

Below is a list of some of the special obstacles and guidelines for how to use them.

Cannon: You need to give a direction (as given for most enemies) as well as a tag. What the tag does is match the cannon with a switch, which must have the same tag number. You may link up to three cannons to one switch by making their tags have the same number. When the switch is flipped in the game, all cannons with the same tags fire at once.

Portal: You must give a tag to two portals that you wish to "connect." A snake that passes through one portal will emerge at the other portal, in the direction that the portal is facing. Only a single pair with equal tag numbers is allowed; you may not network one portal to several others. Keep in mind that a "pit" background is required for a normal portal. If you don't use "pit" background, you will create a secret portal. This type of portal turns into a normal portal only when the snake passes over it, and it will award points at the end of the game.

Guillotine: The tag you give it matches up to a switch tag. Like a cannon, it chops when the corresponding switch is flipped.

Anvil: The tag you give it matches up to a switch tag. It will place an anvil directly over the square when the switch is flipped.

Switch: You specify a tag that will activate guillotines, cannons, and anvils. Up to three separate obstacles may be activated by a single switch. You can also activate a single structure with two or more different switches on the level.

Snake: This is the starting position for a snake. Specify a direction and a length for the initial snake. You also select a type of snake to generate, which can be a starting position of the primary player, a multiplayer starting position, the starting position of an enemy snake, or a co-op starting position. There can be only one primary snake position in a level, and there must be a primary snake position for the level to be playable.

For co-op levels, you should place only one co-op snake. This will function as the second player's starting position, if there is a second player.

Boss: This is the starting position for a boss. You must give the name of the boss to generate at that position.

Exit Lock: This sprite is used to lock an exit until the level criteria have been completed. When this occurs, this lock will open. If there is a pit underneath the lock, the lock becomes a manhole, which acts as a regular floor until the level is complete, and then it becomes an exit to the next level.

Exit: This is an exit not covered by a lock. If a player dives into this, the level is completed regardless of any other criteria. A pit tile does not need to be placed under this.

(Note: If a pit background tile is not declared as an exit, a locked exit, or a portal, the tile automatically becomes a hole that will cause objects to plummet down to the next level.)

Secret: This sprite has several different functions. The tag can mean a variety of different things, depending on how you place the sprite.

Level warp: If the snake passes over the square, the snake will warp to the level specified by the tag. This is naturally only useful in a group of levels; there is nowhere to warp to in a single level. It is suggested that you place secret levels in a group after the "main" group, e.g. place a boss at level 20 and secret levels at 21, 22, and 23. Have another level warp sprite sling the progression back to the original "normal" level on the secret level.
Secret passage: If the tag equals zero, a message is displayed that the user found a secret passage and nothing else happens. A find will award points at the end of the game.
Number of nonsecret ("normal") levels: Place the sprite on a wall or high wall (inaccessible to a snake) and give it a tag that represents the number of normal (nonsecret) levels. This sprite must appear in the first level of a collection. In the example mentioned above, the tag would be 20. This causes the game to end at level 20 instead of proceeding to level 21.

About placing sprites--you may notice that sprites cannot touch the perimeter of the level, in whole or part. It is advised that a border of impassible terrain block any object from moving outside the perimeter of the level, but this is not enforced. In the game, of course, movement of some objects outside the grid can cause the game to crash. Therefore, you should construct the levels so that the objects are reasonably "fenced in."

A snake can enter a level in two ways: from natural progression or from a fall from an upper level, as due to a hole. If a level is played as a singular unit or if the level is the first in the series of a group of levels, a fall into a pit will take a life. Otherwise, a pit will just cause a fall to the level of that number - 1. If you choose to use pits on a level, try to make the level to which the snake falls relatively fast or easy to complete. You don't want to force a game player to play long or very difficult levels over and over; this is an easy turn-off to your level designs.

Another way to do a quick sprite copy or adjustment is by right-clicking the mouse while an object is selected by the grid cursor. If you want to see the tally of sprites in the level, press the "S" key. More sprites generally mean a more complicated level design.

Design Tips and tricks

There are two level design philosophies that apply to this editor: the "gameplay/design" philosophy and the "artistic" philosophy. Pick either one and start a level.

The "gameplay/design" school of thought dictates that you should come up with a geometric pattern, a puzzle, or an arrangement of enemies, fruit, and items that speaks for itself. This mentality yields some great level designs, but it often falters when it comes to making levels look pretty. To address this, I suggest you pick the "maze" backdrop and select a single dull color scheme, and once you are satisfied with the gameplay, pick a different backdrop and apply the badly needed make-up.

The "artistic" school of thought is just the opposite. Start out with a backdrop that you are certain will suffice, and just start drawing with the editor, giving minimal thought to placement of fruit, enemies, and items. Once the picture is complete, then you can add sprites and fine-tune the level. These levels sometimes require a lot of trial and error, and often need to have the background reworked. Still, this type of level generally looks much better than one created with "gameplay/design" in mind.

Although a larger-sized level has the potential to be much more difficult than a smaller-sized level, this does not guarantee anything. Sometimes, you may make a very difficult level that is only one screen in width and height!

Dead ends can ruin a level if you're not careful. A level is fun if it is fast-paced with little stopping to catch your breath--and if that means rounding a lot corners instead of ploughing into dead ends, the level should be considered a success.

While the "stopper" and "reverse" powerups can be helpful to complete some puzzles, they can be abused. The point of the game is to maneuver with skill, not meander mindlessly. I suggest they only be used as necessary elements to complete a puzzle.

With the help of ramps and springs, you can make an entirely new level on the top of the walls in addition to the floor maze. This takes practice to determine what methods are best, of course. All fruit and powerups, and a few enemies as well, can be placed on higher walls.

Crocks and archerfish should be placed in water. With crocks, though, you need only have the rear two segments immersed in water to look best. With archerfish, they should be in water at all times.

Mashers will avoid water, so you can't place them over water. Some enemies can't swim (such as worms and spiders) so you can't place these over water either. Water springs should be placed in water so that all of the physics will make sense.

A chopping guillotine only hits a single square, just under its blade. I recommend the guillotines have impassible squares under its posts, which are up and left of and down and right of the chopping block. This allows passage under the guillotine from four directions; otherwise, the posts can look funny drawn against other objects.

Try creating some fancy piping schemes. The pipes can be used by both snakes and by cannonballs, so some fairly elaborate puzzles are possible.

You can make a level MUCH harder by forcing the player to get a speed up powerup at the beginning of the level. Similarly, you can make the level much easier by giving a free slowdown powerup near the snake starting position.

For cooperative levels, place only one multiplayer snake. Remember that the level actually has less space for two players once the two snakes start eating and filling up the level! If this is too much of a problem, or else if a level just doesn't work well for two players, you can leave out the co-op snake. This only lets one player attempt the level at once, but the players will alternate turns on the level if the first player failed to complete the level the first time.

Experiment! I can't emphasize this enough. There are a lot of wacky things that can happen in this game. The only way to take advantage of all of them is to experiment.

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