Blades Of Avernum Scenario Editor Instructions Table of Contents Introduction To Scenario Design Section 1: The Basics Chapter 1.1 - Making Your First Scenario, Step By Step Chapter 1.2 - Creating A Scenario Chapter 1.3 - A Few Things To Know Chapter 1.4 - Using the Editor Chapter 1.5 - Editing Terrain Chapter 1.6 - Editing the Outdoors Chapter 1.7 - Editing Towns Section 2: Scripting Chapter 2.1 - Introduction to Scripting Chapter 2.2 - Creating Custom Objects Chapter 2.3 - Quick Introduction to Graphics Chapter 2.4 - Creating Custom Floor Types Chapter 2.5 - Creating Custom Terrain Types Chapter 2.6 - Creating Custom Creature Types Chapter 2.7 - Creating Custom Item Types Chapter 2.8 - Programming with Avernumscript Chapter 2.9 - Creating Scenario Scripts Chapter 2.10 - Creating Town Scripts Chapter 2.11 - Creating Outdoor Scripts Chapter 2.12 - Creating Creature Scripts Chapter 2.13 - Creating Terrain Scripts Chapter 2.14 - Creating Dialogue Chapter 2.15 - Dealing With Errors Chapter 2.16 - Advanced Topics Section 3: Porting Blades of Exile Scenarios Chapter 3.1 - Porting Scenarios, the Basics Chapter 3.2 - How To Port Your Scenario Section 4: Custom Graphics Chapter 4.1 - Basics of Custom Graphics Chapter 4.2 - Custom Floor and Terrain Graphics Chapter 4.3 - Custom Item Graphics Chapter 4.4 - Custom Creature Graphics Chapter 4.5 - Custom Scenario Graphics Section 5: Putting It Together Testing and Distributing Your Scenario Appendices The appendices (which list all the calls, spells, skills, and other designer resources) are in the file Blades of Avernum Editor Docs Appendices. Introduction to Scenario Design Welcome to the Blades of Avernum Scenario Editor! The Blades of Avernum system enables you t o make fantasy role-playing adventures of great detail and complexity. And, hopefully, fun. It is a demanding program, and creating the next great adventure is not for the faint of heart. However, with time and ingenuity, you can create stories that will captivate Blades of Avernum fans all over the world. Using the editor is a long journey. So, before you start, here are a few words of advice, intended t o make your job a lot easier: If You Are a Beginner, Read the Tutorial If you’ve never used this scenario editor before, be absolutely sure t o read Chapter 1.1, “Making Your First Scenario, Step By Step”. It’s the very first chapter. It will take you, step by step, through all of the most important features for scenario design. For the novice, it is absolutely invaluable. Play the Game! Don’t even think about starting to use the editor until you have played through all of the scenarios that come with Blades of Avernum. Before you can work in this medium, you have to really understand how the game works. You should be comfortable with how the game flows, how the terrain works, a n d what the game system is like. That is the only way you can really understand what you are doing. Don’t Expect Miracles I won’t lie to you. You can create very basic, simple scenarios with this editor without a lot of work. However, you will have to put in a lot of hours if you want to figure out how to make this editor truly shine. Scripting is powerful, but it is not always easy. Expect Limitations The Blades of Avernum system is not created to be infinitely versatile. You can’t create arcade elements. It won’t lend itself well to making science fiction adventures, or adventures in settings far from Avernum. Also, you are sure to think of something extremely clever you want to do that the engine doesn’t make possible. I tried to anticipate everything, but I am sure I failed many, many times. It Is Work People are often surprised at how much work and concentration is takes to make adventures. It takes time to make good stuff. I strongly suggest, for your first a dventure, aiming small. A few outdoor sections. Ten or twenty towns and dungeon levels. Don’t try to make the world-changing epic until you really understand what you’re getting into. It is better to release and share one small adventure than t o make half of a huge one that nobody ever sees. Learn From Examples The best way to learn how to do anything is to work from an example. If, for example, you want t o see how to place a locked door, open one of the scenarios that came with the game and look at the doors in it. If you want to see how to make scripts, read the scripts in scenarios already completed. Do not be ashamed of looking at the work of others. It is the very best way to learn. Back Up Your Work! I have lost count of the times that some poor user has relayed to me a tale of a crashed machine, file corruption, or similar problem that destroyed their scenario (along with many hours of work). Computers are machines, and machines can fail! Back up your work frequently! Use Online Resources! Scenario design is complicated, but you don’t have to face the struggle alone. Go to the Scenario Workshop at http://www.avernum.com to read helpful tutorials on scenario design, and go to the Blades of Avernum forum on our web site (http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com) to ask questions and trade tips. Designing role-playing games can be really fun, exciting, and satisfying. I’ve been doing it for ten years, and I’m only just getting started. So if you want to give it a shot and see what people really think of your work, read on. If I haven’t scared you off ... let’s go! - Jeff Vogel Keeper of Avernum Section 1: The Basics Chapter 1.1: Making Your First Scenario, Step By Step This chapter contains step-by-step and click-by-click instructions for making a scenario, editing the outdoors a little, making a new town, and populating the new town with some creatures and treasure. Going through these steps will take only a few minutes, but save hours of confusion later on. I. Get the editor running. Copy the Blades of Avernum Editor application into the “Blades of Avernum Files” folder. Open that folder and run the editor. II. Make your scenario. Select New Scenario from the File menu. You will see a window that asks for your new scenario. In the first text area, just enter some name. Try “Basic Scenario”. In the next text area, you must enter the file name for the scenario. Just enter “basicscen”. Finally, select the bottom check box to have the scenario be on the surface (instead of the underworld). Press Done. The correct setting for the first window. The correct setting for the second window. In the next window, you will be asked for the size of the Outdoors. Leave the fields saying one a n d one. But below, be sure to select the checkbox by “Include starter town.” Press Done, and your scenario will be created. III. Open your scenario. Select Open from the file menu. Open the folder “Basicscen” in the “Blades of Avernum Files” folder. The file basicscen.bas is your scenario file. Open it. You will now be looking at the outdoors. That town in the middle is Warrior’s Grove, a simple starting town that has been provided for you. The Outdoors When You Begin Warrior’s Grove is a full service town, with shops, an inn, and a way to leave the scenario. You don’t have to be able to program or write scripts to enable players of your scenario to have access to the resources they need. So for now, we can just focus on painting a little terrain and making a dungeon. IV. Shifting the View. Painting Terrain First, let’s shift our view a little. Click on the wooden edge of the terrain view. Note how the view scrolls around. You can also shift the view with the keypad. Move the view around and little, and then return to the view being centered on the main town. The editor has three modes: place floors, place terrain, and change heights. You start out in place floors mode. All those icons to the upper right are the available floor types. The Change Mode Button Press the change mode button. You are now in place terrain mode. Notice how all of the icons t o the upper right have changed to terrain. Press the change mode button again. You are now in change height mode. This isn’t important right now. Press the change mode button one last time to return to place floor mode. (You can also change the mode by hitting the space bar.) Let’s change the floor. First press the Pencil button and then select grass with rocks (see figure below). The Pencil and Grass Click on the terrain a few times. You are placing rocks on the grass. Click on some of the rocks again. Notice they disappear, returning you to the base ground (grass). Placing a terrain onto the same sort of terrain a second time erases it. Now change to drawing terrain mode. The party will start in this town, but we don’t want them t o be able to walk off the edge of the world. We want to draw trees around the town, so the party has to stay close. Select trees by clicking on them, and then draw trees around the town, like this: A Ring Of Trees Finally, we want to make a dungeon to explore.