The Main Editor Window

The main editor window displays a preview of the current map and allows you to make any necessary changes in real time. The top half of the window displays a preview of how the map will appear in the actual game while the bottom half displays the current tileset for the map. Each of the aspects of the main editor window will be discussed in more detail in the Main Editor section.

The Property Editor

The property editor allows you to modify certain aspects, or properties, of the current map. Using the property editor allows you to change the current map's background image, music, tileset, size, etc. The property editor also allows you to load and save maps. The property editor will be discussed in more detail in the Property Editor section.

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Left Mouse Button

Map Drawing Area

Places the current tile onto the map.

Middle Area

Sets the current tile to the special purpose tile that is clicked.
If a directional arrow is clicked the map will scroll by 1 tile in that direction.

NOTE: If the map cannot scroll in a certain direction the appropriate directional arrow will turn gray.

Tileset Area

Changes the current tile to the tile clicked on.

NOTE: The current tile's "tile type" will be set to the "tile type " of the tile that is clicked.

Right Mouse Button

Map Drawing Area

Deletes the selected tile and replaces the map position with tile number -1 (negative one) which represents a blank tile.

Middle Area

No effect.

Tileset Area

Changes the "tile type" of the tile clicked.

Left Arrow Key

Quickly scrolls the map in the left direction.

Right Arrow Key

Quickly scrolls the map in the right direction.

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Map Drawing Area

The map drawing area is the top half of the main editor screen. This is where the actual map drawing takes place. You can place tiles and remove them by using the left and right mouse buttons.

Middle Area

This section of the main editor has two arrows on either side of the screen. These arrows can be used to scroll the map 1 tile at a time, this is used for detailed scrolling. For quick scrolling use the LEFT and RIGHT ARROW KEYS.

The center of the middle area of the main editor has a blue square which displays the currently selected tile. When you select a tile from the tileset area it will show up in the middle area. From then on, clicking the LEFT MOUSE BUTTON in the map drawing area will draw the currently selected tile onto the map.

Special Purpose Tiles

There are five special purpose tiles which can be found to the left of the current tile.

Question Box

This will place a question box on the map. Question boxes are solid tiles where players can get special items.

Music Box

The music box is a solid tile that has an animated music note on it. This tile has no special purpose or function.

Spike Tile

This is a solid tile that will cause a player to get squashed if he hits it from underneath.

Start Tile

This marks the starting position for both players. When the map is loaded both players will start at this position.

NOTE: This tile must be placed before a map can be saved and must be placed to the left of the finish line.

Finish Line

This marks the ending position for the players. Players will have to cross this finish line to complete a lap.

NOTE: This tile must be placed before a map can be saved and must be placed to the right of the start tile.

NOTE: This tile cannot be placed on top of tiles of type solid or top solid.

Tileset Area

The tileset area is the most important part of the main editor and makes up the bottom half of the main editor screen. The current tileset for the level is displayed here. Each map can have only one tileset. In order to draw your map you must select a tile from the tileset area and place it on the map drawing area.

Tile Types

Displayed in the top left corner of each tile is that tile's tile type. When you select a tile from the tileset area the current tile's tile type will be that of the tile you have selected. For example, if you click on a tile that is solid then the current tile you will draw on the map will be solid as well. For convenience the type of the current tile is displayed in the blue rectangle of the middle area of the main editor. The different tile types are listed below.

Solid

A solid tile is denoted by an "S" inside a box. A player cannot walk through a solid tile in any way.

Top Solid

A top solid tile is denoted by a tile with an "S" in the top half of the box. A top solid tile is only solid on its top. If a player is under this tile he can jump through the bottom and land on the top. A player can also move through the tile from left to right as long as his feet are not above the top of the tile. Once a player's feet are above the tile he will land on top of it as if it were solid.

Transparent

A transparent tile is denoted by a box with a "T" inside it. A player can walk through a transparent tile in all directions as if it were part of the background. This is good to use for plants other background elements.

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The Property Editor

The property editor is a smaller toolbar window which is designed to make editing the properties of your level easier. The property editor will remain open until the main editor window is closed. Closing the property editor will minimize it to the system tray. You can also minimize the property editor to the system tray by selecting View followed by Hide Property Editor from the property editor's menu. Minimizing the editor to the system tray was designed to save desktop space. While minimized you can still load, save, and create new maps by right clicking on the icon in the system tray and selecting the appropriate menu item.

Map Name

The name entered here will display in the map list in the Go! Kart menu. The map name can be a maximum of 17 characters.

Background

Here you can select any bitmap (.bmp) file to be displayed as the background for your level. Only the top 352 pixels will be displayed. If the width of the picture is less than the width of the map, the picture will be tiled to fill the map.

NOTE: The picture will only be tiled horizontally. If the picture is less than 352 pixels high the background will appear black where the picture is not displayed.

Particles

Here you can select any bitmap (.bmp) file to be displayed as particles for your level. A particle in Go! Kart is a graphic that falls from the top of the screen to the bottom of the screen. Particles are used for effects like snow and rain.

The picture that you load must be a horizontal sequence of images all evenly spaced. Below is an example of the picture file used for the snow in the "Snow Globe" level.

This image contains 11 snowflakes all 9 pixels high and 9 pixels wide. These numbers are important for the particle editor.

NOTE: Particle information will not be saved with your map unless you have the "Include Particles" box checked.

The Particle Editor

The Particle Editor.

Once you have selected an image to use for your particles you need to decide how many particles you would like to be displayed on the screen at once. Open the particle editor by clicking on the "Particle Editor" button.

Total Particle Sprites

The number of different images in the sequence. In our example we have 11 snowflakes.

NOTE: Be careful not to type a number that would exceed the width of the image file. Our image file is 99 pixels wide (9 pixels wide for each flake * 11 flakes) typing in a number that is too high will result in an error when your map is loaded.

Particle Sprite Width

The width of each particle (9 pixels in our example).

Particle Sprite Height

The height of each particle (9 pixels in our example).

Minimum Range

The minimum amount of particles to be displayed on the screen at a time.

Maximum Range

The maximum amount of particles to be displayed on the screen at a time.

Music

Here you can load any MIDI (.mid) file to play on your level.

Tileset

Here you can load any bitmap (.bmp) file to use as the tileset for your level. The loaded image will be divided into tiles of 32 pixels x 32 pixels.

NOTE: When loading a tileset the level editor will search the "Presets" folder for a preset file with the same file name as the tileset's file name. If the file is found, that preset file will be loaded. For example, if the file "snow.bmp" is loaded as the tileset for the level, the file "snow.pst" will be loaded (if it exists) as the presets for that tileset.

Presets

Preset files (.pst) are files that save the tile types of each tile in the tileset so that you don't have to set them each time a tileset is loaded. You can save and load presets by clicking on the appropriate buttons in the property editor.

NOTE: If the preset file is for a tileset of a smaller size than the current tileset only some of the tile's types will be changed.

Information

Here the information about the tile your mouse is over will be displayed. This only works when your mouse is over the map drawing area.

NOTE: Tiles with negative numbers are special tiles. Tiles with number -1 are blank tiles.

Resize

You can change the size of the current map at any time, simply type the new length of the map (in tiles) and click "Resize". You can resize a map to be anywhere from 32 to 500 tiles wide.

Average Time Editor

The Average Time Editor.

When a level is loaded into Go! Kart a preview of that level is shown to the players. The preview lists the average lap time and the average race time for that map. In order to store this information with the map, open the Average Time Editor by clicking on the "Average Time Editor" button and fill in the appropriate information.

Save Map

You can save your map (.map) file by clicking on this button.

Load Map

You can load a map into the level editor by clicking on this button.

NOTE: When you load a level the level editor will search for a preset file with the name of the map (not the name of the map's file name). If it cannot be found it will then search for a preset file with the same name as the tileset's file name. If neither can be found the default preset file is loaded.

New Map

Creates a new map of size 64 x 11 tiles.

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File & Folder Locations

You may choose any file for any of the options in the particle editor, however in order for the level to work properly in Go! Kart the files must be placed in their appropriate folders in the Go! Kart main directory. Below is the Go! Kart folder structure:

Go! Kart Main Folder

Maps - All map files must be placed in this folder.

Music - All music files must be placed in this folder.

Graphics

Backgrounds - All background image files must be placed here.

Particles - All particle image files must be placed here.

Tilesets - All tileset image files must be placed here.

Presets - All preset files should be saved here for the level editor to automatically load presets based on map name or tileset file name.

Transparent Images

You may have noticed that the background color for all of the images for Go! Kart is a bright pink color (see the snowflake particles example). The bright pink color represents the transparent color. When Go! Kart loads an image with this bright pink color it will only draw the parts of the image that are not bright pink.

NOTE: Transparent images will work for particles and tilesets only, background images are not checked for transparency.

This transparent color is defined as follows:

Red: 255
Green: 0
Blue: 255

or

Hex: FF00FF

If you wish to create your own tilesets or particles you will need to make sure that all transparent parts are drawn with this color and this color only.

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Submit Your Maps

If you have created a map that you would like to share with the rest of the world, please do! Simply include all of the necessary files that go along with your map (backgrounds, tilesets, music, etc.) that are NOT already included with Go! Kart in an archive (.zip, .rar, .tar, etc.) and e-mail it to crazys@shatteredrealmproductions.com. Once received and reviewed your new map will be posted on the web site for everyone to download and enjoy.

It is the expandability of Go! Kart that will keep it exciting for a very long time, so please do submit your levels.

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