I have a question about switches and flags and stuff. -Answered, new question-

Basically, think of the five-button room from An Underwater Adventure. In that room there are five buttons on the floor with symbols that change when you press the buttons and you need to have a specific combination to unlock the way through. I want to do something like that, but instead of the symbol buttons, I want to use the green button that counts up if you stay on it and I want to put the door that needs to be opened on another screen. Is that possible? If it isn't possible, then what is the closest I could come to that effect? I couldn't find any useful information about this in any of the tutorials.

you could use flags and warps and stuff, but don;t ask me about it, i know its possible but actually never used flags or warps , but im sure its possible, and unfortunately you can't make a switch on one screen open a door on another, unless you use flags/warps/shifts and possibly some CO's

I believe there was a flag tutorial somewhere, too lazy to link it so a mod probably will (sorry to work you guys so hard by the way)

If you really need the timed switch, it's probably impossible to accomplish that: you could simulate the pressing with a series of Shifts, but that would mean shifting rooms, which makes all the Objects reset to their initial position. I suppose that would be a problem, or else you wouldn't be using a timed switch.

On the other hand, if just a switch is fine for you, you can simulate it with a Shift which turns a Flag on, and in the room with the door you could add a Flag Warp which sends the player to a copy room with the door open.

If you need more details let us know. Anyway, it's easier to learn working with Flags if you check other levels as an example.

Oh, here's a warm welcome to the community Forum, Solarn!

Thank you, both for the advice and for the welcome. No, the timed switch isn't absolutely necessary. I just like how it looks. Now, I need to ask a second question, because I'm not certain about it.

Right now I'm thinking of two possible ways to do this. This is the screen with the door thingy as it is now:

The air vents on the left can only be entered from the top left side (which can only be accessed using wall climbing) and for the first time, the player probably won't be able to exit to the right unless they've done some serious sequence breaking (which is possible, but insanely hard, so I don't mind leaving it in). The bottom exit leads to a tunnel that connects the main area, the switch screen a few levels down and the small room on the right of this screen (but not the small room TO the switch screen unless you're really good at jumping and avoiding meanies).

Ideally, the player would first find the wall-climb power-up from the main area, fail to reach the switch and climb up to enter the vent, which will then take them to the switch (which will then require another round of climbing up the same way, but I tried to make it as un-tedious as possible). Except that I still need to get the switch to work.

I could solve it the way you mentioned, with flags and warps, or I could put a switch where the wall-climb power-up is now, put the power-up where the switch is now, make the way between them completely impassable (so the player can't just climb up to the switch after getting the power-up) and see if that works.

So my question is: is there any switch that remembers its position even after you leave the screen? I know symbol switches reset, but do timed and regular switches do that as well?

Also, if I do it with flags, can I make the switches need to be set to a certain symbol before letting the door "open"? I want to make the switches set like this:

First question: No, that's what flags are for, really.

Second question: Not really, no.  The buttons will reset every time the room changes, so you'd need a disgustingly huge amount of rooms and shifts to pull it off, and it wouldn't be even remotely close to seamless.

Sorry, there is no working approach to that.


No objects retain information like that when leaving and reentering a room like that.  Objects are born (with a default initial state) when you enter a room and they are destroyed when you leave.

Flags are no good for the three-switch problem, either.  Flags are useful, but you only have 10 to work with (not counting the item flags).  10 Flags is enough to store all the information you need (2^10=1024 possible flag states vs 9^3=729 possible switch states), but it would require incredibly complex flag manipulation to pull it off.

Even if you could get it to work with Flags set up Warps on all of the possible permutations, it still wouldn't be fun to set up the 728 Warps required to allow the other copies of the room to connect with the rest of the level.  Also, because the switches reset to the first symbol on each inter-room switch, you'll need to use COs to manage their appearance.

Also, if I do it with flags, can I make the switches need to be set to a certain symbol before letting the door "open"?

It's no more difficult with flags as it is without.

The symbol under the switch in the editor is the symbol it needs to be to open the door.

Have the switches open the door, as normal. Then put a shift on the space with the door that turns on a flag. Then, if the flag is one when you enter the room with the door you need, have it warp to the screen without the door.

Have the switches open the door, as normal. Then put a shift on the space with the door that turns on a flag. Then, if the flag is one when you enter the room with the door you need, have it warp to the screen without the door.

That wouldn't work like that. The door cannot be reached without leaving the room.  But here's a modification that will work:


EDIT
That's a very clunky solution I just shared.  I can't believe I didn't think of this before, but here's a much nicer solution:

Quote from: Shawnachu on December 08, 2009, 02:57:57

Have the switches open the door, as normal. Then put a shift on the space with the door that turns on a flag. Then, if the flag is one when you enter the room with the door you need, have it warp to the screen without the door.

That wouldn't work like that. The door cannot be reached without leaving the room.  But here's a modification that will work:

Spoiler: (click to show/hide)

You'll have to work on the room's set up if you want to do this, because you somehow have to force the player to walk through a newly-opened door near the switch after using it (and there will be a shift on this door, like in Shawnachu's idea).  In the attached image, I took the easy solution and used No Climbs and No Jumps to force the player through, but that hardly feels natural.

EDIT
That's a very clunky solution I just shared.  I can't believe I didn't think of this before, but here's a much nicer solution:

Spoiler: (click to show/hide)

This one's simple enough that I actually built it in the editor (rather than just photoshopping a fake screenie to give an idea of it).


If you use the orange switch with the arrow (which turns off the lasers right then and there), you don't need to do anything special to route the player into a flag-activating shift.  You can put the shift right on top of the switch.  As long as the shift is Spot type and Activate on touch, the shift and the switch will activate together (I think switches and spot-shifts are identical in size and shape).



x1000y1000 is the first state of the room.  It is connected together with the rest of the level.
x1002y1000 is a copy of x1000y1000 with no doors.

The shifts and flags work the the same as in Shawnachu's idea, but just to make things clear:
The shift in x1000y1000 will turn on a flag (but won't transport the player).
Use flag warps to redirect the player to x1002y1000 on future entry into x1000y1000.
Screen edge warps in x1002y1000 are adjusted to point to the rooms adjacent to x1000y1000.

Code: [Select]

[x1000y1000]
;Adjust the X and Y warp coordinates to be consistent
;with the difference between your two rooms

ShiftTouch(A)=True
ShiftQuantize(A)=False
ShiftEffect(A)=False
ShiftVisible(A)=False
ShiftFlagOn(A)=1
Flag(A)=1
FlagWarpX(A)=2
FlagWarpY(A)=0

[x1002y1000]
WarpX(U)=-2
WarpY(U)=0
WarpX(D)=-2
WarpY(D)=0


That second one is brilliant in its simplicity. The reason I wanted to know if it was possible with three switches was because I remembered that at the earliest stage of the level's development I already placed a clue to the position of the switches on another screen (originally I wanted to have three switches on another screen that opened up the door, but that idea got thrown out quickly when I realized it would be impossible), but that one already points to a secret area I've made since then, so there was really no reason to complicate things that way.

I have a second, incredibly noobish question.

How do I make a .knytt.bin file out of a level?

in the editor, go to the tool bar, under level i think it is, click compress the rest is pretty basic

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Don't post topics with nondescript titles. Topics with titles like "Help!" or "I have a noob question..." are often pretty useless. When you have a problem, give as much information about it as you can, so people know what you are talking about and give it a helpful title so that people who might have a similar problem can easily find your topic via the search.

Please edit your topic to have a more descriptive title. (Even if it's long and awkward.)

From the Official Forum Rules:

Quote

Don't post topics with nondescript titles. Topics with titles like "Help!" or "I have a noob question..." are often pretty useless. When you have a problem, give as much information about it as you can, so people know what you are talking about and give it a helpful title so that people who might have a similar problem can easily find your topic via the search.

Please edit your topic to have a more descriptive title. (Even if it's long and awkward.)

Sorry. It had a descriptive title, but then that question has been answered and so the title wasn't really descriptive anymore.