3D Step Dungeon Maze Kit (Premium – Early Access)

Creating a New Maze

Step 1) Loading the maze builder interface

To design a new maze you will first need to load the “Map Editor Grid” Interface. You can do that either by selecting to “Play” or “Test” the Interface (not to be confused with Testing the entire game).
The Interface is fairly straightforward to use. Initially the Map is going to be filled with “Wall” blocks, and you can begin painting on it by selecting any of the other existing blocks on the right side with your left click and then left clicking anywhere on the grid to place it (for most blocks you can also hold left click and drag to paint quicker). It is also possible to right click any of the existing blocks on the grid to “pick” that to your cursor.
It should be noted that while the grid’s coordinates go from 1 to 32, the actual Map the player will navigate in is going to be a size of 96. That is because each tile for this project translates to 3 whole tiles in the engine. Coincidentally, the player also moves 3 whole tiles every time you walk in this grid-based system.

Step 2) Exporting the new maze

After designing your maze you can then export it by clicking on the “Export Map” button located at the bottom-right corner of the Interface. This will generate a .txt file in “\Documents\001\Games\[Your project’s name]”.

Step 3) Importing the new maze

To import your newly created maze you need to close the Map editor and head over to where your project’s Tables are located. Identify the “MazeMaps” Table and click “Edit”. On the window’s top-left corner click “Data”, select “Import Data…” and then look for your generated .txt file to import. And you’re done!

NOTE: If your newly imported maze was added to a new floor, in other words if you increased the Table’s Z size, then you will also need to make sure that change is reflected on the “MazeMapsFog” Table too in order for everything to function properly. If the new maze also contains signs, chests and enemies, then the same thing will need to be done for the “Signs_Maze”, “Loot” and “Enemy_Spawn” Tables respectively.

Step 4) Setting up the new maze

Technically speaking, the “MazeMaps” Table is where all your mazes are going to be located in. You can have as many floors (Z layers) as you’d like and make use of maze themes – or in other words, different Tile-Sets – to give the player the illusion that there are multiple different mazes. To have the player load into a maze, edit the script located in the “Activated” trigger of an “Items Choice x” Field by changing the value of the “MazeTable” “HUD” Interface Variable which will determine what Z plane of the “MazeMaps” Table the player will load into. There you can also determine the look of the maze by changing the value of the “Maze_ID” “HUD” Interface Variable which will determine what Tile-Set will be used to build the maze.

It is also important that in order to avoid jumping from one maze to another via staircases you should edit the “Activated” trigger script of the “ContextButton” located in the “HUD” Interface to prevent that (unless of course that is desired, in which case you can leave it as is). If your “MazeMaps” Table has 17 Z planes and 3 mazes which are set up like this: Maze A Floor 1-5, Maze B Floor 6-9, Maze C Floor 10-17 — then you can utilize branches to first determine what maze the player is in by checking the floor they’re in, and then deciding whether to allow a descent or ascent to a lower or higher floor respectively.

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Loading an Existing Maze for Editing

To edit an existing maze you will have to load the “Map Editor Grid” Interface. You can do that either by selecting to “Play” or “Test” the Interface (not to be confused with Testing the entire game). Additionally, you need to make sure to check the “Launch with game debugger” tick-box in the Testing Options window.

With the editor Interface now loaded, open the Variables window from the Debugger window and double click the “Maze_Base” Table to open it, then click “Data” on the window’s top left corner and select “Import Data…”.

After locating your file and importing it, simply click the “Update Grid” button located at the bottom-right corner of the Interface and the grid will be updated to reflect the changes.

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Setting Up Enemy Spawn Tables

Setting up enemy spawns can be done in the “Enemy_Spawn” Table.
That Table is composed of 2 cells per Z plane, where:
Y: 1 = “Weak enemy” (“E.Weak” in “Map Editor Grid” Interface), and
Y: 2 = “Strong enemy” (“E.Strong” in “Map Editor Grid” Interface).
The Z dimension is used to represent the different floors. By writing in the cells the names of desired Actor Template entries, you can have them spawn as enemies in a maze.

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Setting up Chest Loot Tables

Similar to enemy spawn Tables, you can set up loot Tables in the “Loot” Table.
The Table’s Y size can be changed to whatever you might like, and it represents the list of Items that can be randomly awarded to the player whenever they open a chest. The Z dimension is used to determine what floor number of the maze these Items can be found in. By writing in the cells the names of the desired Items, you can have them be awarded to the player whenever they open a chest.

TIP: Since Items are randomly picked from that list, it is possible to set different percentile chances by having the same Item take up multiple spots.
For example: if you have 4 cells in total and they are of this composition:
“Potion”, “Potion”, “Potion”, “Elixir”… it means that the player will have a 75% chance of getting a “Potion”, and a 25% chance of getting an “Elixir”.
If you want the chest to also have a chance of containing nothing, then you will need to alter the script, since putting nothing as a value in a cell will simply have it re-pick from the list.
To do that, inside the “Talked to / Activated” trigger of the “Chest” Actor Template cut the 1st branch of the 2nd Comparison Branch Event.

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“Map Editor Grid” Interface Legend

A: A 32 by 32 editable maze grid. Can be painted on by picking a block from the list (D) with the left mouse click, or by picking a block from the grid itself with the right mouse click.
B: The coordinates that the cursor is pointing at.
C: Information on the block’s tag, as well as its name.
D: A list of existing blocks that can be placed on the grid.
E: A list of commands that execute different actions. You can see their description by hovering the cursor over them.

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Included Block Tags Legend

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Variable Definitions

Switches

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Collections

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Tables

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“HUD” Interface Variables