KRepton Editor User Manual

The KRepton Editor can be used for creating and amending episodes for the KRepton game. It is a companion program to the KRepton game application.

It was originally written by Sandro Sigala using the QT and KDE libraries for release 1.0 of KDE.

KReptonEd was converted to KDE 3 and this version is currently maintained by Jonathan Marten.

Selecting an episode to edit

You can't directly edit the original episodes distributed with the KRepton package, since they are installed in the global read-only directory $KDEDIR/share/apps/krepton/episodes. To create a new episode based on one of these, start KReptonEd and click the New Episode button. Enter a name for your new episode, and choose the episode that it is to be based on from the list of existing episodes. Click OK to copy the episode and start the editor.

To modify an existing personal episode, click the Edit Episode button and choose the episode to edit from the list of existing personal episodes. Click OK to start the editor.

Your personal episodes are stored in the directory $KDEHOME/share/apps/krepton/episodes. You can copy the episode data stored here between users, if you wish to share your episodes; one day there may be an option within KRepton and KReptonEd to do this in a more user-friendly way.

Level Data

From the main editor screen you can create, reorder and delete levels. The episode name is the same as the password; of course, the password for the first level is never asked for. You can also change the time limit or the password for an existing level.

It is not (yet) possible to change the size of an existing level.

You can create transporters by specifying their origin position (which triggers the transporter when Repton moves on to it) and the destination position (where Repton reappears after transporting). The map must have a transporter sprite at the origin position; the consistency check will verify this and tell you if not.

When the levels and sprites are to your satisfaction, choose Save from the File menu to save the episode to your personal data directory. You can now select and play the episode in the KRepton game (if you don't have that installed, do it now!).

The Level Editor

Open the level editor by selecting the level in the scrolling list and choosing Level Editor from the Window menu.

The level is shown in the large scrolling view, with the current coordinates of the mouse pointer; you can use these coordinates as a reference when placing transporters. To place an object, select it in the scrolling list of objects (the object graphic will be shown to the right of the list) and then click the left mouse button over the map to place the object. Click the right mouse button to delete any existing object and place an empty space.

When the level is finished, click Close to close the level editor; alternatively, simply choose another level to edit from the list.

The Sprite Editor

Open the sprite editor by choosing Sprite Editor from the Window menu.

Select the sprite to be modified from the scrolling list, which will be displayed at actual size to the right of the list and enlarged in the sprite area. Place coloured pixels using the left and right mouse buttons; the colours which each button will place can be selected by using the Left and Right buttons below the sprite preview.

When the sprites are finished, click Close to close the sprite editor.

The sprite editor should suffice for simple editing, but it is also possible to edit the sprites using any other graphics application. The sprites are contained in the sprites.bmp file (in the Windows bitmap format) within the episode directory. For advanced sprite editing I suggest using the powerful GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program), available freely at www.gimp.org if you do not have it installed already.

Consistency Checking

The consistency check is a very useful feature: it checks the levels for the most common editing problems, some of which are merely warnings but others which may make the level unplayable. The check is normally done automatically when saving the level (this can be turned off, see Editor Options below), or the check can be done manually using the Check Consistency button or the option in the File menu.

The following checks are done:

The level password is specified (not blank)
A valid time limit is specified
One and only one Repton (start position) is present
At least one finish level object (in the original episodes, the bomb) is present
For each transporter, their origin and destination coordinates have been entered and a transporter sprite is present at the origin
If cages are present, there must be at least that many spirits to be caught in them
If strongboxes are present, there must be a key to open them
The passwords are unique for all levels in the episode

There are some other conditions which, while not necessarily making the level unplayable, may cause problems for the player and so a warning will be given:

The transporter destination should be an empty space, otherwise Repton may die or become stuck when using the transporter
There is no bonus object (in the original episodes, a crown) to be collected
There are more spirits than cages for them to be caught in; it will not be possible to catch all of them
Eggs are present, but there are no rocks available to kill the monsters

Please note that the consistency check does not exhaustively test whether the level is actually solveable (that would be a far more challenging AI problem); for example, it gives no warning for this level:

Editor Options

There are two options on the Settings menu.

If Check Consistency Before Saving is turned on, the check will be done automatically before the episode is saved. This can be turned off to allow partial episodes to be saved while work on them is in progress.

If Align Windows is turned on, the sprite and level editor windows will move and maintain their same relative positions if the main editor window is moved. If the option is turned off, the windows can be moved around independently.

Sources and Links

You can find KReptonEd and KRepton for KDE 3 at www.keelhaul.demon.co.uk, along with some other software written by me. It may also be available on apps.kde.com and other KDE download sites.

See the KRepton help for more information and links.

License

KReptonEd 3.0 is now released under GPL; I have obtained the original author's permission for this license change.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

It is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY
WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public License
for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; see the file COPYING for further details.
If not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place -
Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.

Sandro's original version 1.0 was released under a license as follows:

I release it under an open source code license. If you like this
program, send me a postcard from your hometown :-).

        Sandro Sigala
        Viale De Gasperi, 8
        25041 Darfo Boario Terme
        Brescia, Italy