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Enigma Reference Manual

This manual describes the internals of Enigma, in particular how to build new levels using Lua and how to interact with the game engine. It describes Enigma version 0.90.

1. Introduction  General remarks on creating new levels
2. XML levels  The new XML-based level descriptions
3. Objects  Description of all objects in Enigma
4. Variables  Lua variables that influence the game
5. Functions  Predefined functions
Index  


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1. Introduction

This chapter explains how Enigma works internally and how you can create your own levels. This manual is not for users of graphical level editors, but rather for programmers of graphical level editors or users who want to use the full power of the Enigma "engine" by using the built-in scripting language.

There are two kinds of file formats you can use to build levels for Enigma. The traditional solution was to write small programs in a programming language called Lua. Although this is still possible, the preferred way is now to prepare files in a data-centric format called XML; this will be discussed in detail in chapter

Enigma's level format is extremely flexible and allows you to create very dynamic and interactive levels. Here are a few examples of levels that make heavy use of Lua, both when preparing the level and during the game:

Our focus is on using Lua to access Enigma's game engine, so you won't learn much about Lua as a language in this chapter. Many simple things, like function calls or if statements, will appear familiar to anyone having a little programming experience: In many ways Lua is similar to programming languages like Basic or Pascal. But for most of Lua's finer points you will have to reach for the official Lua documentation, which you can download from lua.org.

1.1 Creating New Levels  
1.2 A Simple Level  
1.3 Registering Levels  
1.4 Where to go from here  


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1.1 Creating New Levels

Creating a new level basically consists of the following steps

  1. Writing the level description, for example a file named `daniel01.lua'.
  2. Inserting the new level into a level pack of your choice
  3. Creating a preview image for the level
  4. Testing the level in Enigma


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1.2 A Simple Level

Here is a very simple level description that can also serve as a starting-point for new landscapes. (In fact, this is the first level in Enigma, so you can try it out right away.)

 
 1   CreateWorld(20, 13)
 2   draw_border("st-brownie")
 3   fill_floor("fl-hay", 0,0, level_width,level_height)
 4
 5   set_stone("st-fart", level_width-1,0, {name="fart"})
 6   set_stone("st-timer", 0,0, {action="trigger", target="fart",
 7             interval=10})
 8
 9   oxyd(3,3)
10   oxyd(level_width-4,level_height-4)
11   oxyd(level_width-4, 3)
12   oxyd(3,level_height-4)
13   oxyd_shuffle()
14
15   set_actor("ac-blackball", 10,6.5)

The resulting level looks like this inside the game:

Let's now turn to a line-by-line analysis of this program:

 
 1   CreateWorld(20, 13)
 2   draw_border("st-brownie")
 3   fill_floor("fl-hay", 0,0, level_width,level_height)

The level begins with a call to CreateWorld, which creates a new world that is 20 blocks wide and 13 blocks high. Every block in the world can be accessed with a pair of coordinates: The upper left corner has coordinates (0,0), the lower right one has coordinates (19,12). Every block contains a floor tile, an (optional) item, and an (optional) stone.

A frame of stones is drawn around the newly created landscape with the draw_border command. Its argument, "st-brownie", is the name of a stone. By convention, all stones have "st-" prefixed to their name, similarly all item names begin with "it-" and all floor names with "fl-".

The fill_floor command in line 3 fills the complete floor with tiles of type "fl-hay". The other arguments are the upper left corner and the width and height of the rectangle to be filled.

 
 5   set_stone("st-fart", level_width-1,0, {name="fart"})
 6   set_stone("st-timer", 0,0, {action="trigger", target="fart",
 7             interval=10})

Lines 5 to 7 demonstrate how to create individual stones. The set_stone command takes a stone name, the desired coordinates, and an (optional) list of attributes as arguments. Note the use of curly braces {, } to enclose the attribute list.

Attributes are the key to customizing the behaviour of objects in a landscape. Here, we first give a name to the first stone we create. It's a fart stone that has the unpleasant habit of "blowing off" when triggered. Triggering this fart stone is done by the timer stone we create in line 6--7. This stone performs a predefined action at regular intervals. In this case we want to send a "trigger" message every ten seconds to the object named "fart".

 
 9   oxyd(3,3)
10   oxyd(level_width-4,level_height-4)
11   oxyd(level_width-4, 3)
12   oxyd(3,level_height-4)
13   oxyd_shuffle()

These commands place a couple of oxyd stones in the level. The oxyd command internally uses set_stone("st-oxyd", x,y, ...) to create the stones, but it additionally assigns sensible values to some of the oxyd stones' attributes (most notably the color). The command on line 14 permutes the colors on the oxyd stones currently in the landscape.

 
15   set_actor("ac-blackball", 10,6.5)

This final line creates the black marble controlled by the player. Objects that can move around freely are called "actors" in Enigma. Unlike stones and items, actors are not restricted to integer coordinates, as you can see in this example.


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1.3 Registering Levels

After writing the level description you have to tell Enigma where to find your brand new landscape. That's really two separate steps:

  1. Move the `.lua'-File where Enigma can find it;
  2. Insert a new entry into the appropriate level index.

The `.lua'-Files and the corresponding level index usually reside in the same directory. For the levels that come with Enigma, for example, this is the `levels' directory inside. For your own levels you can either use the same directory (currently your only choice if you use the Windows version of Enigma) or the `.enigma/levels' directory in your home folder (only if you use the Unix version).

A level index is a file that contains the list of landscapes that comprise a level pack in Enigma. Here is an excerpt from `index_enigma.txt', which defines the "Enigma" level pack:

 
{file=welcome              name="Welcome"                        author="Daniel Heck"         }
{file=martin06             name="Is It Easy?"                    author="Martin Hawlisch"     }
{file=lasers101            name="Lasers 101"                     author="Daniel Heck"         }
{file=level3a              name="Feel Your Way"                  author="Siegfried Fennig"    }
{file=martin04             name="Sokoban Revival"                author="Martin Hawlisch"     }

Every line in this file describes one landscape in the level pack. The general format of these lines is

 
{ tag1=content1 tag2=content2 ... }

One line normally contains many different tag=content pairs.

If your content contains spaces, surround the content with quotes (e.g. name="Is It Easy?"). If you want the string to contain quotes, escape them with \ (e.g. author = "Petr \"ant\" Machata").

Here's a description of all supported tags:

file
Defines the file name of the level (excluding the `.lua' extension). This entry is mandatory!

name
Defines the full name of the level. This is the name the player will see in the level menu. You can leave this field empty if you prefer to leave your level unnamed.

author
Defines the name of the autor. It will be displayed together with the full name at level startup.

revision
Defines the revision number of the level (defaults to 1) When the revision number is increased, a small red ! appears in the level menu.

If you do changes to the level that affect the way the level is solved, you should increase the revision number. If you only did cosmetic changes, you should NOT increase the revision.

You should never decrease the revision number!

easymode
Set this to 1 when the level supports different difficulties.

par_time
Syntax: par_time=sec,name

sec is the par time for the level in seconds.

name is the player who did the par.

If easymode is 1 then par_time_easy and/or par_time_normal have to be used instead of par_time.

When Enigma starts up it automatically tries to load an index file called `index_user.txt', where you can store all your personal levels. This file is not included in Enigma distributions, you have to create it yourself. The levels listed in this file will show up in a new level pack called "User Levels".


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1.4 Where to go from here

The example level from the first section of this chapter was hopefully enough to give you an impression how level descriptions look like in Enigma. Of course, that level was extremely simple, and most interesting levels will be more complicated. The rest of this reference manual tries to document the available game objects and how to interact with the Enigma game engine, both when preparing the level (before the game starts) and during the game.

This manual only describes the low-level interface to Enigma's game engine, which is as flexible as it is inconvenient to use by hand. Petr Machata has written a comprehensive set of helper routines that greatly simplify the creation of new levels. You can use the package by including the line Require("levels/ant.lua") in your level descriptions. There is extensive documentation for `ant.lua' in file `ant_lua.txt' in the documentation directory.

Before you read on, please be aware that this manual is far from complete. We are working on it and it will be ready for the (glorious) 1.0 release. For the moment, the available level descriptions are the best "documentation" available.


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2. XML levels

The general outline of an XML-style Enigma level looks like this:

 
<level width="20" height="13">
  <info>
     <!-- level information -->
  </info>
  <option ... />
  <actors>
     <!-- actor definitions -->
  </actors>
  <floor>
     <!-- floor definition -->
  </floor>
  <items>
     <!-- item definition -->
  </items>
  <stones>
     <!-- stone definition -->
  </stones>
  <signals>
     <!-- signal definition -->
  </signals>
  <lua>
     <!-- optional Lua code -->
  </lua>
</level>

If you are unfamiliar with XML, here are a few general notes:

An Enigma level must begin with <level width="xx" height="yy">, where xx and yy are width and height of the level, and ends with </level> The following sections of this manual describe the structure of the remaining parts of a level description, in the order indicated in the above example.

2.1 Meta information  
2.2 Level options  
2.3 Actors definition  
2.4 Floor definition  
2.5 Item definition  
2.6 Stone definition  
2.7 Signal definition  
2.8 Embedded Lua code  


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2.1 Meta information


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2.2 Level options

Certain aspects of the game can be customized by changing the values of the options to be described in this section. Some of these options control general aspects, like constant force fields or whether the level automatically restarts when the marble gets destroyed, while other options provide default values for objects in the level, like the strength of magnetic fields or the look of Oxyd stones.

The following example shows the general syntax for options. Note the use empty tags: the salient information is already contained in the attributes name and value.

 
<option name="shuffle" value="NO" />

Here is the table of all options available so far:

shuffle
Shuffle the colors of the Oxyd stones after before starting the game? "YES"/"NO".

oxydflavor
The look of Oxyd stones; "a"/"b"/"c"/"d". See 3.3.14 st-oxyd: Oxyd Stones for details.

reset

follow

flatforce

slopeforce

electricforce


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2.3 Actors definition


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2.4 Floor definition


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2.5 Item definition


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2.6 Stone definition


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2.7 Signal definition


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2.8 Embedded Lua code

To make XML levels every bit as expressive as the former level format, a special <lua> tag is available to carry arbitrary Lua code. Only one such tag per level is allowed, and the code it contains is executed after all other tags have been processed, immediately before handing the level over to the game engine.

Lua code blocks can be used for everything that can not be realized with the data-centric XML format, like specially crafted signal handlers, randomly generated levels or puzzles, or to access features of Enigma's game engine that are not otherwise available.

Graphical level editors are expected not to tamper with the contents of Lua code blocks when they read or write Enigma levels, i.e., neither to modify them nor to delete them without notice.


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3. Objects

3.1 Floors  
3.2 Items  
3.3 Stones  
3.4 Actors  
3.5 General object attributes  


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3.1 Floors

3.1.1 fl-inverse: Inverse Floor  Inverse Floor


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3.1.1 fl-inverse: Inverse Floor

On this floor the marble is accelerated into the opposite mouse direction.


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3.1.1.1 Variants

fl-inverse
fl-inverse2


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3.2 Items

3.2.2 it-floppy: Floppy Disk  Floppy Disk
3.2.3 it-hollow: Hollows in the floor  Pits in the floor
3.2.4 it-ring: Ring  Ring
3.2.5 it-vortex: Vortex  Vortices for Teleporting


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3.2.1 it-document: Scrolls of Paper

This item looks like a piece of paper and contains text messages that can be displayed by activating the item.


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3.2.1.1 Attributes

text
The message to be displayed.


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3.2.1.2 Example

 
set_item("it-document", 1,1, {text="Hello World!"})

 
Document(1,1, "Hello World")


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3.2.2 it-floppy: Floppy Disk

The floppy disk is needed to activate the Floppy switch (see 3.3.8 st-floppy: Floppy Switch).


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3.2.3 it-hollow: Hollows in the floor

This item creates a hollow in the floor. If all existing @xref{ac-whiteball-small} are inside hollows the level succeeds.


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3.2.3.1 Attributes

essential
Whether the hollow must be filled with a whiteball to end the level (1 means 'yes').

Use this attribute if there are more holes than small whiteballs in a level and you want to determine which of the holes are needed to finish the level.

For example: If you have many holes and 3 whiteballs, then set essential=1 in 3 holes. The game will end when the 3 whiteballs are inside the 3 marked holes.


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3.2.4 it-ring: Ring

When a player drops this item, the marble is teleported. The destination depends on the game mode:

Single player levels:
The marble is transported to its starting position or to the position of the last dropped @xref{it-flag}.

Multi player levels:
Both marbles exchange their positions.


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3.2.5 it-vortex: Vortex

Vortices, like wormholes, can be used to teleport marbles. In the simplest case, every vortex is connected to exactly one other vortex. If there are multiple target vortices, the marble will be teleported to the first unblocked target site. Many levels in the original Oxyd games required the player to selectively block vortices to gain access to new parts of the level.


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3.2.5.1 Example

This example creates three vortices. If the second vortex is blocked, a marble falling into the first one is transported to (20,1).

 
SetItem("it-vortex", 1, 1)
SetItem("it-vortex", 10,1)
SetItem("it-vortex", 20,1)
Signal ("it(1 1)", "it(10 1)")
Signal ("it(1 1)", "it(20 1)")
Signal ("it(10 1)", "it(1 1)")
Signal ("it(20 1)", "it(1 1)")


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3.3 Stones

3.3.1 st-actorimpulse: Bumper Stones  Bumper Stones
3.3.2 st-chameleon: Chameleon Stone  Chameleon Stone
3.3.3 st-coinslot  Coin Slot Switch
3.3.4 st-death: Skull Stones  Skull Stones
3.3.5 st-disco: Disco Stones  Disco Stones
3.3.6 st-easymode: Easy Mode Stone  Easy Mode Stone
3.3.7 st-fart: Fart Stone  The Infamous Fart Stones
3.3.8 st-floppy: Floppy Switch  Floppy Switch
3.3.9 st-grate: Grates  Various Grates
3.3.10 st-knight: Knight Stone  Black Knights
3.3.11 st-laserswitch: Laser Switch  Laser Switch
3.3.12 st-lasertimeswitch: Laser Time Switch  Laser Time Switch
3.3.13 st-oneway: One-way Stones  One-way Stones
3.3.14 st-oxyd: Oxyd Stones  The Famous Oxyd Stones
3.3.15 st-rubberband: Rubberband Stone  Rubberband Stone
3.3.16 st-scissors: Scissors Stone  Scissors Stone
3.3.17 st-stone_break: Breakable Stone  Breakable Stone
3.3.18 st-swap: Swap Stone  Swap Stones
3.3.19 st-switch: Switches  Ordinary Switches
3.3.20 st-thief: Thief Stone  Thiefs
3.3.21 st-timer: Timer Stone  Timers
3.3.22 st-timeswitch: Time Switch  Time Switch
3.3.23 st-window: Breakable Stone  Breakable Window
3.3.24 st-wood: Wooden Stone  Wooden Stones
3.3.25 st-yinyang: Yin-Yang Stones  Yin-Yang Stones


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3.3.1 st-actorimpulse: Bumper Stones

These stones apply an impulse to actors that touch them. The amount of force applied can be controlled by setting @xref{enigma.BumperForce} accordingly (the default is 800). Alternatively, the force attribute can be used to set this factor for individual bumper stones.

The invisible variant, @xref{st-actorimpulse_invisible} can "painted" with a @xref{it-brush}.


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3.3.2 st-chameleon: Chameleon Stone

This stone takes on the look of the floor beneath it. Actors can move through it, so these stones are perfect for hiding stuff under them...


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3.3.3 st-coinslot

A switch that can be activated with coins. The more coins you put in, the longer the switch will stay activated.


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3.3.3.1 Attributes

target, action
As usual


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3.3.4 st-death: Skull Stones

Simply kills all marbles that touch it (except when protected by an umbrella).


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3.3.4.1 Variants

st-death
st-death_invisible


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3.3.5 st-disco: Disco Stones

Darkens everything that is underneath the stone (much like tinted glass). Can be switched on and off (hence the name).


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3.3.5.1 Messages

signal
With parameter 1, lighten the stone and (recursively) all neighboring disco stones; with parameter smaller than 1, darken them.
lighten
darken


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3.3.5.2 Variants

st-disco-light
st-disco-medium
st-disco-dark


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3.3.6 st-easymode: Easy Mode Stone

In easy game mode this stone converts the floor at its position to fl-normal. In normal game mode the stone removes any item at its position. The stone itself never appears in either game mode; it removes itself immediately after performing its job.

This stone is commonly used to hide danger areas (water holes, abyss) or to insert helper items (umbrellas, seeds, etc.) that make the level easier in easy game mode.


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3.3.7 st-fart: Fart Stone

The fart stone has the unpleasant habit of "blowing off" when triggered (by actor hit or signal) and will close all Oxyd stones.


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3.3.7.1 Messages

trigger
blow off


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3.3.8 st-floppy: Floppy Switch

A switch that is activated by inserting a floppy disk (see 3.2.2 it-floppy: Floppy Disk).


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3.3.8.1 Attributes

on
1 or 0
target
action


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3.3.9 st-grate: Grates

Floating grates, mainly decorative. Flying objects (jumping marbles, rotors, etc.) cannot pass, objects moving on the floor can.


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3.3.9.1 Variants

st-grate1
st-grate2
st-grate3


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3.3.10 st-knight: Knight Stone

See user manual for a description.


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3.3.11 st-laserswitch: Laser Switch

This switch is on while hit by a laserbeam and off when not hit by a laserbeam.

See also 3.3.12 st-lasertimeswitch: Laser Time Switch.


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3.3.11.1 Attributes

inverse=1
Inverts the on/off state of the switch (i.e on at startup and switch off with laserbeam)
target,action
as usual


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3.3.12 st-lasertimeswitch: Laser Time Switch

This switch is a mix between 3.3.11 st-laserswitch: Laser Switch and 3.3.22 st-timeswitch: Time Switch.


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3.3.13 st-oneway: One-way Stones

This stone can be passed by the marble in only one direction. (Or, to be more exact, the arrow on the stone points to the one side of the stone through which it can't be entered. Hard to explain, try it yourself :-)

There are three different variants of the one-way stone: the standard one, st-oneway, which both the black and the white marble can pass, and two colored ones, st-oneway_black and st-oneway_white, which completely block marbles of the other color.


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3.3.13.1 Variants

st-oneway
st-oneway-[nesw]
st-oneway_black
st-oneway_black-[nesw]
st-oneway_white
st-oneway_white-[nesw]


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3.3.13.2 Attributes

orientation
One of NORTH, EAST, SOUTH, or WEST. This determines the orientation of the stone when the level is loaded. You need to use the direction message for changing the orientation during the game. Note that it is usually easier to use one of the alternative names, like st-oneway-north instead of explicitly setting this attribute.


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3.3.13.3 Messages

direction
Set the direction of the arrow during the game. Simply setting the attribute orientation is not enough, since this does not update the stone's model on the screen.
signal
flip
Both these messages flip the direction of the arrow.


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3.3.14 st-oxyd: Oxyd Stones

Oxyd stones are characterized by two attributes: Their flavor and their color. The flavor only affects the visual representation of the stone; it can be either `a' (opening like a flower), `b' (displaying a fade-in animation), `c', or `d'. The color attribute determines the color on the oxyd stone.

Note: You should rarely need to create Oxyd stones manually with set_stone(). Use the predefined oxyd() function instead. It will automatically take care of creating two Oxyd stones of every color.


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3.3.14.1 Attributes

flavor
`a', `b', `c', or `d'
color
a number between 0 and 7


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3.3.14.2 Messages

closeall
Close all oxyd stones
shuffle
Interchange the colors of the oxyd stones in the current landscape. Use the oxyd_shuffle() function.
trigger
Open the stone (useful for opening Oxyd stones using switches)


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3.3.15 st-rubberband: Rubberband Stone

If hit by a marble, this stone first removes existing connections with other rubberband stones and then attaches a new elastic between the marble and itself. Nothing happens if the marble was already attached to this particular stone.

This stone can be moved if hit with a magic wand.


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3.3.15.1 Attributes

length
The natural length of the rubberband (default: 1)
strength
The strength of the rubberband (default: 10)


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3.3.16 st-scissors: Scissors Stone

This stone cuts all rubber bands attached to an actor that touches it.


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3.3.17 st-stone_break: Breakable Stone

This stone can be destroyed by an actor having a hammer and by laser, dynamite, bombs and bombstones.


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3.3.18 st-swap: Swap Stone

This stone can exchange its position with other neighboring stones if it is hit hard enough. In a way, this makes swap stones a kind of "movable stone", except that they can be only exchanged with other stones and may not be moved on empty fields.


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3.3.19 st-switch: Switches

A simple switch.


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3.3.19.1 Variants

st-switch
All kinds of objects can activate this switch
st-switch_black
Only black marbles can activate this switch
st-switch_white
Only white marbles can activate this switch


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3.3.19.2 Attributes

on
1 (activate) or 0 (inactive)
target, action
as usual


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3.3.20 st-thief: Thief Stone

Takes one item from inventory after when hit by the player's marble. Umbrellas protect against thievery.


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3.3.21 st-timer: Timer Stone

This stone can be used to trigger periodic events or to trigger one single event after a certain amount of time.


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3.3.21.1 Attributes

on
1 if the timer is running
interval
number of seconds before action is performed
loop
if 1, restart the timer after performing action
action
as usual
target
as usual
invisible
if 1, stone is invisible


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3.3.21.2 Messages

on
off
onoff


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3.3.21.3 Example

 
-- activate a laser after 5 seconds
set_stone("st-laser", 10,11, {name="laser"})
set_stone("st-timer", 10,10,
          {loop=0, action="onoff", target="laser", interval=5})


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3.3.22 st-timeswitch: Time Switch

When this switch is touched by an actor, it switches on for 1.8 seconds and then switches off again.

See also 3.3.12 st-lasertimeswitch: Laser Time Switch.


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3.3.22.1 Attributes

delay
The delay in seconds after which the switch goes off.
inverse=1
Inverts the on/off state of the switch.


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3.3.23 st-window: Breakable Stone

Hit this window heavily with your marble to blast it into smithereens.


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3.3.24 st-wood: Wooden Stone

This stone is movable. If moved into abyss, water or swamp it builds a wooden plank.

Note: There are two flavors of st-wood which may be specified by using st-wood1 or st-wood2.


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3.3.25 st-yinyang: Yin-Yang Stones

Yin-Yang stones change into @xref{st-white} or @xref{st-black} if you touch them.

There are several flavors of this stone:

st-yinyang1
If touched it changes it's color to the opposite color of your marble.
st-yinyang2
If touched it changes it's color to the same color as your marble.
st-yinyang3
The Per.Oxyd compatible: You must hold @xref{it-magicwand} or @xref{it-brush} to change the color to the opposite color of your marble.

Actors get stuck inside the Yin-Yang Stone if they are starting there or when they warp there. They can be freed by changing the color of the Yin-Yang Stone to their color.


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3.4 Actors

Movable objects are called "actors" in Enigma. The commonest actor is, of course, the black marble, but there are others, including the white marble, the killerball and a few more:


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3.4.1 ac-blackball

mouseforce (default 1.0) color (default 0.0) blackball (default 1) player (default 0) controllers (default 1)


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3.4.2 ac-whiteball

mouseforce (default 1.0) color (default 1.0) whiteball (default 1) player (default 1) controllers (default 2)


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3.4.3 ac-whiteball_small

mouseforce (default 1.0) color (default 1.0) whiteball (default 1) controllers (default 3)


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3.4.4 ac-killerball

mouseforce (default 2.0) color (default 1.0) whiteball (default 1) controllers (default 3)


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3.4.5 ac-rotor

range (default 5.0) force (default 10.0) gohome (default 1)


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3.4.6 ac-top

range (default 5.0) force (default 10.0) gohome (default 1)


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3.4.7 ac-bug


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3.4.8 ac-horse

force (default 10.0) target1 target2 target3 target4

3.4.9 Actor Attributes  


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3.4.9 Actor Attributes

All actors share a set of common attributes that determine their general behaviour:

player
The player "owning" this actor. This is either 0 or 1 for the first or second player respectively. Actors attached to a player can pick up items and can be respawned when they are killed.

mouseforce
A factor that determines how much the actor accelerates when the mouse is moved. Default is 1, use higher values for fast moving actors. If set to 0, the actor cannot be moved with the mouse (but external forces can still exert a force on it).

controllers
Determines which players may move this actor: 1=Player 1, 2=Player 2, 3=both. By default, ac-blackball, ac-whiteball and ac-whiteball-small have their controllers attribute set to 1,2, and 3 respectively.

essential
A non-zero value marks this actor as essential. If essential=1, the game restarts if 1 of all essential actors can't resurrect (analog for higher values). If you set the attribute for several actors, you should use the same value for all of them!

whiteball, blackball
Used by color-sensitive stones (black/white switches for example) to determine whether the actor is the black or the white marble. These attributes may disappear in future versions, please do not use them.


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3.5 General object attributes

name
All objects may be given a name attribute. Such named objects can be searched using 5.4 enigma.GetNamedObject.


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4. Variables

This chapter describes the Lua variables that can be accessed from level descriptions

Variable: enigma.AllowTogglePlayer
TRUE or FALSE

Variable: enigma.Brittleness
A value between 0 and 1, denoting the probability that a brittle floor plate desintegrates further when an actor enters or leaves it. 1 means that the floor will always crack, 0 that it is indestructible.

Variable: enigma.BumperForce
The amount of force applied to an actor that hits an st-actorimpulse stone. 3.3.1 st-actorimpulse: Bumper Stones.

Variable: enigma.ConserveLevel
TRUE or FALSE. If FALSE, reload the level whenever the an actor that is controlled by a player (i.e., one that has the player attribute set) dies. Often used in meditation landscapes or landscapes that are intended to be solved in one go.

Variable: enigma.ElectricForce

Variable: enigma.FrictionFactor

Variable: enigma.ShowMoves
TRUE or FALSE. This is only used in the Sokoban level pack.

Variable: enigma.SlopeForce

Variable: enigma.SlopeForce2


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5. Functions

5.1 AddRubberBand  Creating rubber bands
5.2 CreateWorld  
5.3 enigma.AddConstantForce  
5.4 enigma.GetNamedObject  
5.5 SendMessage  Sending messages to objects
5.6 draw_checkerboard_floor  
5.7 draw_border  Drawing a border of stones


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5.1 AddRubberBand

Function: AddRubberBand (actor, object, strength, length)

This function connects two objects with a rubber band: The first object is always an actor, the second object can be either another actor or a stone.

The first argument actor is always a reference to an actor created earlier with the set_actor function. The second parameter object may be either an actor or a stone created earlier. The last two parameters define the properties of the rubber band: strength denotes the force factor of the elastic and length its natural length. No force is exerted on the actor if the rubber band is shorter than its natural length.


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5.1.1 Example

 
local ac=set_actor("ac-blackball", 1.5,7.5)
local st=set_stone("st-brownie", 10,6)
AddRubberBand(ac, st, 50, 10)


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5.2 CreateWorld

Function: CreateWorld (width, heigth)

This function creates a new level. Because objects can only be added to the level after CreateWorld has been called, you should usually do so near the beginning of your level description.

The width and height denote the size of the new level. All levels with only one screen have the minimum size of 20x13 blocks.

Note that level fields are indexed from zero, i.e, the field indices for a 20x13 level are in the range (0..19)x(0..12). Also note that the screens in Enigma overlap by one line or column: A level that fits on a single screen has size of 20x13, but two a level that is two screens wide 39x13 or 20x25, three screens 58x13 or 20x37.


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5.3 enigma.AddConstantForce

Function: enigma.AddConstantForce (gravity_x, gravity_y)

Adds global gravity to the current level.

gravity_x
adds gravity in horizontal direction (positive means rightwards).
gravity_y
adds gravity in vertical direction (positive means downwards).


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5.4 enigma.GetNamedObject

Function: enigma.GetNamedObject (objname)

This function searches for an object that has a name attribute with value objname. It returns a reference to the object or nil if none could be found.


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5.4.1 Example

 
set_stone("st-wood", 7, 11, {name="woodie"})
...
local Woodie = enigma.GetNamedObject("woodie")


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5.5 SendMessage

Function: SendMessage (object, message, data)

This function sends a message to an object.

object
The recipient of the message. Can either be the name of an object or a reference as returned by 5.4 enigma.GetNamedObject.
message
The message itself (e.g. "signal") You can see which messages are understood in the documentation of the particular 3. Objects.
data
Some specific messages expect some additional data (e.g. message "direction" expects a direction like SOUTH or WEST).


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5.5.1 Examples

 
set_stone("st-laser-s", 2, 2, {name="laser3", on=FALSE})
...
SendMessage("laser3", "onoff")

 
set_stone("st-bolder", 7, 11, {name="bolder1", direction=SOUTH})
...
SendMessage("bolder1", "direction", WEST)


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5.6 draw_checkerboard_floor

Function: draw_checkerboard_floor (name1, name2, x, y, w, h, attribs)

This function draws checkerboard composed of two selected floor types. name1 and name2 are names of floor objects. See @xref{set_floor} for further details.

name1, name2
Names of floor objects
x, y
Location of left top corner of checkerboard area. Note that upper left map corner is [0,0].
w, h
Size of generated checkerboard.
attribs
Table of attribute names and corresponding values: {attrib1=value1, attrib2=value2, ...}. These attributes, together with default attributes, are passed to each tile of the generated checkerboard.


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5.6.1 Example

 
draw_checkerboard_floor("fl-abyss", "fl-rough", 2, 2, 23, 11)
draw_checkerboard_floor("fl-normal", "fl-inverse", 0, 0, levelw, levelh) -- racetrack


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5.7 draw_border

Function: draw_border (stonename, x,y, w,h)

This function adds a border of stones to your level. If invoked with only one argument, this border encloses the whole level.

stonename
The name of the border stone.
x,y
(optional) Coordinates of upper-left corner. (0,0) if omitted.
w,h
(optional) Width and height of border.


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5.7.1 Example

 
draw_border("st-marble")
draw_border("st-greenbrown", 0,5,3,3)


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Index

Jump to:   A   C   D   E   S  

Index Entry Section

A
AddRubberBand5.1 AddRubberBand

C
CreateWorld5.2 CreateWorld

D
draw_border5.7 draw_border
draw_checkerboard_floor5.6 draw_checkerboard_floor

E
enigma.AddConstantForce5.3 enigma.AddConstantForce
enigma.AllowTogglePlayer4. Variables
enigma.Brittleness4. Variables
enigma.BumperForce4. Variables
enigma.ConserveLevel4. Variables
enigma.ElectricForce4. Variables
enigma.FrictionFactor4. Variables
enigma.GetNamedObject5.4 enigma.GetNamedObject
enigma.ShowMoves4. Variables
enigma.SlopeForce4. Variables
enigma.SlopeForce24. Variables

S
SendMessage5.5 SendMessage

Jump to:   A   C   D   E   S  


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Table of Contents

1. Introduction
1.1 Creating New Levels
1.2 A Simple Level
1.3 Registering Levels
1.4 Where to go from here
2. XML levels
2.1 Meta information
2.2 Level options
2.3 Actors definition
2.4 Floor definition
2.5 Item definition
2.6 Stone definition
2.7 Signal definition
2.8 Embedded Lua code
3. Objects
3.1 Floors
3.1.1 fl-inverse: Inverse Floor
3.1.1.1 Variants
3.2 Items
3.2.1 it-document: Scrolls of Paper
3.2.1.1 Attributes
3.2.1.2 Example
3.2.2 it-floppy: Floppy Disk
3.2.3 it-hollow: Hollows in the floor
3.2.3.1 Attributes
3.2.4 it-ring: Ring
3.2.5 it-vortex: Vortex
3.2.5.1 Example
3.3 Stones
3.3.1 st-actorimpulse: Bumper Stones
3.3.2 st-chameleon: Chameleon Stone
3.3.3 st-coinslot
3.3.3.1 Attributes
3.3.4 st-death: Skull Stones
3.3.4.1 Variants
3.3.5 st-disco: Disco Stones
3.3.5.1 Messages
3.3.5.2 Variants
3.3.6 st-easymode: Easy Mode Stone
3.3.7 st-fart: Fart Stone
3.3.7.1 Messages
3.3.8 st-floppy: Floppy Switch
3.3.8.1 Attributes
3.3.9 st-grate: Grates
3.3.9.1 Variants
3.3.10 st-knight: Knight Stone
3.3.11 st-laserswitch: Laser Switch
3.3.11.1 Attributes
3.3.12 st-lasertimeswitch: Laser Time Switch
3.3.13 st-oneway: One-way Stones
3.3.13.1 Variants
3.3.13.2 Attributes
3.3.13.3 Messages
3.3.14 st-oxyd: Oxyd Stones
3.3.14.1 Attributes
3.3.14.2 Messages
3.3.15 st-rubberband: Rubberband Stone
3.3.15.1 Attributes
3.3.16 st-scissors: Scissors Stone
3.3.17 st-stone_break: Breakable Stone
3.3.18 st-swap: Swap Stone
3.3.19 st-switch: Switches
3.3.19.1 Variants
3.3.19.2 Attributes
3.3.20 st-thief: Thief Stone
3.3.21 st-timer: Timer Stone
3.3.21.1 Attributes
3.3.21.2 Messages
3.3.21.3 Example
3.3.22 st-timeswitch: Time Switch
3.3.22.1 Attributes
3.3.23 st-window: Breakable Stone
3.3.24 st-wood: Wooden Stone
3.3.25 st-yinyang: Yin-Yang Stones
3.4 Actors
3.4.1 ac-blackball
3.4.2 ac-whiteball
3.4.3 ac-whiteball_small
3.4.4 ac-killerball
3.4.5 ac-rotor
3.4.6 ac-top
3.4.7 ac-bug
3.4.8 ac-horse
3.4.9 Actor Attributes
3.5 General object attributes
4. Variables
5. Functions
5.1 AddRubberBand
5.1.1 Example
5.2 CreateWorld
5.3 enigma.AddConstantForce
5.4 enigma.GetNamedObject
5.4.1 Example
5.5 SendMessage
5.5.1 Examples
5.6 draw_checkerboard_floor
5.6.1 Example
5.7 draw_border
5.7.1 Example
Index

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Short Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. XML levels
3. Objects
4. Variables
5. Functions
Index

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