P3 - Entrances

This is something many people seem to have problems with, so let's see if we can help them ;)

Entrances are, like the name suggests, places where you can enter an Area. The only thing that seems to be confusing here is that entrances have 2 purposes:

* It are places that you can go TO when entering an Area/Zone (aka it's the position where you character is placed when entering the Zone).

* But you can also go FROM entrances, going from one entrance to another. (These entrances are Enterable)

The are some different kinds of entrances:

Normal entrances: You character just stands there.

Pipes: The typical wrap pipe that can (sometimes) be entered.

Doors: Press Up to enter the Door.

...

Every kind of Entrance has different uses, so let's just see them one by one!

General

The first thing you should know is how to create entrances. All you need to do is to choose the last tab in the palette (the door) and right click at the place where you want to put the Entrance (just like you would do with Tiles and Sprites. Easy, no?

But how do we Identify an entrance? We want to send our characters to the correct one!

To do this, we are going to give each entrance in an Area an Unique ID. This ID starts at 0, then goes to 1, 2, ....

Due to this, we can easily identify an entrance:

For example: Area 1 - Entrance 2 = Left wrap pipe (of Area 1)

If we want to send our character to the left wrap pipe now, all we have to do is to create another entrance that can go to the entrance with ID2 in Area 1.

Configuration

So, how do we configure one Entrance to go to another one? It's quite simple!

First, double check that all your Entrances have an unique ID within the Area they belong to!

Entrances can have the same ID as long as they are in a different Area (not Zone !)

Here are the 2 entrances I'm going to use:

Note that the left Pipe is in Area 1 and the right pipe is in Area 2.

So what I want to do is to be able to go FROM the pipe on the right TO the one on the left.

I don't want people to enter the pipe on the left (aka go FROM that pipe), it is only used as an exit for the right pipe.

To make sure it is not possible to enter this pipe, I leave Enterable Disabled. As long as the pipe is not enterable, it doesn't matter what Dest. ID and Area I give to it.

On the other hand, the right pipe can be entered, so I enable Enterable for this one. Since I made it Enterable, I must give the ID and Area of the destination Entrance (this is why IDs should be unique in one Area!). In my case that would be Area 1 and ID 2 (which you can see in the left image).

So the final result is:

The system works the same for ALL entrances, so you shouldn't have much difficulties with them!

1) Normal

Like said above, when your character is sent to a normal entrance, he will just stand where the entrance is when the Area is loaded. This is mostly used at the beginning of the level, or when retrying a level from mid-point.

It is not possible to go FROM a normal entrance, you can only go TO these entrances.

A perfect example would be setting up the Start of your level (see page 4).

2) Pipes

There are 4 directions of pipes: Up, Down, Left and Right. There is a different pipe entrance for each one. If you choose the wrong one, it won't work.

You must place an entrance at each end of the pipe (Always place the Entrance in the top left of the opening of the pipe (see image below).

As always, give your Entrances unique IDs within the Area they belong to.

3) Door Exit and Door Entrance

Unlike with other Entrances, there is actually a different Entrance for doors which can be Entered and those which can not be Entered.

A door that CAN be entered needs a Door Exit, while a door that CANNOT be entered needs a Door Entrance. (They're really making it confusing now :P).

Notice the green Arrows in the image above. Place the Door Exit/Entrance in the bottom left of the Door, no matter how big the Door is.

The door at the left (non-enterable) can be found under the first tab of the Tiles. The enterable door to the right is a Sprite with the name D-Pad Door (Find it under Platforms and Hazards > Level Mechanics).

Note: You can go from one Door Exit to another Door exit (or even any other type of exit).

There are a lot more kinds of entrances, but I have no time to discuss all of them right now. Just try them all out and see what they do!