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This is a tutorial series isn't it? Then WHY are the only things I see posted online Mars Lander Level Packs? Believe me, I am asking the same questions. The trouble is, while I'd love to be doing all this for free, that doesn't pay the bills, so I'm trying to negotiate a contract by which I'd be paid for making these tutorials. The only issue is, as long as that contract isn't finalized, I don't know what I would or would not be allowed to distribute. The last thing I want to do is post something and then have to take it down later because it violates the terms of my contract. That's why I haven't released Mars Lander Builder, or any of the other things I'm working on besides the updated Game Builder library:

What follows is the fifth segment of the Mars Lander Builder Behind the Scenes write-up. Click titles below to read other segments:

Working with a Theme
Creating the Level Code
Child-Proofing

Ranking Difficulty

Runner Editions:

When I made the Mars Lander Builder, the reason I needed the file system to be alphabetical was so that it could be loaded into different versions of the program. From one code I intended the level to be loadable into both Mars Lander Builder and several different iterations of Mars Lander Runner Edition. With the alphabetical file system, this became possible. While 300 characters isn’t short by any stretch of the imagination, it’s a lot shorter than the jargon that people would be copying if I used any kind of special encoding on the files. I still intend to use GameMaker Studio to develop Mars Lander Runner Editions for as many platforms as possible, and I know that with the alphabetical code this will be possible.
And now, for a very special level pack. With the addition of these 5 levels, there are officially 50 levels available for Mars Lander Runner! To that end, I’ve replaced the Runner download file with the “50 Level Edition”. This contains all 9 level packs and the Mars Lander Runner.

Click the image below to download Mars Lander Runner 50 Level Edition:

I hope you’ll find this worth the wait, I present to you; Version 3 of the BGP GameMaker Extensions. Both Extensions have new Help files, both the HTML Help files and the PDFs have been updated. The largest update in this version is the addition of Callouts to the Game Builder tab. What are Callouts you ask? Read on below to find out!

BGP Library Update

At first glance, the BGP Library doesn’t seem to have received much of an update, and that’s mostly true. There are still 23 Actions, but the “Set Variable in Instance” Action has received a slight update. It can now set arrays as well as normal Variables. This is especially important for modifying Callouts beyond their basic functionality.

Child-proofing:

I’m glad to say that I only had to cut one feature from the game: Check-points. While I originally planned to include check-points into the game, I realized this wouldn’t be possible if I was to allow for multiple-rocket levels. It would have been easy enough to only put check-points into levels with just one Rocket, but you can’t explain that kind of thing to kids who are using the program.

Creating the Level Code:

As hard as I worked to include as many features as possible, the framework of the game was still limited by one major factor; the alphabetical saving system. This meant that I could only have up to 26 types of Objects, and only 300 Objects within a level (for a size of 640x480). One of the ways I saved space in the code was to have Geysers snap to the nearest surface. This way I only needed 3 different Objects instead of 12!
Considering that Mars Lander’s code uses 24 letters to create a code that is 300 characters long, I’ve wondered how many unique levels could be made. Obviously a large percentage of those levels would be unplayable for various reasons, but I think it’s safe to say that you can make thousands of unique levels with the program before you start running into trouble. It might even be more than that… if anyone would like to do the math, I’d be happy to hear how many levels Mars Lander Builder can create!

Since not much was happening this week besides the release of the newest Level Pack for Mars Lander Runner, I thought I'd go into a bit of detail on how I got about creating levels. But that quickly became a two page long, complete "behind-the-scenes" write-up on the creation of the program itself. As a result, I decided to split the article up into key components and I'll release a part of it along with each week's Level Pack News Post. So without further ado, here is the first part of the behind the scenes look at Mars Lander Builder and Runner:

Working with a Theme:

First of all, I don't use any type of specialized editor which only I, the creator of the program, can use. I've been using Mars Lander Builder to make levels, just like anyone else with the program could. That is to say, I don't make the levels with GameMaker, I design, build and test them within the same program.

Mars Lander Runner Major Update:

A promise made…
At long last the Lander Runner is (hopefully) going to receive its final iteration. And contrary to what I said last week, I’ve made a few significant changes:

Aesthetic Update:

Mars Lander Runner no longer has those unsightly black bars along the sides of the screen that made it look like a really weird aspect ratio. The sides of the screen have been properly filled with some real content, adding back the play/stop, load, and quit buttons from the Mars Lander Builder. Also, the buttons from dialog boxes appear nicely on the other side of the screen. Overall, I think it just looks better, and no longer requires you to go back to the main-menu to load another level.