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If you are like me you remember a time when playing video games was almost entirely about the 'Ending'. Games were not so 'open-ended' in the past. Multiplayer was limited to whomever you could get to sit next to you and pick up a controller with a physical wire attached to the same game system box your TV was hooked up to. It was like 1987 and I was 9. I assume internet games were still in the text-only phase because I had never heard of them, nor had I even heard of the internet. Needles to say, not one single popular game system connected to the internet.
Today, every popular game console connects to the internet and many games simply never end. New quests, new expansion packs, and new upgrades keep the action going endlessly. Still, I guess 'Endings' today are sometimes considered pretty cool and some people probably even look forward to them. Today's games can also often have multiple endings. Not to be too much outdone, I have included some of the same possibilities in the Challenge Maze Software. If you would like to engage players (as I like to do) with constructively challenging games, it probably helps to not be too much outdone by the other games of today. I have not yet included online play, or simultaneous play, but you can make multiple endings that depend on the player's efforts in the maze. You can also keep making more mazes for them so that the adventure never ends even if you do show a cool beginning and 'Ending' for every maze.
A little earlier in this tutorial we talked about how the entrance and exit rooms are special rooms. Accordingly, we have to give them a little special treatment. We are going to give these files a little bit of preparation for use in our maze.
Since, in the entrance room, the Challenge Maze Software is not designed to process found room points, Challenges, Secrets, or CutScenes, we will first make sure to clear those entries in the '0001.txt' room file. If you've been following along in this tutorial, this has already been done. There are no new entries we will add to the entrance room to prepare it.
To prepare the exit room we will do much of the same. To keep it really simple we can just make sure to clear every single entry. The only entries that Challenge Maze Software is designed use in the exit room file are the found new room entries, the 'Room Type' entry, and the 'CutScene' entry. Please be careful here, this is not to say that you can use any CutScene entry. Only the CutScene entry simply called 'CutScene' can be used. While it is possible to write other entries, most entries will just be ignored and some may cause undesirable behavior. The passage entries can cause really strange behaviors with the Challenge Maze Software because the software expects that a player will not be able to re-enter the maze once they have left.
The exit room is designed to allow a Maze Maker to show different things to a player that will make it seem like the player is outside of the maze. To make Room 11 look like it is outside of the maze we will open the 'Double Plus Maze' folder...
... and make the following entry in the '0011.txt' file.
The next entry we will make is about the found room points. Sometimes Maze Makers like to give a few extra points for finding an exit. We will do this in the following entry:
The primary file we will use to make start and end scenes that all players will see is the 'Single Maze Finish And Start.txt' file. Earlier in the tutorial I wrote about special entries used for entering and exiting a maze. This is the file is where almost all of those entries are located. The one exception is found when using Secrets. Secrets have their own section later in this tutorial.
There is only 1 option entry in the 'Single Maze Finish And Start.txt' file for showing a starting tjs_scene. That tjs_scene will be the first on-screen activity each player sees after the first room is presented. There are many options of what to put in that tjs_scene, but every player will see the same tjs_scene.
There are 24 option entries in the 'Single Maze Finish And Start.txt' file for what to show a player when they finish the maze. Basically, the player can be shown up to six types of scenes one after another. Some of those types have multiple possible scenes. The Challenge Maze Software will choose just one tjs_scene of each type to show to the player based on what the player did in the maze.
The path to the 'Single Maze Finish And Start.txt' file is 'Mazes\Double Plus Maze\Persistent Info\Single Maze Finish And Start.txt':
There is one entry that tjs_camControls whether or not most of the types of endings will be shown and the order in which the types will be shown. That entry is called the Ending Scene Order Entry.
We will add pieces of text to the 'Ending Scene Order' entry each time we complete an ending tjs_scene.
The first type of ending we will make is the ending that will be shown to every player that finds an exit from the maze. Here is the entry for making that ending and the first piece of text for the 'Ending Scene Order' entry.
Also, since endings are shown to players when they find an exit room, we will to tell the Challenge Maze Software which of our rooms is an exit room with the following entry.
Now if you start a new game and go to the exit room you will see this ending.
The most common type of ending tjs_scene is a type where the Challenge Maze Software will pick from one of three possible scenes. As a Maze Maker you will write the three scenes and tell the Challenge Maze Software which number of points, which number of secrets, or which exit is necessary for the player to achieve one of those three scenes.
The ending tjs_scene we will be writing is one where we will tell the Challenge Maze Software which number of points is necessary to get one of three scenes. So far, our maze has a possible total of 240 points. A player can get all 240 points if they find every room and solve every challenge. If you would like to make a player do this in order to get the best ending possible for points, you can set the 'Point Threshold Highest' entry to 240.
We will write the tjs_scene for the highest point threshold and set the threshold to 240 with the following entries:
We will write the tjs_scene for the middle point threshold and set that threshold to 230 with the following entries:
The 230 point threshold will allow a player to skip two rooms and still get the middle points ending.
We will write the tjs_scene for the lowest point threshold and set that threshold to 221 to make sure that a player will miss out on all the endings for points if they explore no extra rooms. We will do that with the following entries:
This way it is possible to have four different experiences at the end. If the players just go straight through they will only see everybody's ending. If they explore at least one extra room they will get the lowest points ending in addition to 'Everybody's Ending'. If they explore at least three extra rooms they will get the middle points ending in addition to 'Everybody's Ending'. If they explore and complete every part of the maze they will get the highest points ending in addition to 'Everybody's Ending'.
Now we will add the points endings to the 'Ending Scene Order' entry. If we put the word 'End' first and the word 'Points' second like this 'End|Points', the players will see 'Everybody's Ending' first when they get to the exit room. If we flip the two like this:
The players will see the points endings first and everybody's ending second. You can now start a new game and the try the order you like.
There is one type of ending tjs_scene where the order cannot be controlled. That ending tjs_scene plays after all players have finished the maze. This tjs_scene will only play one time at the very end of the last player's ending scenes. In a one player game this tjs_scene will simply play at the end of all the other ending scenes. To add a tjs_scene that plays after every player is finished, please look at the entry in the following image:
You can now test this ending as well by starting a game and finding the exit.
We have made very simple endings to play in different orders. Keep in mind that you can choose to make endings that have many visual and audio parts to help engage and reward players. To get a more complete understanding of how start and end scenes work, you can visit the Start & End Page now or after you finish this tutorial.
Quick Start Maze - MAIN MENU
