Austin Roush - tessetmadmage

This area is a small cave where a renegade mage has set up a makeshift laboratory to conduct experiments. This goal was to create a short but interesting area for a player to discover and explore. Additional screenshots can be seen in the Screenshots section.

Layout

The level consists of three main areas, the entrance, the mages laboratory and the mages storage room. The three rooms are connected main hallway.

Enemy Placement

The only enemy in this area is the mad mage himself. He is placed in the laboratory area of the cave. He will attack the player onsight and summon scamps to help him attack the player.

Scripting and Traps

The storage room in the level is blocked by a locked door which can only be opened by saying the correct password. I created a new type of door and gave it a script I wrote to ask the player for the password.

Mad Mage Door Script
ScriptName MadMageLockedDoor Short stateVar Short buttonOption Begin OnActivate If ( stateVar == 0 ) MessageBox "Whats is the Password?", "Blackjack", "Bluebird", "Blackbird" Set stateVar to 1 ElseIf (stateVar > 1 ) Activate EndIf End Begin GameMode If ( stateVar== 1 ) Set buttonOption to GetButtonPressed If ( buttonOption == -1 ) Return ElseIf ( buttonOption == 2) MessageBox "Correct" ;correct answer change state Set stateVar to 2 Else MessageBox "Wrong Answer" Cast Mg05FingerSpell15 Player ;cast spell on player if wrong answer Set stateVar to -1 EndIf ElseIf ( stateVar == 2 ) Activate ;open door Set stateVar to 3 EndIf End

The script begins by checking to see if the state variable is 0 and then displays a message box which asks the player for the password and lists the three choices. It then sets the state variable to 1 to make sure that it does not display the message box repeatedly. It then checks to see if the state variable is greater than 1. It isn’t so it goes down to GameMode.

The script then sets the button pressed variable to the choice that the player picked. It then checks to see if the button 2 is pressed and displays a message box telling the player they picked the right password and sets the state variable to 2. If the button pressed was not 2 it displays a message box that informs the player that the password was wrong and casts a spell on them which causes damage.

The script then checks to see if the state variable is set to 2 and activates the normal function of the object; in this case it’s a door so it swings open and allows the player to enter the storage room.

The player can find out the password to the storage room by looking at a crumpled piece of paper on the mad mage's work desk.

Once the storage room door is open the player is presented with another obstacle. There is a tripwire on the ground that is connected to a mace on the ceiling. The mace is positioned so that the player can easily see it and be able to get out of the way if they trigger the tripwire.

I parented the mace to the tripwire on the floor so that when the tripwire was activated it would activate the mace and cause it to fall towards the doorway.

Item Population and Lighting

The entrance of the cave contains a camp fire and barrels and crates that contain common objects and food. The mage's laboratory contains many books on alchemy and magery as well as alchemy equipment. The storage room contains barrels and crates of common items. It also has three chests of loot that are appropriate to the player's level as a reward for successfully figuring out the password and avoiding the tripwire trap.