The Secret Alternate Win Condition in Battlez

[GPF Lith]

Hello again. Kevin here and it's time to let loose yet another secret about Gruntz. In fact, this secret is so secret that not even people on the Gruntz team know about it. It's something I added in my spare time during development mainly for the mod community to enjoy.

So here's the deal:

In Battlez, the way you normally win is by wiping out the other Gruntz' Fortresses (Fortressez? Man it's been a long time, hehe)

BUT... There is a secret alternate win condition if any player collects all four warpstone pieces and has their Gruntz stand on the four warpstone pads while holding the warpstone pieces. If a Grunt holding a warpstone piece dies, he drops the piece and another Grunt may pick it up.

So you're probably asking... Where are these warpstone pieces and where are the warpstone pads? Why have I never seen them in a Battlez game??? And the answer is pretty simple. We didn't ship any Battlez levels with the warpstone pieces or pads in them, they have to be added manually in a custom map.

Okay, this is going to be reeeeeally tough since it's literally been years since I've looked at the code and I'm hoping with the information I give here, someone can try it out without me needing to dig it up and look through it.

Let me try to remember. *racks brain* I know that you have to add 4 warpstone pieces to the level... and I'm pretty sure that you can put them in an object (like you could in normal levels) or just straight on the ground. Then you have to add four warpstone pad triggers (I think they have to be over warpstone checkpoint tiles), and I can't remember the name of the trigger offhand, and I'm not sure if you have to give the warpstones or pads any custom settings or not.

Anyhow, once the warpstones are placed, all you have to do is have your team collect all four of them and have one Grunt stand on each pad and light it up. If you "control" all four warpstone pads, then the game will immediately end, all the other kingz will jump into the goo and you will win.

P.S. Don't put more than 4 warpstones or 4 warpstone pads in the level. I don't know what will happen in that case.

Give it a shot and let me know if it works. If the qualified experts on here can't figure it out, I suppose I'll have to go back and look through the code and try to remember which objects to add and any settings required.

Good luck!

Someone feel free to send me an e-mail: kevin at ddrseattle dot com once you've given it a good solid try - let me know if you got it to work or not.

GPF.

[Blaze The Movie Fan]

I thought you left Monolith, Kevin!

[GooRoo]

Kevin did leave employment with Monolith Productions, Inc., but apparently has not (entirely) left the game of Gruntz, Bjarni!

Thanks, Kevin, for the information about the Warpstone solution in Battlez Custom Levelz. If there is a keyword for the Warpstone pad, that will make it more difficult to test this revelation out. But I am sure that there will be those who will make an attempt at this latest customization, knowing that the potential exists (somewhere!).

On another note, I have rather dropped the ball on trying to install the seven additional Secret Levelz into the game, because I have not found the proper naming convention for them. If you can shed some light on the naming convention, it will be yet another shot in the arm for our favorite puzzle game ... not just seven additional puzzlez, but the thrill(?) of traipsing all around the Standard Levelz with objects obtained by cheating, looking for the SecretLevelTrigger(z)!

[FriedGruntzaholic]

Mmmmmhmmmm...I will have to try this out. I already have several versions of one of the retail Battlez levels (Rumble in the Rockz) in which I have modified or added thingz. In one version, I added the timer with a time limit of 60 minutes, so that not only does the player have to wipe out all the other fortressez, but he has only 60 minutes to do so. If he fails to take over all the other fortressez withing the set time, it's goodbye to his king. But this, this latest revelation about Gruntz sounds like it combines all the good things about Gruntz--a Questz-type of level ("Find that Warpstone!) with an all-out battle royale from the get-go (Final Battle, anyone?). Talk about frenetic. This is definitely an interesting turn of events. "Must get to...the....control panel!"

[Gamer]

This would be an interesting variant of "Capture the flag" for sure. Put one warpstone in each of 4 "fortress areas". (If you have ever seen a CTF map, you will understand where to put it)

[Gamer]

Also, keep us updated! I look forward to listening to what you have to say

Also, shouldn't GPF be a designer? Seems like he has proven himself

[GooRoo]

Gamer said:

Also, keep us updated! I look forward to listening to what you have to say

Also, shouldn't GPF be a designer? Seems like he has proven himself

I agree! Even if he never releases a Custom Gruntz Level, the insights he has given us, and may well continue to provide means he should have access to what we have done on The Gruntz Level Editor 'manual'. Done ... and done ... GPF will be a 'Designer' in a matter of minutes.

[Bea]

Kevin, it is always so good to see you pop in with these little titbits

[GPF Lith]

So for nostalgia's sake I pulled up the Gruntz code and looked through it for some information on this and found a few things:

The name of the tile trigger logic is: WarpStonePad
and the "Score" field indicates the player ID associated with that pad which must be 0, 1, 2, or 3 since there can't be more than 4 players in a game.

The way these work is that each player has his own set of warpstone pads somewhere in the world. If any player manages to place warpstones on all of his/her tiles, then that player wins the game. Even when a warpstone is placed on a tile, it can still be stolen by another player's Grunt.

Even though I wrote this feature with 4 pads per player in mind, I don't think you necessarily have to use 4 pads per player. It looks like I wrote it to be flexible such that you could use anywhere up to 4 warpstone pads per player (possibly even more?) and it should still work. I also don't think there's a restriction that says that each player must have the exact same number of pads although I wouldn't recommend it from a fairness standpoint to give one player more or less pads than another player.

Also looking at the code, I don't think the WarpStonePad logic has to be placed on a specific type of tile, but for the sake of player feedback, I would recommend using something that stands out like a blank checkpoint trigger tile (with no checkpoint trigger on it obviously). I'm pretty sure that's what I used when I tested it.

Well, there's some more info for ya. Hope this helps. I'm anxious to hear the results.

GPF.

[FriedGruntzaholic]

Thanks for the info, Kevin. I played around with this last night a good bit, but couldn't get it to work--obviously because I had the wrong logic name, plus nothing in the Score box to indicate to which player the pads belonged. It's also going to change where and how many pads I put down. I'll let you know how this works.

[Perfect Grunt]

Does it work?

Tell me, tell us!

[alexandgruntz]

What is the image set?? Need to know, then I will publish a new battle level .

Edit: I tried using GAME_WAPWORLDONLY_TRIGGER, but big capital 'T's appeared on my checkpoint plates (in the level itself!!) #ROTFL_ani#

[paula]

Has anybody tried that with success? Than please tell us!
What about you, GooRoo?

[GooRoo]

paula said:

Has anybody tried that with success? Than please tell us!
What about you, GooRoo?

I don't seem to have 'the right stuff' for Battlez, so the only association I have with them is to (try to) test them out to ensure that there are no fatal errorz in the map. If Battlez could be played multi-player (over the Internet) instead of merely against computer-generated 'opponentz' (who aren't very smart, strategically), I might be more open to experimenting with designing a Battlez Custom Level. So I'll leave this particular experiment to those who get more enjoyment out of Battlez.

[Perfect Grunt]

I've also tried it -> nothing happens. I NEED THE IMAGEDIR!!!
Doesn't anybody have the possibility to contact Kevin?

[FriedGruntzaholic]

The WarpstonePad logic works just like a switch. I use the Checkpoint Pads. Here's the logic information that you need:

Logic: WarpStonePad
Image Set: GAME_WAPWORLDONLY_SWITCH

Score: 0, 1, 2, or 3

Object Flags Dialog box: No Draw checked


This logic does work. I have taken one of the Battlez levelz that came with the editor (Battlez Sample 1) and modified it using this logic. However, I have only had mixed success using it, primarily due to the fact that I have been merely been playing against the computer players. If we could get the multi-player option to work better, the AWC would probably work better.

[Perfect Grunt]

Thank you!

If I understood you correctly the problem is that the AI don't know how to get along with this winning method, right?

[FriedGruntzaholic]

perfectgrunt said:

Thank you!

If I understood you correctly the problem is that the AI don't know how to get along with this winning method, right?

In a sense, yes. The AI is smart to pick up a warpstone piece if they come across one, but it is not smart enough to know what to do with it. An AI grunt will merely wander around with the warpstone, which can make retrieving that warpstone piece, mmmm... , shall we say "interesting" at times. #duck!#

Some more interesting tidbitz about this logic:

The warpstone in the AWC behaves like a toy. Like toyz, your grunt can put the warpstone down on the ground and another grunt, teammate or opponent, can pick it up. This is important to know because the warpstone piece must be laid down directly on the tile with the WarpstonePad logic. A grunt just standing on the tile while carrying the warpstone does not activate the logic.

Unlike Questz levels, should a grunt carrying the warpstone die in battle, the warpstone does not break nor does the game end; rather the warpstone fallz to the ground where another grunt can pick it up. OTOH, if a grunt diez by way of a death tile or hazard, i.e. drownz in the water or fallz down a hole, etc., then the warpstone returnz to the point on the map where it was last on the ground.

Remember that each WarpstonePad logic is assigned to a specific player. For example, if a WarpstonePad logic has a Score value of 0, then that pad is assigned alwayz and forever to Player 1 regardless of where in the world that pad is placed. This means that if a WarpstonePad logic is placed within a fortress area, then the player assigned to that pad must always use that pad regardless of which fortress he is defending. This could and often would mean going into an enemy'z fortress area in order to reach the assigned pad. By corollary, you can defeat yourself by placing the warpstone piece on the wrong pad. Instead, the player assigned to that pad gains the victory and you, along the rest of the playerz, go down to defeat.

[Perfect Grunt]

For me it still doesn't work...
Do I have to use the "CalcCow ID" button?

[alexandgruntz]

I tried it, and it worked! CalcCowID does the trick. I didn't understand it at first - I took over my own fort! Big S's appeared on my platez - still worked.