General info
Playing the game you challenge levels.
In a level you drive on various grounds(bricks, stone,...),up and down, through "hills" and "valleys".
You can see trees, bushes, stones and barrels in the background, but mostly you drive only beside them, it means that they do not harm you on your way.
Your main task is to collect all the food(apples). But in some levels you have to find the right order of taking the food,
'cause you may find some apples changing your
gravity!
If you have collected all the food (if any was present), you can exit the level by finding the exit(flower).
You are able to touch the flower only after collecting all the apples. If there still are some apples somewhere, you can only "go through" the flower without touching it, like if it was stealth.
(Hint:So if you are not sure whether you have collected all the apples or not, you can simply try to touch the flower.)
You should try not to crash your head into somewhere - this means your death! You should also beware of crazy rotating things with thorns - "killers" - on your way, 'cause touching
them you won't be able to complete the level...
If you want to proceed to the next level, you must finish the previous one succesfully. If you are not able to complete a level,
you can skip the level. This means you can go on to the next level without having finished the previous one, and you can try to complete it later. But this you can do only five times -
you can skip only 5 levels. Of course, if you later complete a skipped level, then you can once more skip a level.
Once you have finished a level succesfully, it doesn't only mean that you can go on to the next level.
You also can play all the finished levels as many time as you wish. So you improve in playing the various levels. And you can
try to beat your own high-scores. And if you think, that you are very fast, and your time is very good, just have a look
at the all-time highscores, that the world's best Elma players have made. You can find them on the internet
The Editor
Using the Editor is very easy. First you must go to the main menu in Elma and enter the Editor.
Then choose, if you want to create a new level, or change an older one.
At the begining, when creating a new level, you see there the Start, the Exit and a rectangle. This rectangle is
the main polygon. You can't delete any of these objects.
To make a new polygon, you have to click
on the button "Create Vertex".Then click in the main polygon and create a line with moving the mouse.
There, where you want to have a corner, click again with the mouse. So make as many corners, as like.
To fulfill the polygon, right-click.
Make all the polygons you want to have in the level that way. But beware - two lines can's intersect.
If a line is not in the right angle, you can repair it with clicking on "Move" and then on the corner
you want to move. Then take the corner and move it yourself. If you can't see the corner exactely, just click on "Zoom In".
Then make an area you want to zoom in (the corners). To zoom out use the button "Zoom Out".
To see the level in an ideal size click "Zoom Fill".
To see, if you can move a thing, watch
the cursor changing(an "x" or a "+"). The "x" means, that you can move it, the "+", that you can't.
Lev as file
All the information about a level - the topology of the polygons, the placement of the objects and pictures -
is stored in a level file ".lev".
But this file doesn't contain any graphics (textures, pictures..)
gather. These graphics are stored in a separate file - ".lgr" -
see "all about LGRs"
The level file contains only the name of the lgr file. In this way you can have
many level files using one .lgr file, thus saving a lot of disk
space because the .lgr files are usually much bigger than the level
files.
If you load a level file to play or to edit it, and there is no LGR file with the name that is specified in the level file, the
default.lgr file will be used instead.
The level files are stored in the "LEV" subdirectory.
The Lev directroy
As said above, levels are stored in the "Lev" directory.
As far as I know, it is not possible to have more than 919 files in the Lev directory. I tried more, and an error encountered.
Normally, you have no problems, 'cause you would say "Who would have more than 900 levels?!".
Maybe you're right. But I must say, if you think, that you can't get as many levels, you're wrong. It IS possible! Yes! And there are
many, many more levels that you can find on the Internet! I personally have more than 12000(!!) levels!
Managing levels
If you have a lot of levels(more that are possible to store in the Lev directory), then the problem encounters - "How can I use all my levels?". And I have found a
simple(but efective) solution - my ChanLevs program.
What has to be done?
You do not give all levels into the (only one) Lev directory, but make more directories - "LevX" ("X" is a number between 0 and 255, e.g. Lev0, Lev1...) Into each directory you can
give up to 918(!) level files - you create level sets.
Each directory also must contain the "Levset.xdt" file, which indicates the number of the level set(it is a
simple text file, with the number of the level set in the first line. All other lines of the file are ignored) - that's why you can only store 918 levels in one directory.
In the version now available, the program expects that you already have made these above mentioned arrangements. So you have to create on your own the "LevX" directories and into each create a
"levset.xdt" file with the number "X" in the first line of the file. I'm already working on a better version of the program, coming soon...
How does it work?
Now you have the directories and the levset.xdt files. What the program does is that it changes the name of the "Lev" directory into a new name - "LevX"
specified by the "levset.xdt" file. And then it finds the level set you want to use now, and changes its name from "LevY" to "Lev" (where "Y" is the set number you chose when running the program).
So it simply exchanges the directories and so you can choose everytime a different level set.
(Hint:It is recommended that you change levels before(not while) running the game. So each time you want to change
level sets, exit the game first!)
How you organize your levels, and how many you give in each set is your own choice (of course only up to 918 in one!!).
This way you can create up to 256 level sets. I think that's enough. But if some day you come to the problem that 256 sets are to less for
you, contact me and it's no problem to expand this capacity!
Using ChanLevs?
Run the program and input the number of the level set you want to use.
Problems?
It may happen, that you have no permission to change names of files or/and directories. In this case either get this permission, or try to change the file/directory attributes.
Or what also can happen is, that the program can't change directories 'cause there is no "Lev" direcory available(only "LevX" directories). So just rename one of the "LevX" directories to
"Lev", and then try to use ChanLevs.
If you have any other problems using ChanLevs that you are not able to work out, please contact me, and I'll try to help.
Kristi's Levels
Download all levels in one pack Kristi's Levels
Downloads