GETTING A TED IN LIFE

To start TED, just run ted5. If you installed more than one Keen episode, you 
will be asked to choose which episode you wish to edit. TED will take a few 
seconds to load the graphics, then will present you with an introductory dialog.

TED, being an in-house development tool, is not the most user-friendly program; 
its interface is trimmed to provide flexibility and efficiency, but does not 
take much effort to learn.

A menu bar, containing commands for controlling TED, runs along the top of the 
screen. Along the bottom runs the status bar. From left to right are the 
currently selected background and foreground tiles and the currently selected 
icon, and their numbers. To the right of this is the layer indicator, showing 
which layers are visible and which are active (more on layers in a bit). Finally 
we have the cursor position in both decimal and hexadecimal.

LEVELS AND PLAYING FIELDS
The step in editing is to open an existing level or create a new one. By 
default, TED will load the world map from Keen. You can choose a different level 
to edit by choosing File, Edit New Map, or pressing Alt+O. To create a new map, 
you should first delete an existing map (File, Delete Map), then create a new
map in its slot (File, Create Map). You will be prompted for a name and the 
level size. Note that there are two rows of tiles on each edge of the level that 
are not seen when playing Keen; also that the name you give here will not be 
used in the game, but is for reference only. You can now look around the map by
using the arrow keys to scroll.

Keen 4, 5, and 6 levels consist of three layers of tiles: the background, 
foreground, and info layers. The background is just there to add colour to the 
scene. The foreground layer contains tiles that Keen interacts with: platforms, 
point items, doors, secret passages, and so on (note that many tiles in the 
foreground layer actually appear behind Keen). Finally, the info layer contains 
information about sprites and special features such as switches, doors, bridges 
and so on. Any or all of the layers can be visible and/or active for editing-the 
1, 2, and 3 keys make the layers active or inactive; the 4, 5, and 6 keys make 
the layers visible or invisible. You can check the layer indicator at any time 
to see which layers are visible or active.

Editing a map primarily involves selecting the layers you want, choosing tiles, 
then clicking to place the tiles. To choose a tile, click on the left-hand side 
of the status bar or press space. The tile-selection window will appear. The 
three buttons, "Tiles", "Masked", and "Icons" will display tiles for the 
background, foreground, and info planes respectively. The icons are primarily 
used for placing sprites in the level; note that most sprites have different 
icons with a 1, 2, or 3, indicating that they are present in Easy, Medium, or
Hard modes. Use the up and down arrows to scroll through all the tiles, and 
click them to select. You can also "pick up" a tile from the map by clicking the 
right mouse button on it. Go ahead and spend a few minutes making some 
modifications to a level., but keep it simple for now.

To save your changes, just hit Alt+S or choose File, Save Map. But before you 
can test the level, you have to export the maps to the format that Keen will 
understand: choose File, Carmacize Maps. This may take a minute or two. When it 
asks to print a report, choose no, or TED may hang. At this point, you can 
either exit TED, or if you're running it under Windows, start a new DOS prompt 
to test the level in-this latter choice makes testing much quicker. If you were 
editing a Secret of the Oracle level, run GO4; if not, run GO5 or GO6 as 
appropriate. As soon as you're in the game, you can press F10+W to jump to your 
level.  After testing your changes, you can make a quit exit by pressing Ctrl+Q.

PLATFORMS AND BRIDGES AND DOORS (OH MY!)
Once you have a basic level made, you'll want to add more advanced features like 
moving platforms, switches, bridges, doors, and so on. These are all done with 
links in the info layer. I'll start with the simplest: moving platforms.

A simple moving platform in Secret of the Oracle can be placed by putting a 
moving platform icon with a red arrow in the desired spot. To stop the platform 
moving off the edge of the screen however, you'll need to put some blocking 
tiles in its path: these icons look like a "B" in a square. Put one blocking 
tile to each side (for a horizontally-moving platform) or above and below (for a 
vertically-moving platform). A collapsing platform (the one with a yellow 
triangle below) only needs a single blocking tile beneath it. In Keen 5 and Keen 
6, the platforms with green arrows (known as Goplats) need a path made of the 
yellow arrow icons to follow.

Often you want the player to have to turn a platform on with a switch. To do 
this, you need to place another blocking tile in the way of the platform between 
the other two. Make a note of the hexadecimal values of the location of the tile 
(the X and Y values beginning with $ at the right-hand side of the status bar). 
Now place a switch in an appropriate place, and link it to the blocking tile: 
Choose Misc, New INFOPLANE Value or press Enter, and type in a $ followed by the 
last two digits of the X and Y values you wrote down (see the picture for an 
example). Then click on the switch; this will place the link in the info plane, 
which will be shown as four digits. The switch will now turn the blocking tile 
off, to activate the platform.

In the same way, you can link a switch to a bridge (link to the left-hand edge 
of the bridge), a gem-holder to a closed door (link to the top of the door), and 
a walk-in doorway to the place you walk out (link to where you want Keen's feet 
to end up after he enters the doorway). Note that if you create a link from a
switch to a square with nothing in the info plane, that switch will turn a 
blocking tile on; also that you need to use a particular tile to make a walk-in 
door (find out by looking at an existing level).

Another feature which makes Keen levels exciting is secret passages. Some 
foreground tiles allow Keen to walk behind them-these are suitable for secret 
passages. However, identifying which ones are like this and which ones are solid 
is difficult: I suggest examining some of the original levels and noting down 
the tile numbers of the "secret passage" tiles to keep track of them. When 
putting point items in a secret passage, you must use icons for them, rather 
than their foreground tiles. I suggest that you only place the "walk-behind" 
tiles in secret passages once the level is completed, so that while editing you 
can keep track of them more easily.

Finally, some Keen levels have separate areas that act like independent mini-
levels (the Pyramid of the Forbidden is a good example of this). You can place 
scroll blocks in the info layer to mark horizontal and vertical edges between 
these areas. The scroll blocks look like horizontal and vertical blue lines with 
small white stripes; I suggest examining existing levels to see how they are 
used before placing them in your own levels.

ROBO TED
TED contains several features which can ease some of the tedium and speed up the 
process of making complex levels. I'll cover some of them quickly here.

Grid Mode toggles the showing of a grid on the current level. This can help with 
placing tiles in the right positions. Turn this on or off from the Mode menu or 
by pressing G.

Block Fill mode quickly fills a rectangular area with the currently selected 
tiles. Choose it from the Mode menu or press B, and click the left mouse button 
on the desired top-left corner, and the right button on the bottom-right corner, 
then press Enter to fill the area.

Flood Fill mode will fill an area of one tile with the currently selected tiles. 
Choose it from the Mode menu or press F, then click in the desired location to 
fill.

Copy Mode (also on the Mode menu, or press C) lets you select a rectangular set 
of tiles to copy so that you can duplicate them in another region easily. Select 
the area as for Block Fill mode, then press Enter.

Paste Mode (you know where to find it) allows you to paste one or more copies of 
the tiles chosen with Copy Mode. Click with the left mouse button to place a 
copy. You can use the Paste Overlay option (on the Mode menu, or press F3) to 
toggle pasting of empty tiles. The Snap-Paste option (press S) toggles pasting
copies just anywhere, or in a tessellated pattern. This is especially useful for 
filling in the background of a level.

The View Map & Goto option on the Misc menu shows you a small overview of the 
whole level; click an area to jump to it.

You can change the size of a level with the "Change MAP Edges" option on the 
Edit menu. Select the edge you want to change, and enter a positive or negative 
number to add or remove rows from that edge.

If the default screen size is too small, you can switch to a high-resolution 
mode by choosing ?, Video Mode Switch or by pressing F9.

THE ROAD TO FAME
Now that you've made some really great levels, you'll want to send them to your 
friends or upload them for others to try. The files you will need to distribute 
are as follows (an X stands for the episode number that
you are editing; either 4, 5, or 6):

· goX.bat         (batch file to play the custom levels)
· custmaps.ckX	  (contains the custom levels)
· maphead.ckX	  (stores some more level data)
· ckXpatch.exe	  (the patching program)
· patchX.pat	  (the patching information)
· unlzexe.exe     (to uncompress Keen executables ready for patching)

I recommend zipping these files up with WinZip or another utility, and 
distributing the zip file; this will make it simpler for users to download and 
set up your levels.

HELP! I'M GOING MAD!
Nothing on a computer ever works for everyone. Here are some solutions to the 
most common problems you might encounter while creating your own levels.

I get an error message: "Couldn't identify KEEN*.EXE" or "Unrecognised version 
of KEEN*.EXE" If you get one of these errors, either you forgot to use UNLZEXE 
to decompress your Keen executables, or your version of Keen is incompatible 
with the utilities. TEDSETUP and CK*PATCH.EXE will only work with the different 
versions of Keen that we had, as these were the only ones we could get 
information on.  The following versions should be compatible: Secret of the 
Oracle version 1.4; The Armageddon Machine version 1.4; Aliens Ate My Baby-
Sitter versions 1.0, 1.4. Note also that TEDSETUP currently will not work
with CGA editions of Keen.

I get an error message running GO*.BAT: "Error: cannot open CK*HEAD.OBJ"
This error message will appear if you forgot to Carmacize your maps before 
trying to test them.

I cannot see any icons in the tile selector in TED
For some reason, only version 1.4 of Keen includes the icon graphics; if you 
have an earlier version, you should get hold of version 1.4.

Keen gives me an error: "Map too tall!"
Most likely your level is too large. You should use the Change Map Edges option 
to make it smaller.

Keen gives me an error: "No free spots in spritearray!"
Your level contains too many sprites or point items. You should remove some and 
try again.

Keen gives me an error: "Too many scroll blocks"
Your level contains too many scroll blocks; you need to redesign your level to 
contain fewer separate areas.

I have a problem not listed here
If you have any other problems, feel free to email me: adurdin@yahoo.com. While 
I cannot guarantee a
solution, I will do my best to help you out. Please be aware that the utilities 
may not perform correctly
under Windows 2000 or Windows XP. I am working on this problem, but do not know 
whether a solution
is possible or not.

That's all! Now go and make some great levels!

- Andrew