This guide is intended to help you create a working mission and get it into the game for testing.

Files to follow along with this guide can be found over here:
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3389220407

A handful of different tools are necessary to implement your own missions.

The first tool that you'll need is the Tiled map editor.
It can be downloaded here[www.mapeditor.org].

The next tool that you'll need will be a text editor.
We recommend Notepad++[notepad-plus-plus.org], but other text editors like Sublime[www.sublimetext.com] are also fine.

You'll also need image editing software to add your own sprites and tilesets to the game.
Our team uses GIMP[www.gimp.org] and Aseprite for different tasks. As long as your software can export to .png, it will work for modding Amazoom.

On Windows, Amazoom Blimp Jockey '69 will load mods locally from your appdata folder.

This folder can be found here:

C:\Users\YourName\AppData\Roaming\ABJ69\mods

When creating a new folder for your mod, we recommend setting it up with the following format:

Your Mod
-- assets
-- workbench

This format gives you a place to save your test items and WIP content that is separate from the folder that gets uploaded to Steam.

When you first open the Tiled map editor, you'll be greeted with a simple menu and a handful of buttons. The button you want to click to get started is 'New Map'.



A good size for beginners is 30x30. You can resize the map later if you need more space.



It is important to verify that your tile size is set to 8px.
Click the OK button after you've decided on your map size, and Tiled will display a new, blank canvas:



Before you can begin editing terrain, you need to open the tilesets that you want to build with.
Choose 'Add External Tileset...' from the main Map menu in the top left corner.

Amazoom's tilesets are located in this folder:

Steam/steamapps/common/ABJ69/ABJ69/assets/vanilla/AmazoomBlimpJockey69/tilesets

This folder is broken into a few different subfolders with different tilesets for different themed areas.
In this example we will use terrain from the Dump biome.

The Dump tileset is located in the subfolder named 3205, inside the folder named dump.
Here is a screenshot of the TSX file you want to open:




You're almost ready to begin adding terrain!
Make sure you have the brush tool selected ( B ), then click one of the tiles in the Tilesets pane on the lower right. Once you've selected a tile, you can click anywhere on your canvas to add terrain.



Here is a very basic example of what terrain looks like after you place some tiles:



Don't forget to save your work often!

Terrain has a few rules that must be followed for the game to properly load your map files.
This section of the guide will explain the rules and show examples of common mistakes.

The terrain must form a complete, closed loop, with an inside and an outside.
Islands are allowed as long as they are enclosed.



Tilesets are usually set up so the brightest pixels are "inside" and the darkest pixels are "outside". We recommend following this guideline if you make your own tilesets, too.

Some tiles are not necessary to include in the terrain for a map.
These tiles include:

• 45-Degree Ramp Backfills
  
• Inside Corners

You can place these tiles in the editor if you want but doing so has no effect in-game because the engine automatically creates these tiles where appropriate.

Special terrain pieces that come in pairs should always be used together.
All of the tiles labeled 'Overlap' in each tileset follow this rule. These tiles are near the bottom.




Once you've drafted a basic outline for your cave, we can move on to the next secion.

At this stage in the guide, you should have a basic terrain outline for your cave.

Let's briefly discuss using different layers for different types of tiles.
Separating different features across different layers is convenient for most Tiled projects, and is a necessary step to get the most out of Amazoom's engine.

The recommended setup as a baseline for separate layers is the following:

Zones (object layer)
Enemies (object layer)
Items (object layer)
Sprites (object layer)
System (tile layer)
Water (tile layer)
Terrain (tile layer)
Decorations (tile layer)
Parallax (tile layer)

This may seem like an intimidating list at first, but these guides will eventually explain each of these layers one at a time, step by step, so there's no need to worry! We'll only be covering two of these layers in this basic guide.

For now, let's add one new tile layer to our map.
This tile layer will be the "System Tiles", which are special tiles that Amazoom uses to build and modify the map. This image shows how to add a new tile layer and rename other tile layers.



We'll be putting the basic requirements for a mission on the system tile layer - a starting position, an ending position, and some connector tiles.

Use the system tile layer and the system tiles in your chosen tileset to add the following features:
1. Starting Position
When setting a start position, the game will attempt to put the ship in the averaged center of all of the available start position tiles.

2. Ending Pad Position
These behave similar to start position tiles. Vanilla landing pads are 5 tiles wide and 1 tile high, so it is recommended that you use that size for ending pad tiles.

3. Left Connector (Arrow and type A)
The left arrow should always be at the left edge of the map.
The A-type connector is used to connect map pieces. More details on connectors will be provided in advanced modding guides.

4. Right Connector (Arrow and type A)
The right arrow should always be at the right edge of the map.



Your map now has the minimum requirements to be used in-game!
Our next step is to look at the map in-game where we can fly around in it.
This means we're going to change gears and set up some other files before we do any more editing in Tiled.

Amazoom uses a variety of different file types for specific types of assets.

For the sake of keeping things as simple as possible for this tutorial, we've set up a template file that you can copy and paste which contains all of the minimum requirements for hooking up your mission!

//create a biome for our mission
LIBRARY_BIOME_CREATE
LIBRARY_BIOME_NAME|myTestBiome
LIBRARY_BIOME_TILESET_NAME|DumpTileset
LIBRARY_BIOME_USE_ONESHOT_TMX|1
LIBRARY_BIOME_PUSH

LOCALIZED_STRING|myTestMission_Name|EN|My Test Mission
LOCALIZED_STRING|myTestMission_Desc|EN|This is an example mission!

//create the actual mission marker for the map
LIBRARY_MISSION_CREATE
LIBRARY_MISSION_NAME|myTestMission
LIBRARY_MISSION_LOCALIZED_NAME_ID|myTestMission_Name
LIBRARY_MISSION_LOCALIZED_DESC_ID|myTestMission_Desc
LIBRARY_MISSION_BIOME|myTestBiome
LIBRARY_MISSION_WORLDMAP|3205
LIBRARY_MISSION_X_COORD|160
LIBRARY_MISSION_Y_COORD|120
LIBRARY_MISSION_DELIVERABLE_NAME|DockClutter
LIBRARY_MISSION_LENGTH|1
LIBRARY_MISSION_DIFFICULTY|1
LIBRARY_MISSION_REWARD_CREDITS|1000
LIBRARY_MISSION_ADD_ALLOWED_SHIP_FILTER|DISALLOW_BY_ID|* LIBRARY_MISSION_ADD_ALLOWED_SHIP_FILTER|ALLOW_BY_TAG|Gameplay_Mode_Standard
LIBRARY_MISSION_REPEATABLE|1
LIBRARY_MISSION_PUSH

//create the cave piece to use
LIBRARY_CAVE_SEGMENT_CREATE
LIBRARY_CAVE_SEGMENT_NAME|myTestCaveSegment
LIBRARY_CAVE_SEGMENT_BIOME|myTestBiome
LIBRARY_CAVE_SEGMENT_SPRITE_NAME|TRANSPARENT_BG
LIBRARY_CAVE_SEGMENT_AUTO_GENERATE_BG_SIZES|1
LIBRARY_CAVE_SEGMENT_TYPE|Cavern
LIBRARY_CAVE_SEGMENT_AUTO_TILE_ME|1
LIBRARY_CAVE_SEGMENT_ALLOW_ENEMY_SPAWNS|0
LIBRARY_CAVE_SEGMENT_LOAD_FROM_TILED_EXPORT|myTMXFile.tmx
LIBRARY_CAVE_SEGMENT_PUSH

You'll eventually want to modify some of these parameters to use names that are a better fit for your project. For now, the only thing you need to edit in this template file is the name of the TMX file near the bottom.

When you save this file, it should be in the same folder as your map's TMX file.
It should also be saved (as plaintext) as a .mission file. Most text editors will let you do this without any hassle.

Once you've updated the name of your TMX file, start up the game to test.


Using the template above, your test mission should be near the center of the map view.
Start the mission as normal. If your terrain and config file are correct, you should load into the mission!



If you made a mistake with your terrain, you will probably see this screen:



If this happens, navigate to your Amazoom install folder:

steamapps/common/ABJ69/ABJ69/debug/exports

Inside this folder you'll be able to find a map export. If your terrain had errors, they will be circled.



If you try to start the mission and nothing happens, wait a few seconds and try again. When the game starts up, it does some multi-threaded terrain optimization, and if it's not done yet, your mission won't load.

This guide covered the minimum steps necessary to build a working mission and get it in-game for testing.

As I find more time to make more advanced guides, instructions for advanced editing will become available!

If you run into any trouble with this guide, please leave feedback in Steam Discussions!

The files necessary to try out this mod for yourself can be found over here:
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3389220407
Happy modding, Pilot!