You can skip this part if you want.

First off, I'd like to state that I love MASCOT. In a way, making levels was more fun than playing them. And I have no doubt that making levels wouldn't have been nearly as fun if the editor had been even remotely user-friendly. Without the challenge of making something work - and harder still, making something both functional and visually appealling - the editor wouldn't have been able to get my interest as it did.

It's been over six years since I started playing Ferazel and playing with the editor. A couple of you, if you're still around, might even remember my very first levels. The OBW team has another of my earlier levels. Somewhere on the downloads section is Still Nameless, one of the first works I was actually truly proud of. Just a few years back, marking my last release to all six or so members of the FW public, I released Thok's Evil Legacy, containing three incomplete levels that I'd created; I doubt anyone even played them.

Sad as it is to say, Ferazel's Wand is long dead. As much as I'd like to hang on to this amazing game, it's doubtful that it'll make a comeback. I doubt even the simultaneous completion and release of Extemporaneous, Basic Nothingness, Malcolm's World, and One Big World - to say nothing of the countless other epic worlds started but never finished - would be enough to convince me to boot into OS 9 to play them. The only thing that ever inspires me to do that is when I feel the pull to create something and test it, which has been happening less and less as time goes by.

And so, I get to the meat of my post;

One of the reasons MASCOT appeals to me so much is that it's so inflexible, you have to be creative to do anything unique. I'd like to ask the remaining FW community to throw down the secrecy - the secret betas and forums and plots - and discuss these tricks openly, instead of hiding them away like we have for so long; I've got a couple decent ones, and at this point, it's not like anyone else is going to "steal" them.

The first one is fairly simple;

Create a pit of quicksand one tile deep. Make the floor of the pit FG spikes. You can run along the top of the quicksand and not be damaged, however, you have to keep jumping every now and to stay above the spikes. Especially fun is when you have to fight a spider (as they jump enough to stay above the sand, and don't take damage from spikes) in such a passageway.

The second one is only slightly more complicated, yet far more clever.

Set a platform to the following settings:
(0) 52
(1) 3
(2) 7
The platform will now flicker in and out at the fastest possible rate. Attempt to stand on it, and you fall through; Unless you hit it with a statue spell first. Admittedly, you can occasionally land on it for a tiny moment, however, it's never long enough to make another jump. And the Statue spell will occasionally go through it, but it shouldn't take more than a few shots to get one to hit it. The main downside to this is how much magic Statue takes up.

I probably have others, buried away somewhere, but this is all that came to mind off the top of my head for creating this post. Admittedly, I'm mainly looking to get back in touch with the old FW community; If nothing else, drop me a line. Really.

Wow, thanks Thok can't wait to use these.

Oh, how incomplete are those levels?

EDIT: Oh I thought of a couple tricks, well they're kind of a tricks.

Have a character (like a sitting habnabit or dimbo.) give them a conversation and underneath them put a book. In game and on MASCOT the book will appear under the character. So if you make the person disapear after the conversation it will look as if they left a journal behind.

I found it hard to make waterfalls work if making them twoards the top of the map. Alyou have to do is make sure your water tiles are not on the the highest horizontal row and Ferazel won't fall through it when going in it. Now theres no way that i know to make water pull ferazel down. So a checker design wind tile placement (with them blowing down) makes the water apear to be falling. NOTE: you have to have your water set to not moving or it won't look right, I forget what that value is...

This post has been edited by Two Jacks : 19 March 2007 - 08:08 PM

Ok just found out a couple more MASCOT tricks tonight!

1. How to make enemy pipes work. First get an enemy pipe, then highlight it and press "Comand-E" in the value (0) box put the "Kind" number of the sprite you wish to come out of it. This can be anything from a chair to a power up to an enemy. I sugest only enemies because anything else will regen non stop and crash your computer. To find the "Kind" number of any sprite, first highlight it and press "Comand-E". Next to the world "Kind" there should be a 4 digit number, put this number into (0) value box of the enemy pipe.

(0) 1860 <-- This is the "Kind" number for a single insect.
(1) 100 <-- The (1) value slot determins how fast the sprite will regen. I usealy use 50 or 100.
(2) 0
(3) 0 <-- Adding any number to the (2) or (3) value slots has no effect on enemy pipes.

2. How to make chests hold anything. Chest are not much diferent from enemy pipes. In the (0) value slot put the "small number" ID of the item you need to open it ( leave it at 0 for no item needed to open), in the (1) value slot put the "Kind" number of the item you want it to contain, this can also be anything from a chair to a power up to an enemy. Finally in the (2) value slot put the quantity of the items inside the chest. For instantce if you want a chest to make unlimited sheild power-ups then i would give it this yest of values.

(0) 0
(1) 1335
(2) 1
(3) 0 <-- Adding any number to the (3) value slot has no effect on the chests.

Unlike enemy pipes chests will not keep making the item non-stop untill your computer crashes, in the example with the invincability power up it will only regen the power-up after it has worn off. This can be very useeful when making levels, as it can make a chest have great loot or be a trap.

I hope that helps any Ferazel hackers still left.