Map & level basics

General concepts

What you usually refer to as a map or an area in a cRPG (typically a 16×16 or 32×32 cell grid) is called a level in Gridmonger. A set of levels is, in turn, called a map. The program always operates on a single map: when you start it for the first time, you are greeted with an empty map; when you load or save your work, you’re always loading or saving a map.

Let’s load one of the example maps to illustrate these concepts! Start up Gridmonger, press Ctrl+O to bring up the open map dialog, then select the file Eye of the Beholder I.gmm from the Example Maps folder in your program directory (Gridmonger map files have the .gmm extension). Mac users will need to download the Example Maps separately.

Click on the current level drop-down at the top of the window that currently shows Undermountain – Upper Sewers (-1). The list of all levels that comprise this map will appear:

  • Undermountain – Upper Sewers (-1)

  • Undermountain – Middle Sewers (-2)

  • Undermountain – Lower Sewers (-3)

  • Undermountain – Upper Level Dwarven Ruins (-4)

  • …

As you can see, the full name of a level consists of three components:

Location name – Level name (Elevation)

Location name may refer to a distinct geographical area, a dungeon, or a city consisting of one or more levels. In this example, the whole game takes place in the Undermountain dungeon deep beneath the city of Waterdeep.

Level name is the name of an individual level (or area) within the location. It is optional because some locations may contain only a single level, or multiple levels but with no unique characteristics. In either case, it would make little sense to name the level.

Elevation is the vertical position of the level in relation to the ground. An elevation of zero means ground level (displayed as G in the level name). Negative numbers are underground (e.g., the levels of a mine), and positive numbers are above the ground (e.g., the floors of a castle or a tower). As this game takes place entirely in an underground dungeon, all numbers are negative.

The benefit of this naming scheme is that the program can automatically organise the levels for you: the level list is sorted by location name first, then by elevation, and lastly by level name. Note that elevation is sorted in descending order because that way the resulting list in the drop-down mirrors the vertical position of the levels (and underground dungeons are just more common in cRPGs).

The important thing to remember is that the full name of every level must be unique within the map (the program enforces this).

Map properties

Apart from their name, levels have a few other properties too. Some can be inherited from the map, so let’s examine the map properties first. Bring up the Edit Map Properties dialog with the Ctrl+Alt+P shortcut!

Let’s start with the General tab. Unsurprisingly, every map must have a Title — this is displayed in the title bar of the window. You can also optionally specify the name of the Game and the Author of the map. The local Creation time is also displayed as a non-editable property.

The Coordinates tab contains properties that govern how the cell coordinates are displayed. Origin specifies the corner the grid coordinate count starts from. There are two coordinate styles to choose from: number and letter. You can set the style separately for columns and rows with Column style and Row style, respectively. The letter style works as follows: A corresponds to 0, B to 1, and so on, right until Z (25), then it continues with AA, AB, AC, etc. You can specify the coordinate start values in the Column start and Row start fields. You need to enter the start values as numbers, even for letter style coordinates, in which case the program helpfully displays the corresponding letter coordinates next to the input fields. Negative start values are allowed (-1 corresponds to -B when using the letter style).

Finally, the Notes tab contains a nice large text field to store all your map-related notes in. You can use Shift+Enter to insert line breaks when editing the note text.

Level properties

Now open the Edit Level Properties dialog with the Ctrl+P shortcut.

The General tab contains the Location name, Level name and Elevation properties discussed previously. The dimensions of the level are also displayed (Columns and Rows), but you cannot edit those fields.

By default, levels inherit the coordinate settings from the map properties. You can customise them per level by enabling Override map settings in the Coordinates tab.

The Regions properties will be discussed later in the Regions chapter.

You can attach notes to individual levels as well under the Notes tab.

Managing maps & levels

To add a new level, press Ctrl+N to bring up the New Level dialog. This is almost exactly the same as the Edit Level Properties dialog, but here you must specify the level’s dimensions. The maximum allowed size is 6,666×6,666 — hopefully, you’ll never ever come across a level this big, but some upper limit had to be introduced and this is as good as any! Don’t worry if you don’t get the level size quite right initially; you can change it later with the resize and crop actions, as you’ll see.

You also have the option to pre-fill the level with empty floor cells (Fill with empty floors). This might come in handy for wall style maps — more on this in the Basic editing chapter.

To delete the current level, press Ctrl+D. If you deleted the level accidentally, no problem; you can always undo it by pressing U, Ctrl+U, or Ctrl+Z.

To replace the current map with a new map, press Ctrl+Alt+N. Make sure to save the current map first if you don’t want to lose it because this action cannot be undone!

Note

The U undo shortcut is not available if YUBN keys are enabled. You’ll learn about this special feature in the next chapter.

Saving maps

Whenever you save your map with Ctrl+S, Gridmonger appends the .bak suffix to the name of your current map file, then creates a new file with the normal map name. This is a safety measure — if saving the map fails for whatever reason, at least you have your last backup. Just remove the .bak suffix from the filename and load it as a regular map file.

You can also save the map under a new name with Ctrl+Shift+S.

Gridmonger has an autosaving feature that is enabled by default; you will learn more about this in the Preferences section.