The Populous Vault

Introduction

Testing your levels is a vital and important part in the whole level design process for Populous: The Beginning. Testing is especially useful for the new map makers who want to figure out how everything works. It is important to test your work because it will save you a lot of time and energy in the future. When testing a level it is important to make sure that you look for certain things along the way, such as:

Make sure the maps are as fair as possible. Some small advantages and disadvantages among tribes are fine; however, you do not want to make one tribe the initial "super power."

Make sure all of the stone heads work like they are supposed to. Worship each and every one of them. Remember that if a stone head is supposed to trigger something (such as an Angel of Death) to the person who worships it, then have the "Create Player Owned" attribute checked on that particular trigger.

Make sure all of your triggers are linked to your stoneheads.

Make sure you do not have things placed into the level that could potentially crash the game.

The list goes on...

How to Test your Levels

Testing your levels is a very simple process to perform, although the procedure may seem intimidating at first. This guide will walk you through it.

The first thing you need to do is make your level (levl2***.dat) and header (levl2***.hdr) file. Now browse to your Populous directory. (By default: C;\Program Files\Bullfrog\Populous\) The next thing you need to do is backup the folder called "levels." Do so by copying the levels folder to a different location on your hard drive. This will ensure that if somehow you damage this folder, you will still be able to restore it without losing your game data. This will also allow you to restore your levels when you are done with testing.

Once the folder is backed up, find your level files, there should be three (*.dat;*.hdr;*.ver). Rename all three files to levl2001.*** keeping the same extension where you see ***. For example: MYlevel.dat would become levl2001.dat or levl2042.hdr would become levl2001.hdr. After the files are renamed, copy them over top of the existing levels in your levels folder. Now run the game and play Level One. You should now see your test level. If the game crashes for some reason upon loading it, you have an error inside of your HDR file. To fix it, open up your map editor and go to the Header settings. In ALACN's editor, it should be the General settings. In here change all of the script values to 122. Then save and copy in the new header file. The game should now work since there are no more issues with loading the proper computer scripts.

When you are finished you should probably copy your backed up levels folder over top of the one in the game to restore your levels back to normal.

The information on this page has been provided as-is, meaning that you should use it at your own risk and neither I nor the people involved with making the map editor shall be held liable, should something damage your computer, your copy of Populous: The Beginning, or anything of relevence to that nature.