NEPTUNE - Lolo 1 and 2 editor by bbitmaster

written on 21 Aug 2007

------------------------------------------
Intro/About (and misc rants)
------------------------------------------

OK, so I created this editor back in July 2003 and had plans to finish it for a
long time but never ever got around to it. For the past couple of years, I have
seriously meant to release it but never found the right time. I personally hate
buried unreleased projects, and it really isn't like me to keep something hidden
this long. I can only hope everyone will forgive me for keeping this thing
buried away on my HD for over 4 years.

Why did I call this editor Neptune? Well, besides sounding really cool, The
giant blue planet neptune has a VERY strong resemblence to lolo.

I have passed private builds of this editor to a lot of people over the years.
Two really awesome hacks have been made with it by Sivak: Challenging Lolo 1
and Challenging Lolo 2.

The only other lolo 1 editor in existence that I know of is a DOS based editor
called HALed, by FX3. If you are currently using this editor, then STOP
IMMEDIATLY. It will corrupt your rom. FX3 sent me the source to it a few years
ago, and I want to say it is utterly horrid. After recompressing levels, He has
some crazy routine that attempts to move other levels out of the way if it's too 
large.

Neptune will detect corrupt levels and refuse to load any more data. If it
detects your rom is corrupt, it will not attempt to fix it. If this happend,
then all I can suggest is starting over with a good rom, and this time, do not
use HALed.

Perhaps the coolest part about my editor is the compressor I wrote for it. Back
in 2003, I thought the compressor was 100% foolproof and perfect. I only
recently discovered when trying to recompress some lolo 3 levels, that it isn't
foolproof. It does get the job done well for lolo 2 however, and manages to
recompress all of lolo 2's levels much better than they were originally
compressed.

The editor is still unfinished, and one can tell by using it. Lolo 2 support is
actually much more complete than Lolo 1 support. The main difference being that
with Lolo 2, the sprites actually display in the level. The editor is already
fairly user friendly, but I had plans for so much more.

I am including full source in this release, I originally compiled it with
VS2003, but all I have installed right now is VS2005. It compiles with 7
warnings. The source is released under GPL, so if you modify it, you have to
release your source as well.

To make things clear, I do not believe I will ever pick this editor up again
someday. What you have here is probably all I will ever do with it. There is
a slight chance I will pick it up, but it is very unlikely.

------------------------------------------
Usage
------------------------------------------

Using this editor is very simple, just select a block and click where you want
to place it. If you drag the mouse, it draws a rectangular grid of the block
you selected. Right clicking on the map selects that block. The left and right
arrows change levels. You can also change levels from the menu.

This editor has Undo support, just hit ctrl+z to undo a change. This is
extremely useful if you mess up.

There is no level swapping built into the editor, but there is a trick you can
exploit to move a level. The undo feature is slightly bugged and does not go
to the previous level. So, drag a rectangle over the level you want to move and
go to the level you want to move it to, and hit ctrl+z. I know this is not the
ideal way to move a level, but its all there is.

Powerup data is stored on the very bottom row of a level. In lolo 2, the only
way to see it is to check the "Show Block IDs" checkbox. You should notice the
numbers on that row read something like "C1E0C1E0C1E0" This data tells the
powerup type and number of hearts it takes to collect. I do not feel like
explaining this data and will leave it up to you to figure it out.

In lolo 1, it seems I never got that "Show Block IDs" checkbox to even working.
Therefore, the only way to make out this data is to right click on those blocks
and see what block is selected in the block selector. I do apologize for this.


------------------------------------------
Contact Me
------------------------------------------
First of all, this software is freeware, incompleteware and unsupportedware.
Basically, I never finished this editor, and I do not want questions on how to
use it. I would love to be contacted if you made a cool hack with it, or if
you're working on the source to add new features, or if you just want to chat
about lolo compression algorithms. I do currently have a better algorithm
than the one used in Neptune

E-mail me at: bbitmaster@comcast.net, or bbitmaster@gmail.com


------------------------------------------
One Last Thing
------------------------------------------
I can't leave this readme without putting a plug in for a lolo clone I am
working on. At the time of this writing I still have a lot of work left to do
However, you can see videos of it in action at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVMNJZXLsWw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0bSUmsRRKo

Neptune was very useful in helping me and sivak construct test levels to see
how the lolo engine behaves in unusual circumstances. We are still using this
info to work on the above mentioned lolo clone.