User blog:ChocophileBenj/Create your own Candy Crush levels ! (REVIEWED TUTORIAL)

Wanna know how to create your own levels of Candy Crush Saga ? (or rather pictures of them)

One possibility is to create a grid, to put manually pictures of candies with ctrl c+ctrl v but... it may be boring, isn't it ?

Fortunately, you can go MUCH faster ! Use GAME MAKER.

https://www.yoyogames.com/studio/download

Why Game maker ?
As its name suggests, this software enables you to create easily computer games. You can create your own Benjeweled Bejeweled if you want.

But what will interest us here, is that you can put sprites of candies directly by creating a "room" and several "objects". Then, a grid will appear and you can place items on it which are supposed to be items of your "room".

Basic steps
In this section, I will show you the basics of how to create a level. Then, you should be able to go by yourself.

1 - Download Game Maker on the link above (the free version, of course). And launch it. There should be nothing complicated.

2 - Creating a sprite : In Game maker, a sprite is a set of several small images called "subsprites" that will be used to physically represent objects. On the left menu, go to "sprite", right-click "Create sprite". Then, select the created sprite and click "edit sprite".

2.1 - Adding an image (subsprite) : find a picture of the standard blue candy (to start) on the Internet (see below for a link to a sheet with all sprites), then paste it on the menu so the image will be resized automatically. You can also download a picture of the blue candy from your computer. If background is transparent, it's all good. Otherwise, go in the built-in editor, then use the magic wand to select the background by clicking on it (you may have to adjust tolerance for better result). Then, go transform->scale to change the scale of the image : its size should be around 40*40 (or 32*32, it's up to you). Don't change the canvas (by "canvas" or "stretch" yet !)

2.2 - Adding other images to it (subsprites) : close the draw-editor, you'll be back in the "sprite editor" window. Find another picture of a standard candy, then paste it on the menu of sprites. Don't worry if it isn't the same size as the previously scaled candy, you'll be asked which size to conserve for the canvas. Then, edit your candy : make the background transparent if necessary, and scale it the same size as the previous image. Repeat until you've an image for the 6 objects. If you want to respect the spirit of Candy Crush Saga on facebook, put the subimages in the following order : blue, green, orange, purple, red, yellow.

2-3 - After you're done,  return in the main menu. Close the sprite window. (because Game Maker always creates windows for each thing). You're supposed to have a single sprite with 6 subimages in it.

3 - Creating an object "candy" : ''Game Maker works with elements called "objects". You create them first, then you place instances of them in room.'' In the "Objects" section, right-click and choose "Create object" to create an object.

3.1 Making the sprite of the candy random : Double-click the created object to make a window. Click "Add event" (below the central column) and choose "create". ''The left menu is about properties of the object. The central column corresponds to events ; the right part corresponds to action that you put into the events. In the case of "create", you'll put the actions that will be triggered when the event applies.''

3.2 : In the action part, select the "main1" tab, then drag&drop the "change sprite" icon on the right menu (the simple Pac-man icon). Double-click on that  "Change sprite"  action you added.

3.3 - Very important :   In the sprite menu, s elect the sprite you've built in previous part. Set "speed" to 0. ''This is the speed of the sprite : if it is strictly positive, then the image of the object toggles between the different images. ''Set "subimage" to a random number between 0 and the number of colours. How to create that ? By the following code :  random(global.nbColors)  But what is  global.nbColors  ? The number of colours in the level, of course. Well, you'll see it by yourself in the 4th part.

4 - Creating a level (at least !)

A sheet with all sprites for a CCS level : http://www.google.fr/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spriters-resource.com%2Fresources%2Fsheets%2F52%2F55525.png&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spriters-resource.com%2Fmobile_phone%2Fcandycrushsaga%2Fsheet%2F55525%2F&h=1024&w=1024&tbnid=3ohxYv87rLz9bM%3A&zoom=1&docid=Jf0EiAkg3b706M&ei=Y2_2U5TcFumc0AWy6IHgBw&tbm=isch&iact=rc&uact=3&dur=167&page=1&start=0&ndsp=18&ved=0CsCAQrQMwAA