Something’s gone wrong!

Here’s some common gotchas and how to solve them.

I tried to use the AD enemies in a game with another playable character (e.g. VR puppet) but it didn’t work#

Many of the Ancient Dangers enemies use invisible collision objects for their collision shapes. The health modifiers in some other game elements might not be set up to detect invisible collisions. If you are finding that health managers are not being modified, find the health modifiers and tweak them. On the labels page, set detection mode to both, to cover both visible and invisible collisions.

I’ve run out of gameplay or graphics thermo!#

Ancient Dangers has some highly-detailed sculptures and complex gameplay elements. It’s highly likely you’ll hit the thermometer limits for graphics or gameplay. Firstly, we recommend doing Ancient Dangers: Play & Edit 3 to learn how to optimise and use emitters to get more out of your gameplay elements, particularly enemies. You’ll learn how to extract effects to optimise enemies, and how to emit them throughout your levels using a single reference, rather than multiple stamps.

Secondly, think about splitting your levels into multiple scenes and making them into a dream. Dreams have incredibly fast loading times, so use that. Rather than trying to fit everything into one scene, think about where it would be natural to move between scenes within your design, for example at the start/end of a cutscene, or where the player is passing through a one-way door.

My Sky Spawner didn't produce a golem#

When something fails to emit, it’s usually because there isn’t enough gameplay memory left to emit things. Depending on the situation, the particular thermometer bank that’s become maxed may be different. As the Golems (and in fact most enemies in Ancient Dangers) are very wire-heavy elements, it’s likely the wires bank which doesn’t have enough for the new Golem to be emitted.

To debug the issue, try playing your scene in Test Mode, which you can find in the Modes menu. In Test Mode, start time and you’ll be able to play while it tracks the performance of the scene. Note the point where you expected the golem to spawn and investigate.

We highly recommend checking out the Gameplay and Graphics Thermometer videos for more information on how thermo works, in particular how emission can be affected.

When I pick up Scoria or Gabbro their grab point is offset#

Have you been playing and moved Scoria or Gabbro away from her start position (where they are when no play at all has happened yet) before switching to edit mode? This is the most common cause of grab points (which is what we call the place designers define for picking elements up) getting messed up. It can happen with any object that moves and in any scene with any kit. The offset you see when picking up the element is usually relative to the amount they’ve moved away from their start position. To check, try rewinding with (or use rewind in the menu). Once you’ve done that, try picking up Scoria or Gabbro (or any element that is exhibiting this issue) again. The offset should no longer occur.

Note that this should only ever happen when moving something that’s already been stamped in the scene and has subsequently been moved. It should never occur when stamping something new.

The camera is misbehaving!#

You may have noticed that the Play & Edits restrict the camera to camera pointers only. They also don’t teach the user how to work with the camera options seen in the Ancient Dangers game, which are present and active in the Foundation.

Camera pointers allow you to frame each area and art-pass for a very limited range of camera movement (i.e. make it look nice in a small area). However they don’t offer the freedom you’re used to. While they frame shots nicely, you’ll still need to manage the transitions/blends from one pointer to another as the player moves through the scene. Note they don’t use camera collision/avoidance. This means they can intersect the scene, or allow their view to be obstructed. Avoid making completely enclosed spaces. Remember they only need to appear enclosed from the point of view of the camera pointer. You could use trigger zones to detect the camera, and make the scene become invisible or slide away to expose the room to the camera view.

You’ll find more on this subject later in this page.

My dispenser isn't dispensing any more items#

If you’ve found your Rock Dispenser or Bomb Dispenser has stopped giving you those vital items, here’s how you can look at sorting that out.

Sometimes your pickups can fall down a gap, or land on something outside of your playable space which has collision enabled, and get stuck. It's good practice to make sure anything the player can’t reach doesn’t have collision on.

There's a trigger zone in the dispensers’ logic that encompasses an area. Scope in to the element with +, find its microchip, and open it with +. You’ll see a trigger zone. Select it with to see its zone. Is it an appropriate size and shape? Does it contain any areas the pickup could fall? Try shrinking the zone (or expanding it), or changing its shape - have a play around! Just remember there is gameplay involved in having pickups drop where they shouldn’t, but you do need to make sure they can’t break your puzzle.

My vine barrier doesn’t retract after I defeat the plant#

The Vine Barrier is looking for Carnivorous Plants within its trigger zone. Perhaps your plant is just outside of it? Scope in to your vine and open its microchip with +. Find a trigger zone called Plant in Scene? And select it with to see how big the zone is. Make sure your Carnivorous Plant is inside the area. If not, you might want to make the zone larger, or move the plant. Be careful - if you have any other Carnivorous Plants which you don’t want triggering this particular vine, make sure they don’t fall within it once you’ve resized it.

When my Vine Barrier goes down the camera goes through a wall#

Generally it’s good practice to keep the Vine Barriers close to the plants, but sometimes you want to make your player really search for that Carnivorous Plant. You may find you’re getting camera behaviour that isn’t exactly what you want, so let’s walk you through improving it.

Scope in to the Vine Barrier and open it’s Animation Logic microchip. You should see a timeline called Death Animation.

Open up the timeline with +. On the third row down there's a camera. Scope in to this camera to see what it’s pointing at, which is of course the vine. You’ll want to think about where your player will be when they defeat the Carnivorous Plant. If the vines are far away, the camera could end up teleporting to somewhere in the distance the player doesn’t recognise, especially if they hadn’t found the vine barrier yet. There’s also more chance it’ll end up moving through walls and stuff. We recommend making the camera close to the Carnivorous Plant, to minimise the chance of it doing things you don't like. Just remember to scope out of the camera once you've got the position correct and give it a test. The camera itself does have some depth of field, so you may want to play with the aperture. It’s best to play once you’ve made changes to see how it looks and feels.

My Chest Smasher item won’t stay inside the chest - it floats in the air or sits on the floor

When placing an element in the chest on the smasher you need to make sure you get it inside the correct group.

Scope in (+) to the smasher once, so that you can scope in to the chest separately. Scope in to the chest and tweak it (+). The group name (at the top of the tweak menu) should be Place Things to Smash in Here if you’re in the right place. Now scope in a further three times, to the level where the chest lid and bottom can be selected separately. Place your items in the chest at this level and give it a test. If the item is still floating in the air once you’ve defeated the smasher it may have a rotator on its microchip which will need to be powered off. This will almost certainly happen with the health potion!

My one-way door isn't working#

Did you place it the right way around? The handles need to be facing the direction your player will be coming from, as there's no way to open it from the other side!

When my character died I spawned on the wrong side of the forcefield and can't get back into the fight#

Where is your checkpoint? When you place checkpoints, make sure they’re in the fighting area but not too close to where the action happens. Otherwise you can get stuck on the other side of the forcefield.