Here are some terms commonly used when talking about game design:

Sprite: a sprite is a collection of littles images (called frames) that are stored in one file.

Frame: each picture contained by the sprite is a frame.

In order to create a SnakeMe sprite, you have to use the Sprite Editor. Read the Sprite Editor section lo learn how to use it.

There is also a small program, MakPrev, for creating previews of snakes, levels and level themes. To learn more about it, go to the MakPrev section.

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Launch SnakeMe.

Go to the level editor.

It's like a drawing program, like Paint for instance. When you move the mouse over the toolbar (on top-middle), you can see a help text (on top-right). Just read them and you'll understand.

For creating a preview of the levels you've created, you can use a small program called MakPrev.

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A snake is composed in a sequence of nodes. Each one of these nodes is a 8x8 frame. The first node of a snake is the head node, and the last one is the tail node. The other nodes are normal nodes: the body nodes. Create a snake means to make a sprite (with the Sprite Editor) with all possible nodes, according to the following directional system:

The following table explains this very clearly:

Frame number	Drawing	Comment
1		Body
2		Body
3		Body
4		Body
5		Body
6		Body
7		Body
8		Body
9		Body
10		Body
11		Body
12		Body
13		Head
14		Head
15		Head
16		Head
17		Tail
18		Tail
19		Tail
20		Tail

For creating a preview of the snakes you've created, you can use a small program called MakPrev.

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To create a game theme, you have to make a sprite (with the Sprite Editor) containing 13 frames, as followed:

Note: You must implement all the frames (even if two are the same). This will garanty that all levels will work with your theme.

For creating a preview of the themes you've created, you can use a small program called MakPrev.

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The Sprite Editor is a Windows program used to create SnakeMe sprites. It is composed of two windows: the main window and a small "Frame Property" window.

In the "File" menu, you have the usual functions to save your sprite, load a sprite, and to exit the program. The other menus do not contain essential functions for creating snake or level sprites, so let's directly go to the "Frame Property" window. The upper part of this window contains the necessary functions to add, delete, and move between the frames. The lower part uses special offset settings, they must always be set to (0,0,0) exepted for the frames 12 and 13 of a theme sprite, where the offset must be (8,8,0).

The Sprite Editor is supplied with the full version of SnakeMe, but you can also download it here:

• Sprite Editor for Windows (zip file, 7'589 bytes)

Because the source files of SpriteEd are too ugly, they are not included in the SnakeMe sources. But all the code for coding and decoding the sprites is included in the SGU library, which is available in the SnakeMe sources. But if someone is nevertheless interested, we will give it to him/her of course.

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MakPrev is a very small console utility that allows you to easily create a preview of your snakes, levels and level themes.

First of all, launch a console window, and go to the directory where you installed SnakeMe. Then type the following instructions:
makprev {s,l,t} filename.ext
{s,l,t} means that you have to precise what kind of preview you want to create: a preview of a snake sprite (SNK file), of a level (SML file) or of a theme sprite (SMT file).
filename.ext is the file of which you want to have a preview. Don't forget to add the extention: .snk for a snake, .sml for a level and .smt for a theme.

For instance, if you want to make the preview of a snake called fireframe, you'll have to type this:
makprev s fireframe.snk

MakPrev is supplied with the full version of SnakeMe, but you can also download it here:

• MakPrev for Windows (zip file, 22'533 bytes)

The source files of MakPrev are included with the sources of SnakeMe.

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