Tips on a puzzle that includes placing items

[Hidden Hands]

Is there an effective way to use ACS to make a puzzle where the player searches the map for 2 or 3 items that they need to place on plinths (and the items actually appear on the plinths and leave the players inventory) and activate a secret door by doing so? I've been trying a few days but I'm really struggling with this one. I'm not even sure it is possibe. Is IT?

Thank in advance!

[Enjay]

Definitely possible.

There are a few ways to do it but is your plinth is made from a sector, then I'd probably make the lines of the plinths run a script when you use them.

Set up the script to spawn the item on the plinth (it might be an idea to make a dummy item that looks like the pickup version but which is purely a decoration - so it can't be accidentally picked up again, depends on your exact setup really) and use [wiki]TakeInventory[/wiki] in your script to take away the one that the player is carrying.

[edit]
Meh! I was at a loose end so, have an example.

SkullPuzzle.pk3

(5.98 KiB) Downloaded 33 times

Just run with Doom2.

The scripting is probably messy (not my strong area) but it works (I think).

[Dan_The_Noob]

basically a switch that takes the item and switches from a nothing to a something?

[Player701]

It is also possible to leverage the puzzle item mechanic from Hexen. Hexen itself has a few puzzles like those, where you have to find a puzzle item and place it on a wall or a decoration.

To do that, you will first need to create your own puzzle item by subclassing it from the PuzzleItem class (the wiki article has an example) and a decoration actor subclassed from SwitchingDecoration with both Spawn and Active states defined. The Spawn state sprite should depict the decoration without any item placed on it, and the Active state sprite should include the item.

In the map editor, assign the UsePuzzleItem special to your decoration, and it should automatically switch to its Active state when the player uses it and has the correct puzzle item in their inventory (be sure to match the value of the 1st argument with the number of your puzzle item as defined in your item class via PuzzleItem.Number). The item will be removed from the inventory automatically. UsePuzzleItem can also be made to run a script on success, so you should also assign a script number (2nd argument) to run your custom logic (e.g. increment a counter and open the secret door when enough puzzle items have been used).

[Enjay]

Yup, as I said, there are a few ways to do it.

Personally, I find the way that I used in the example PK3 the simplest because almost everything is handled via the ACS script, but I've also used puzzle items, switchable decorations etc. Basically, I use whatever I feel works best for a particular situation.

[Hidden Hands]

Absolutely amazing, everyone thank you so much. I eventually went for something similar to Enjays example, and now it all works perfectly. This is beyond awesome, thank you so much.