The first thing you should do is play some of the top-rated adventures. Get a feel for how they look and play!

Now let's hop into the Adventure Creation Kit!

Upon entering, you'll meet this screen. Along the top is your ACK toolbar and on the side is adventure statistics. The kit will usually provide controls along the bottom of the screen, so keep an eye out for those.

Understanding the Stats!

• Building Points - The total of all your adventure's content. Every block, prop, and entity adds to this. You can not have more than 7,000 points worth of content in an adventure.
  
• Difficulty Calculator - Takes the special values from your adventure's content. Enemies, traps, and dangerous jumps subtract from the total. Checkpoints, loot, and potions add to the total.

The ACK Toolbar!

• Design - Tools for sculpting the world. Adding blocks, liquids, or painting existing blocks.
  
• Props - Tools for detailing and decor. Interactive objects such as enemy spawners, doors, switches, chests, breakable boxes, or traps. Static objects, visual effects, and decals for lighting and decoration. Bridges and steps for navigation.
  
• Entities - Tools such as the adventure's start and finish marker, checkpoints, triggers, logic blocks, and enemies.
  
• NPC - NPCs, sign posts, lecterns, and books.
  
• VFX - Visual effects such as the time of day or environmental effects.
  
• Music - Choose the music track that will play in your adventure rather than a random track.
  
• Play Test - Play test your adventure.
  
• Dashboard - Check your published adventures' statistics such as rating, reports, playtime, and progress.
  
• Your Adventures - ACK adventure settings.. Saving and loading adventures, starting anew, publishing the current adventure, or exiting to the hub.
  
• Your Campaigns - The menu for managing campaigns. Create, edit, or publish.
  
• Gear Icon - Opens the options menu.
  
• Question Mark - Opens the official ACK help page.
  
• Eye Icon - Shows which tiles can have items placed on.
  
• Exit - Leave the ACK.

Now that we understand the interface, let's start creating an adventure!
The most important part is to have an idea in mind. Visualizing an adventure will let you build it with ease.

Creating the Landscape!
Open the design tab and choose land. Some controls that aren't mentioned along the bottom are the use of right click to view special options (usually for a selection), left-clicking+holding to select an area, and the use of q/e to lower/raise the height of the block you're adding. When you're finished with a tool (such as wanting to change from sculpt to water), just hit Esc.

If you want to remove something from your adventure, select something from the same toolbar tab and control+left-click it.

Design options!

• Land - Solid ground. can be raised, lowered, heightened, and painted.
  
• Water - Gets deeper further away from land. Players can drown in deep water.
  
• Lava - Walking on lava will ignite you, dealing damage over time.
  
• Poison - Similar to lava, walking on it will poison you for damage over time.
  
• Mud - Walking on mud slows the player down. Monsters are not slowed by mud.
  
• Paint - Allows you to change the texture of already-placed land.

Liquids can be raised/lowered. All adjacent liquids will be moved with the target.

Now, it's time to start creating the first room of the adventure! Select 'Land' and open the pallette with 'Tab' to choose the paint you want to use. When you think the area is finished, choose another paint and build the walls. Players can climb walls that are a half-block or full-block taller than the block they are standing on. Do not make the walls too short, and conversely, do not make the walls too tall that they block vision. The ideal height may be four or five blocks.


If you need to select a tile or tiles, hit 'E' while hovering over it, or hold 'E' and move across them.
To deselect tiles, just do the same thing but using 'Q' instead. Double-tapping 'Q' will deselect everything.

Continue building the landscape, adding liquids if needed. When you're content with the area, we can start touching it up!

Basic Detailing!
Most of this will be done with the paint tool, but if you want to sculpt details into the area, then you're free to do that. Select the paint tool and choose a texture from the pallette. Interior textures are very nice for detailing. We'll add a carpet and nice frame to the room, and maybe sculpt details into the outside wall.


Continue as you feel fit, and make the area look nice. When you're done, we'll move into advanced detailing.

Advanced Detailing!
If you want to add a "second floor", feel free. Exit the design menu and open the prop menu. If you need to add a staircase or bridge, do that now. Afterwards, open the static props tool. It's time to decorate the area! Choose whatever would fit best. If you add a prop with multiple variations, you can change it after placing by clicking on it. Lighting almost always helps set mood. If you're planning on having a daytime adventure, use the unlit firepits in the decor pallette menu. If it'll be nighttime, use lighting from the light pallette menu. Facade items are fake windows and doors that can add theme to a map, as well.


Decals are a special prop type that have to be placed on solid land. There are two types: wall glyphs and ground decals. After placing a decal, you can change the colour by clicking on it. You can also change the size of ground decals with the up arrow.


Interactive Details!
Now to add chests, doors, and maybe even traps! Stairs and bridges may fall under this category as well. If using bridges for decor, please do not go overboard. We don't want to obstruct the player's vision!

You should usually place one or two potion chests at or near the spawn. Loot will come later. We want them to work for that! You should have a Treasure Chest somewhere in your adventure, too! It's usually best at the very end, or as an extra near the end (hidden in a secret area, or behind an optional area.)

If you're happy with the visuals, we can start to add the practical stuff like doors and traps. They are all found under the interactive menu of the props tab. Most doors use keys, but a few of the larger ones can be hooked up to logic, similar to traps. I'll be using a wooden gate hooked up to a pressure plate. Why? To make a one-way door to leave the spawn castle, of course! These are very situational, and I'd suggest using a switch or barrel+pressure plate instead. Being trapped isn't fun.


Sliding doors are a special kind of logic door that are placed on walls and are adjustable just like any other wall prop. While open, the wall the door is placed on will be removed, allowing players to walk through. It will return if the door is closed again.
http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=262369672

Cracked walls can be found under the destructible props tab. Placing this on a tile allows it to be attacked and destroyed, leaving behind space to walk through. Good for hidden areas where the sliding door wouldn't fit in.

When you finish the area, start working on the rest of the adventure. For outside areas, you can block the edges with trees, fences, rocks, or cliffs.


Again: If you want to remove something from your adventure, select something from the same toolbar tab and control+left-click it.

Keep working on youre adventure's world until you're happy with how it looks! When you're finished, we can move onto finishing your adventure!

We're almost finished, and I'm sure your adventure is looking great!

Adding NPCs!
Now to breathe some life into this world! We'll start by adding NPCs. Choose NPC from the entities menu and place it wherever you think it'd fit. After placing an NPC, you can rotate it. Select the NPC to manage their dialogue. Try to have them say something that'll fit the theme of your adventure.

Books and lecterns function nearly identically to NPCs, so you're free to use them if they'd fit the adventure better.

Sign posts are very limited and can not be hooked up to logic.


Spawn, Checkpoints, and Finish!
These are important! If you're not happy with the location of the spawn, you can move it somewhere else! You can also change both the starting directions of the player and camera on the spawn. Don't forget to add a finish to your adventure, too! The spawn should be placed in a safe starting area, and the finish should be accessed only after the adventure is complete. It's best placed behind a locked door or something similar.


Now to add checkpoints! You don't want too many or too little. Having to walk long distances after a death isn't fun, but we also don't want them to have too many extra lives.

For small maps, you should have a checkpoint at the midpoint. Larger maps should have multiple spread out between key areas of the adventure.

All three of these items-- checkpoints, start, and finish-- requires a flat tiled area of 3x3!

Something to Fight!
Now let's add some enemies! Select them from the entities menu and open the monster pallette.
We'll start by adding some melee enemies.

• Rat - The weakest and cheapest to add. It fights with melee and dies easily.
  
• Skeleton - A stronger melee enemy. They spawn with random equipment and know how to fight with them! They'll dodge, shield, and attack you.
  
• Female Brigand - A human bandit. They fight like skeletons.
  
• Ghost Knight - A strong melee enemy with a long range.
  
• Male Brigand - The male variant of brigands.
  
• Orc - Very similar to the skeleton, but slightly stronger.
  
• Scarab and Explosive Scarab - Both act the same as the rat. They're both very weak and very cheap. Explosive Scarabs will, as named, explode when they die.
  
• Slug - A slow and weak maggot that fights by belching poisonous gas.
  
• Mummy - A very slow monster with a lot of health. They take nearly no knockback.
  
• Zombie - Slow like the mummy, but with very little health. Can die multiple times.
  
• Minotaur - One of the powerful-but-expensive melee enemies! They hit hard but move slow. If the player is too far away from them, they'll charge!
  
• Troll - One of the powerful-but-expensive melee enemies! They hit even harder than a minotaur but move just as slow. They have no way of catching up to you if you keep your distance, though.
  
• Random - Randomly spawns any melee enemy when the adventure is started.

When you're happy with your new additions, we can add a few ranged enemies!

• Skeleton Archer - A skeleton that uses a bow-and-arrow when the player isn't in melee range.
  
• Eyeball - A big floating eyeball. Shoots deadly energy beams.
  
• Spider - Attacks with web projectiles that slow the player down. After they attack a few times, they might switch to melee.
  
• Goblin - A small, quick goblin that throws bombs at a range and uses a weak dagger up close.
  
• Wraith - The Wraith is a dangerous ranged monster that dashes from point to point and throws nether orbs at the player. They're tough and tend to avoid entering melee range of the player.
  
• Spiked Slug - Small, weak, and cheap. Fires spikes that explode into a cloud of poisonous gas.
  
• Random - Randomly spawns any ranged enemy when the adventure starts.

Now that we've finished that, we can add minibosses! These are powerful enemies that don't go down easily. They can hold keys that they will drop on death.

• Necromancer - Summons skeletons to attack the player and uses its staff as a melee weapon.
  
• Rock Golem - Hits hard and summons groups of weak mini-golems.
  
• Lightning Elemental - Elementals are deadly monsters. This one uses lightning attacks that can stun the player.
  
• Fire Elemental - Attacks with fireballs and firestorms.
  
• Frost Elemental - Fires ice shards and summons explosive ice.
  
• Pyromancer - A dangerous mage that attacks with ranged firestorms and fireballs.
  
• Worm - A stationary monster that bites in close-range and shoots a gas that does minor damage and slows the player down from long-range.

Each enemy can have a special name and difficulty given to them. This name will hover over the monster during play, and the difficulty will change the appearance of the monster and add a small icon next to their health. It's good for adding a bit more depth to story-driven adventures.

Each enemy can also have a different idle behaviour setting.

• Attack - Stand and wait until a player is spotted.
  
• Defend - The enemy will guard its trigger radius and not leave it unless provoked with ranged attacks.
  
• Patrol - The enemy will follow a path that the creator can set. They will use unlocked doors and climb walls.
  
• Wander - Wander aimlessly until a player is spotted. If the player leaves their aggro radius, they will continue wandering.

Sometimes, you might want enemy spawners instead. Select spawners from the props menu and place it wherever you need. Each spawner has specific enemy types that can be selected to spawn from it.

• Tomb - Mummies, scarabs, and red scarabs
  
• Slug nest - Slugs and spiked slugs
  
• Crpyt - Skeletons, zombies, and rats

Mutators - Mutators are extra traits randomly given to monsters in your adventure each time it's played, ensuring that noone will have the exact same experience. You can manually enable five monsters to always be given a random mutator as well.



Visual Effects!
We're nearly finished! Now we can set the time of day and whatever environment effects fits the adventure.

Open the VFX menu and choose Time of Day. It's a very simple slider to set the time, which will change the lighting in the editor and adventure. After you finish, we can apply environment effects.


The environment effect will be previewed while you are setting it, and not be shown while editing. It's another simple slider for intensity of effect.


Music!
Want a specific in-game track to play on your adventure? Simply choose it from the selections in this menu. The track will be previewed while selecting.

This section will go over the extra additions you can use once you're more comfortable with everything else in the ACK. These are the most advanced features, but also the most rewarding.

Teleporters!
A portal that must connect to a second teleporter. They have settings to limit how they can be used, such as...

• One of the teleporters being only send/receive.
  
• Both teleporters being bidirectional.
  
• Only enemies or players being able to use it.
  
• Everyone being able to use it.

They can be hooked up to logic for the event OnTeleported.

The difference between 'Teleporter Fade' and 'Teleporter Move' is how they effect the camera. The 'Move' variant is the only teleporter that moves the camera with the player, showing everything in between the two teleporters. Every other teleporter uses the seamless fade.



Logic Blocks!
Logic blocks are for simple hook-ups to save time and trouble for advanced logic. You use them by having a seperate entity target it for an event-- this is the "input". It can have as many inputs as necessary, as well as being given a logic rule of waiting for ALL connected inputs to be received, or simply firing on any received input.

Logic blocks can also be given a timed delay before firing after being triggered.

Triggers!
By far the most complex thing in the creation kit so far. No worries though, you can still use it to improve your adventure vastly even with it at its simplest! The best way to figure them out, however, is to experiment with them yourself. Here are some of the things you can do with them!

• Ambush!
  
  The trigger in front of the spawn opens the gate-- It is NOT set to trigger once, just in the case that someone dies or a new player joins.
  The trigger by the carpet closes the gate (NOT set to trigger once) and spawn both skeletons (Trigger once)
  
  
• A bigger boss fight!
  
  The trigger spawns the weakest ice elemental. On its death, it fires an event to spawn the medium elemental. Just the same, the medium one will spawn the hard one. When the hard elemental dies the gate will open.
  
  
• A gauntlet!
  
  The spawn has opens the gate and disables the firepits when the adventures starts. If you checkpoint there is triggered the gate will close, the other one will open, and the firepits will light. The first gate can be opened again at the end of the gauntlet.
  
  
• A trap for adventure progression!
  
  The first trigger will destroy the breakable floor OnExit. For a live demonstration, try the adventure 'Golden Hill Inn'.
  
  
• An entire adventure or arena!
  
  A whole mess of triggers, events, and logic blocks working together to create an adventure. Story progression through NPCs, enabling/disabling teleporters, and spawning monsters. It's complicated, so I can't really explain it all here. See it in action-- 'Temple of Blood'!

Here's a WIP guide on logic and triggers by a well-known creator!
http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=353394197

Now that we've added all the fine details to our adventure, it's time to look over it and make sure it has everything we've wanted to add! If everything looks good and it's how you envisioned it, we can move on to playtesting and publishing!

You've built up an adventure from scratch and now it's just about finished!
We have to test it, now!

Playtesting!
Select playtest on the ACK toolbar. You will spawn inside of your adventure, ready to play! If you want to switch back to the editor, simply pause and exit, die, or use the finish.


Here's a good playtesting checklist.

• Make sure everything works as intended. Enemy paths, doors, traps, and the such.
  
• Check for exploits or unintended paths.
  
• Make sure you can't climb onto walls if unintended.
  
• Check if the adventure is at the intended difficulty.
  And most importantly...
  
• Make sure your adventure is fun to play.

If your adventure is finished, save and playtest! It has to be completed with ten or more enemies killed to be published, and the difficulty CAN NOT be "Unbalanced!"
There is a difficulty override option that can be used if the feel that the difficulty calculator has wrongly chosen for your adventure. Do not abuse this.

Publishing your finished adventure!
Open the Adventures tab on the toolbar and choose Publish! Fill out the name, description, and meet the requirements for publishing. If you think everything is finished, publish your adventure.


Congratulations! You have finished creating your adventure! You can check the statistics for it from the dashboard, now.


Campaigns are published differently-- all adventures in a campaign have to be published to publish a campaign. They must be published AFTER adding them to the campaign, not before.
There's an in-game, official explanation when you open the tab.

Now, some simple tips for when you're making your adventures!

• ...be creative! Pick a theme for your adventure! Give it a good story! Add details that support both of these!
  
• ...experiment! Try new things and be an innovator!
  
• ...make sure your adventures are fun to play!
  
• ...decorate your adventures! Make them visually appealing!
  
• ...stick to the theme you chose!
  
• ...provide a challenge while still being fair!
  
• ...make one-way doors obvious!
  
• ...take your time making your adventure! You want to make it the best it can be!
  
• ...try to add a story! It pretty much always adds to the enjoyment of your adventure!
  
• ...consider optional sidequests or extra areas in small adventures!
  
• ...try to make your story gender-ambiguous! Playing a female and having everyone refer to the player as male can take them out of the adventure's story! If you think it can't be done, then no worries, you at least tried!
  
• ...build your adventures with multiplayer and co-op in mind! Every adventure should be playable by a group of people!

• ...go overboard with jumping puzzles. These also aren't fun unless done right.
  
• ...have ranged enemies in inaccessible locations. These usually aren't fun to deal with. Don't do this unless you're completely sure it adds to your adventure in a positive way.
  
• ...make loot or experience farms. These aren't fun or unique, and may get you banned from creating adventures.
  
• ...make an adventure too long or too short. Try to strike a balance between the two.
  
• ...have too much backtracking in an adventure. It isn't fun to have to run back and forth constantly.
  
• ...make the puzzles too confusing. Remember that you still want it to be fun!
  
• ...use one-way doors in a way that'd trap the player!
  
• ...abuse the difficulty override. This may or may not get your adventure blocked.
  
• ...publish test adventures! If it's a first or a test, only publish it if it's a full adventure and you feel it's on par with at least the official adventures!
  
• ...force a death from players to continue! It isn't fun or fair, and it could be their last life!

Need more information? Here's another good guide on creating adventures!
http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=249600823

Want an opinion on an adventure you've made? Leave your adventure or creator name in the comments and I'll play it! I'll leave my opinions in the adventure feedback!

Notice misinformation (whether it be from a change from an update or from being outright wrong) in the guide? Just write it down in the comments and I'll check it over and try to fix it as soon as possible.

Good luck, creators! We all can't wait to see what you come up with!