Good morning! Today, I will be showing you how to make a breath meter in Gimkit! This is a slightly harder guide, so experiment with the game before attempting this. Basic knowlege of channels and wires will be needed to make this device system. (Or just jump right in, I can’t stop you…)
PART 1: CREATING THE UNDERWATER PART
This section is fairly easy. The main gist of it is to take away an item representing their breath, and kill them when they run out of it.
Step 1: Place down some water. This will be our, well, water.
Step 2: Place a zone down, and stretch it to fill the whole pond.
New device discovered!
The ZONE is an extremely useful device that can be used to change the behavior of things inside of it. In advanced maps, you see these a lot.
Step 3: Go into the settings of the zone, and tell it to transmit on channel InWater when entered, and transmit on channel OnLand when exited.
Step 4: Place a checker next to the water.
New device discovered!
The CHECKER is a very useful device when you want to cause things to happen depending on the value of something. They are a tad bit broken, though, so use them with care!
Step 5: Go into the checker settings, and tell it to run the check when it receives a signal from the channel InWater. This is one of the two channels the zone emits that we set up earlier.
Step 6: Go into the “Check #1” tab, and tell the checker to check for if the amount of an item is greater than one, and set the item to the snowball. This will take the player’s “breath” away whenever the check passes.
Step 7: Add a trigger next to the checker.
New device discovered!
TRIGGERS are widely considered to be quintesential to making a good map. Another, more approprite name would probably be the “doer”. It quite literally can do almost anything.
Step 8: Go into the trigger settings and increase the delay from 0 seconds to 1.5 seconds. This will be how fast your character loses air, so the lower the number, the faster they will drown! Turn off in-game visibility so people can’t step on the trigger and drown you faster than normal.
Step 9: Go into the Avalibility tab in the trigger settings, and tell it to activate when recieving on the channel InWater and deactivate when receiving on the channel OnLand. Finally, change the scope to player. This is to make sure that you don’t drown while on land!
Step 10: Wire the checker to the trigger (i.e. start at the checker and end at the trigger,) and tell the wire to trigger the trigger if the check passes.
Quick tip! If you press Z, you can go directly into the wiring menu!
Step 11: Wire the trigger to the checker (start with the trigger), and tell the wire to run the check when the trigger is triggered.
Step 12: Place down an item granter above the trigger.
New device discovered!
ITEM GRANTERS are an extremely useful device that can help everyone, from the block-phobic to the Gimvenger. Personally, they are my favorite, and I used them heavily when other things just didn’t work quite right.
Step 13: Go into the item granters’ settings, and tell it to grant -1 snowball. This is how the character will lose breath, so the heigher the number, the more breath the player will lose every the time the checker runs a check!
Step 14: Wire the checker to the item granter, so when the check passes, the item granter will grant its item.
If you test the build right now, you will see that nothing will happen. Why is that? Well, the player doesn’t have any snowballs to lose when the game starts! Well, how do we fix that?
Step 15: Place down a starting inventory (yes, that is the name) next to the trigger and item granter.
New device discovered!
The STARTING INVENTORY does what it says on the tin. It starts the player off with stuff in their inventory!
Step 16: Go into the settings for the starting inventory, and tell it to start the players off with 5 snowballs. This is how much breath the player starts with. The higher the number, the more breath they have!
Step 17: Place down a game overlay next to the starting inventory.
New device discovered!
The GAME OVERLAY is a useful tool that you can use to make your game more interactive! By putting text, buttons, and more on your screen, you can make a more immersive game than usual!
Step 18: Go into the game overlay’s settings, and tell it to show a tracked item in the top left corner, and to track the snowball. Also, make sure to turn off visibility on game start!
Go into the Channels tab, and tell the game overlay to show when receiving on InWater, and hide when receiving on FullOfAir. The reason we are using this new channel is so that you can see your air supply replenish when you’re out of the water.
Finally, go to the Scope tab, and change the scope to player, so that the air meter isn’t hidden and shown for everyone at the same time.
Step 19: Place down a respawn next to the checker.
New device discovered!
The RESPAWN is a handy little tool that you can use to force the player to respawn.
Step 20: Wire the checker to the respawn, so when the check fails, the player is respawned.
You did it! You finished the underwater portion of the guide! On to part two!
PART 2: CREATING TO ON LAND PART
Step 1: Move the first part of the build onto the bottom half of the lake.
Step 2: Place down a checker.
Step 3: Go into its settings, and tell it to check when receiving from OnLand, and when the check fails, transmit on FullOfAir. This is to have your character start breathing when they exit the water, and to stop breathing when their lungs are full.
Step 4: Go into the Check #1 tab, and tell it to check to see if the amount of snowballs the player has is less than SIX. THERE IS A BUG WHERE THE CHECKER WILL NOT CHECK IF THE VALUE IS SET TO FIVE.
Step 5: Place down a trigger next to the checker.
Step 6: Go into the settings of the trigger, and tell it to wait 2.5 seconds before taking action. This is how fast your character will recover breath, so the smaller the number, the faster they breathe!
Go into the Avalibility tab, and have the trigger activate when receiving OnLand, and deactivate when receiving InWater.
Step 7: Place down an item granter above the trigger.
Step 8: Change the item granted to the snowball. Optional: change the amount of item granted to allow the character to breathe in more at a time!
Step 9: Wire the checker to the item granter, so when the check passes, the player is granted the item.
Step 10: Wire the checker to the trigger, so when the check passes, the trigger is triggered.
Step 11: Wire the trigger to the checker, so when the trigger is triggered, the checker runs a check.
And there you go! A (almost) fully functioning breath meter in Gimkit Creative! This could be modified to fit the needs of your map, from poisonous gas, to hot lava, what could you do with this?
Here are some ideas that you could add on to this device system to make it even cooler:
- Add a death notification that tells the player how they died.
- Can you figure out how to take away the pesky item notification?
- People usually don’t move fast in water. Can you slow them down?
Here’s a hint: all of these ideas ARE possible, and only need one or two new devices, but their introductions will be for another guide.
As always, happy building!