WarioWare DIY action instructions
I couldn’t find a comprehensive list of all of the actions that are available in warioware diy for programming your games, so I thought I would write one up for people that are interested in focused game scripting. Nintendo did some really clever things here that both make the types of games that you can do really small, and make those types of games really easy to make. The mechanics that you can have in your game are pretty straight forward, and it allows you to make ghosts of familiar genres, but not the genres themselves.
Trigger Conditions
Tap
Reacts to the stylus coming down. Can react to either:
- This object
- Anywhere on stage
Contact
This is the collision detection. The main types are either touch or overlap, but I am not sure what the difference is. Perhaps with overlap, the object in question needs to be fully enclosed or enclosing the other object. In either case you can define one following parameters.
- Object: The object to check for collision with.
- Area: The area to check for collision with.
Art
Allows you to check conditions on the art for this object. Can be one of two conditions.
- Specific art: when a specific art for this object is being displayed.
- Art finishes: when any art animation reaches the end of a loop.
Time
Can be one of two types.
- Exactly: Triggered when a particular time is reached.
- Randomly: triggered when a random time within a selected range is reached. This gives you the timeline with range controls. It is the way to make random things happen at the beginning of the game.
Switch
Allows you to check the switch state on any object. The switch state can be one of four.
- Switch turns on.
- Switch is on
- Switch turns off
- Switch is off
Win/Loss
You can check for game conditions.
- Win
- Has been won
- Not yet won
- Loss
- Has been lost
- Not yet lost
All conditions when combined are && operations. To do things sometimes, on the first frame set a condition that says “when time == 1-1 and time randomly == 1-1 .. 1-8”. The range of the second clause gives you the possibility of that happening. This can be used for shuffling objects on the stage.
Actions
Travel
Go Straight
- Starting at: This can be the current location or another location. In the case of another location, it can be a point on the stage or another object, with the offset from the other object.
- Direction: This can be a specific direction or a random direction. In the case of specific direction, it gives you an 8 point compass to set. In both cases, it allows you to set the speed of travel.
Jump To
Takes one of the following two types:
- Location: Can be a point on the stage, or a random location within an area.
- Another Object: Jumps near another object then stays attached to that object. This brings up the object selector, and then an offset editor.
Roam
Takes four parameters. The first parameter is one of the following movement types:
- Wiggle: Appears to be a drunk walk that can change its direction wildly, and moves in short steps.
- Reflect: Bounces off the area that you define for the movement in a pong style.
- Insect: Drunk walk, just like wiggle but with a larger step and changes the movement direction less.
- Bounce: Same as pong, but accelerates due to gravity. Seems to have enough energy at the end of the bounce to make it to the top of the area that you define.
The second parameter is one of the following:
- Anywhere: Moves anywhere within the area you define.
- Try not to overlap: Not really sure how this works, perhaps it bounces off of other objects.
The last parameters are an area on the stage that the object will roam within, and a speed of roaming.
Stop
Stops the current travel.
Swap
Trades location with another object.
Target
Moves towards another object. Takes three parameters:
- Object: The object to move towards.
- Offset: The offset from other object.
- Speed
Lose
Ends the game with a loss
Sound Effect
Plays one of 64 sound effects. These are arranged in 8 banks of 8.
Switch
Turns the switch either on or off.
Art
Change
Can change the animation style to one of three styles. It also allows you to select the art for the object. There can be 1 - 4 arts per object.
- Hold: Stay on the current frame.
- Play once
- Loop
Stop
Stops the currently playing art.
Stage Effect
These are effects that play over the whole stage.
- Flash
- Shake
- Confetti
- Freeze: Stops everything, including all further object actions.
I think this list is more or less complete. If you notice any errors or corrections that you would like to make, please tell me in the comments.