| The Player
| The player is basically the one character that can be controlled by the person playing the game. The player differs from other characters in several important ways; for example, he can have more than one life, he can maintain an inventory of up to fifteen weapons, and his current state is displayed in the game's status bar. The player begins each level at an invisible point called a player start location, and progresses until he is killed or until the level is completed. If the player dies but has one or more lives remaining, he reappears at the nearest respawn location. The concepts of player types and player sets are explained below. The linked headings connect to pages summarizing the properties of player types and player sets. As you will see, player types and player sets share many similarities with the previously described character types and character sets.
Player Types | When the player appears in a level, his physical attributes (for example how fast he can run and how high he can jump), are determined by the associated player type. The player type may change as the game progresses, allowing the player to improve his abilities (for example, he could change to a player type that might allow for faster movement and higher jumping.)
Player Sets | Player Sets contain animation sequences and sound effects used by player types. It is possible for different player types to refer to different player sets, such that the player's appearance changes when his player type changes.
| Player types and player sets parallel character types and character sets by limiting potentially tedious aspects of the design process; they make it possible for the player to appear in several contexts without requiring that his core attributes be redesigned each time he changes locations. Information on editing the player is available in the Player Creation section. Player start locations may be added to levels and manipulated as described in the Adding Level Objects and Level Object Manipulation sections.