This scenario is intended to teach beginning designers about some of the techniques that are used in the creation of scenarios. So rather than being a typical finished scenario, Edit Them Dead has been deliberately cinstructed so that it cannot simply be played through from start to finish, but instead conatins a number of points where a portion of the scenario must be altered to progress. For each of these lessons detailed instructions are provided so that the player can learn how to make the necessary changes.
In order to complete this scenario it is necessary to have proper scenario editing tools, namely a scenario editor, to work on the contents of the scenario itself, and a good text editor to work on the scenario's scripts.
The original scenario editor is available from Spiderweb, and you should download, if you haven't already, to get the documentation that comes with it at least. However, for actual editing work, we strongly recommend that you use the 3D Blades of Avernum Editor (hereafter referred to as 'the Editor'). Both a Macintosh version and Windows version are available.
The text editor you use will depend on your platform and personal preferences. It is recommended that you use a text editor which provides line numbering and syntax highlighting (highlighting designed for any C-like programming language will likely be good enough), although neither of these features is strictly necessary. For Macintosh users we recommend TextWrangler, or if you feel intrepid, you can try Niemand's experimental editor AScript. TextEdit can also be used if you just want to use a simple editor that you already have installed. For Windows users we recommend Programmer's Notepad(with Dintiradan's highlighting scheme) or Notepad++. You can also use Notepad or Wordpad if you want only a minimal editor.
Instructions for the lessons are broken down by section of the scenario:
This scenario was created by a group effort, with several designers creating portions of the scenario:
A number of other designers and community members contributed ideas, feedback, and advice:
Finally, thanks to the artists who created custom graphics used for this scenario: