Alright, let's start with the easy stuff, and what you need to know to use Zot.
First of all, you'll need the engine runtime for your OS (Windows or Mac are supported as of now). Throw it somewhere handy and check out the demos if you like.
Hopefully you've planned something out, or have a good idea of what you want to make using Zot's features. I recommend setting up a couple folders for your artwork files, like this: My Documents/Zot/Art/Sprites, Art/Tiles etc.
You can copy the folder "Nil" in the Zot folder, and rename it to whatever you want. Go into it, remove the junky GIFs from it, as Zot only supports PCX and TGA formats. (Those are there for your convenience, but they are already in supported formats there too)
Now you're left with a nice clean folder. It's handy to toss a shortcut to the Zot binary in your game folder so you don't need multiple windows open, and you don't need to go back and forth to run the program for testing. :)
Now you're all set up to start editing your gamelet! Take a look at the Nil game, you've got a little yellow character and blue tiles to walk around on, but no animations and no weapons. This is ideal to screw around with and learn stuff :)
Here are some facts you need to know for Zot:
+ Supported artwork formats are INDEXED 8bpp PCX (use 123,123,123 on RGB to make a grey color that shows up transparent) and RGB 24bpp TGA (no alpha) or 32bpp (24+8bpp alpha). PCX are fastest, TGA are a little slower, and alpha channels are slowest. Use PCX for tiles and backgrounds, TGA for characters, and alpha TGA for things your character can walk under, over etc.
+ It's easiest to make one sheet with all of your animations on it. "Steps" are basically frames in an animation, so you would put your running animation frames left to right. It's also a good idea to use a grid and line them up perfectly, and set a standard "block size" for each frame. For example a character who's largest frame takes up 40 pixels width and 72 height, you could set the grid size to 40x72 so everything lines up neatly :)
+ Don't use < or ^ for tiles. Those are for autotile, which you'll learn later :)
+ Refer often to my list of inputs, or commands. I've broken them down into what each is used for and what commands are absolutely necessary for certain functions.
Zot Vocabulary: Some terms you should know before reading my guides.
