InitialState

The Object → InitialState property of an Actor sets the state the actor will be in when the game begins. For many actors, including Movers and Triggers, states are partitioned: the actor has no state-switching code and will therefore remain in whicever state it starts the game in.

This technique makes each state a different "flavour" of the actor. For example, the Mover class has states such as TriggerOpenTimed and BumpOpenTimed, which determine how the mover is activated.

Comments

This page is meant to give a simple explanation of the Object >> InitialState property, and an overview of states from a mapping rather than coding perspective: states as flavours of an actor rather than dynamic behaviour.

I think that's pretty much covered it. Any ideas on padding this out are welcome —Tarquin