Sign

Signs stand in the Tutorial, where seventeen of them guide the player along the cave and teach him the controls, and in custom levels, where the level editor gives each one a message of its own. They're part of the background, not blocks: nothing breaks one.

While the player touches a sign, it shows its message, one or two lines, at the bottom of the screen, and sets the message to last 200 steps, so it stays a while after he walks on ^[1]. A message lasts half as long on a lit level as on a dark one (Messages halved on lit levels). The clip shows the Tutorial's first signs: the welcome, then how to jump, to hang on ledges and to use the whip, each message coming up as the player reaches its sign ^[2].

A Tutorial sign's message is set by where the sign stands, which the room editor fixed: one message for each of seventeen spots ^{[3] [4]}. The ones about a key name the player's own key for it, or his gamepad's button when he plays with one ("PRESS Z TO JUMP.") ^[5]. They run from "WELCOME TO THE TUTORIAL CAVE!" by the entrance to "THERE'S LOTS MORE AHEAD!" by the exit, with jumping, hanging, the whip, treasure, chests, ducking and crawling, the flip hang, the ladder, picking up and throwing, ropes, running and bombs between.

A sign is the level editor's tile I ^[6]. In the editor it starts blank, the editor draws its message over it, and the message, one line, is saved with the level and read back with it ^{[7] [8] [9]}. A level saved with neither an entrance nor an exit loses its signs' messages (Lost sign messages).

• Bombs pass signs by: a sign isn't solid, and a blast breaks only what is ^[10].
• Other messages. A sign's message takes the place of whatever message was showing, a pickup's or a shopkeeper's, and the next message replaces it in turn ^[1].