Making a Level

Wow! Thanks Ignatz!! That is some stellar advice. I will try putting the sprites in a table. I was not sure whether to make my map changeable by the player or not. I think that now I will keep everything as simple as I can while I’m learning and try out the single image level.

good idea, start simple, add complexity a bit at a time…

This is an interesting thread with a lot of useful info, however (also as a GameMaker user) I do understand the question / point the OP raised.

What would be REALLY cool for Codea would be to include more tools - like the room / level editor in Gamemaker in the labs section or as an example (like Spritely) so people could design 2D levels in a consistent manner and be able to export that data easily to their lua apps.

This would really make Codea rock as a game prototyping tool.

I have been working on a 2D map editor which includes auto-tiling, similar to how programs like RPG Maker generate their 2D grid maps. The project so far will take tile sheets and break them down into the necessary components to make the smooth transitions on the generated map. Basic auto-tiling consists of 13 parts: 4 outer corners, 4 inner corners, 4 edges, and a full tile.

This type of map will most likely be used for RPG type games, but with some imagination it could be adopted to almost any genre. Check out some of the progress in the discussion below.

http://twolivesleft.com/Codea/Talk/discussion/comment/24480

Tilesheet set I have used for debugging:

Character set I used for debugging:


I chose to do auto-tiling similar to RPG Maker since there is an abundance of free tilesheet sets and character sets available in this format.

I have sent the code to Ignatz as of yesterday for some help with documentation so it can be used by anyone with any amount of coding experience. There is no awesome GUI for the creation of the maps, but I did simplify it down to sets of 2D tables which are simply filled with numbers indicating which tile sheet is used. Tile sheets are stored in tables of their own with additional information such as the auto-tiling type (floor, roof/wall, waterfall/animated, and none) and whether or not the player would be allowed to walk on the tile. I have floor, roof/wall, and none types working with very minor graphical issues for certain tiles.

Building and physically seeing your worlds come to life definitely keeps the motivation alive. This is why in my process of building an RPG, I chose to do the map generation first. When building large games, motivation is key.

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I have released my code for 2D map generation with auto-tile using sprite sheets. Please check it out here:


http://twolivesleft.com/Codea/Talk/discussion/3058/



My code will keep your character centered on the screen and the map will move when you move your character. Not sure if that’s what you were looking for, but the map generation part is still awesome as it reads from a simple 2D (grid) table.

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@kempoman, how come your last four posts now have a single X in them?

he likes blowing kisses

:stuck_out_tongue:

I wanted to delete them. Sorry