FicEngine: Tilemaps
The latest addition to the FicEngine is the concept of Tilemaps. Tilemaps were used extensively in old-school NES and SNES games, and are still a part of the hardware of the Nintendo DS. Many platformers still rely on Tilemaps.
What is a Tilemap? At its most basic, it’s a method of constructing levels by piecing together smaller tiles in different patterns. The set I’m using now is simply 8 different shapes, which can also be rotated and flipped in the x or y axes. The result is I can create pretty much any shape I desire. If you look in the picture above, each floor “square” is a tile, and you can use that to discern where the different shapes would be. You can see the exact shapes I’m using below:
So what I have going right now is an editor program, that can save/load/edit levels, and also a game program that loads in a level set and allows you to run around in it, as if it were a top-down, dual-analog shooter *cough*. The best part is that the Tilemaps interact with the engine flawlessly, so anything I throw in here can hit, slide against, and bounce off the walls of an arbitrary level. One thing about Kill Dr. Cote / Kill Monty is that the gibs don’t bounce off of anything besides the floor– they go through the walls as if they weren’t there. The logic was easy enough, I just never bothered to code it in. Now, it just happens. In fact, because of the interchangeable logic I used in the beat-em-up prototype, and also the arcade game prototype, I was able to throw in a player, with a gun, with zombies, that gib and leave blood decals on the floor when you kill them, all in a day. I essentially got the game logic of Kill Dr. Cote AUTOMATICALLY.
The cool thing is that I can use these tilemaps for damn near any kind of game I want. There are two obvious candidates right now: One is a duel-analog shooter, a kind of spiritual sequel to Kill Dr. Cote / Kill Monty. I’ve had a design for awhile now, and it’s looking more doable than ever. The other possibility is taking the beat-em-up prototype I have, and turning that into a pure 2D platformer, a la Metroid. The beat-em-up is fun, but I don’t think there’s enough gameplay/value there to warrant a full game.
As for tilemaps, one improvement I could make right now is having support for multiple tilemaps in a single level. I would use one for passability (walls, floors, etc) and have a few for decorations and other assorted things (triggers and whatnot.) Having separate maps for passability and decoration means I can add several layers of detail to an otherwise bland looking map (which is what it is now) and it would also be a way to implement false walls, for instance.
More to come on the upcoming games!
What does the editor application look like?
It’s quick and dirty- that screenshot is actually the editor. It uses the basic framework of the FicEngine. WASD to move the camera around, with keypad keys to select from those shapes. You can rotate, flip tiles, and there are a few specials, like player starting position, and triggers, which right now do jack shit. They’re just in there for when I implement them in the future. Aside from that, Command-S to save, Command-O to open.
Where I take it next depends on what the upcoming game needs. And what the upcoming game is ;p