Level Editor

The level editor is a major part of our game.

One of our programmers was working on the Level Editor for over a month. He went through the online tutorials about tile map and had a look at the videos of the Tile Map Editor on YouTube. The Level Editor was finally ready last week and with some more additions and changes it was complete this week.

The Process

The programmer realized that whole images of maps cannot be fully loaded at the same time and so the game will need a tile map editor. He initiated the work by reading tutorials from http://www.ziggyware.com which helped to decide as how the application will be built. The first and foremost problem he faced was of tackling windows application and XNA together  in same screen.

There were two options for that:

1) Either generates buttons of windows form in XNA OR

2) Merge windows application in XNA.

He chose the 2nd option  and started working with the help of this project and used those classes  in the project itself.

Initially, there were difficulties in understanding the co-ordinate geometry of XNA screen but this problem was solved.  The next task was to work on grid formation on screen and make the grid dynamic.

One issue which came up was of mouse click to save the entry from the user for drawing the tile map which didn’t work perfectly.  This issue was solved in a few days.

Minor issues related to file I/O also arose and they were solved within 1-2 days and with all this ups and downs and finally a robust and reliable application are ready for tile map editor.

This Level Editor can be used for RPG games as well as platform games. It supports virtually infinite number of layers which is at present very much appropriate for our game.

Zatun Team.