Isometric Map Tools

Tools! Everyone loves Tool programming. Except me, perhaps, I'm actually much more interested in making games and tool manufacturing, although being incredibly necessary to many games completion, always feels just one step removed to me. That touch of abstraction bothers me, so I usually just race through, get to the point where I can generate content efficiently, and not care a jot about the unpolished/hacky nature of the tools created.

Here's an isometric map editor that I've been working on for a while, unpolished and hacky! It supports the generation of a collision graph, not just of solid obstacle tiles, but more usefully edges of tiles. Don't know why I've never bothered to add that to my previous grid games, it can really make maps feel bigger.

It also has the basis of an entity system, the yellow squares you can see are 'teleporters' that move players to another level. I'll be using this for enemy spawns, player spawns, npcs, and all kinds of other stuff.

Also important is the map files that tools generate. Mine can be read in by some other Python code.

Quick map creation is unspeakably important in a game with a lot of content. In my experience, this kind of content takes a deceptively long time to produce and so knowing that I'm making it easier for future-me helps me power through the semi-tedious nature of tool coding.

posted by Matt on 18/2/2012 at 9:43 Return to blog