Level Design

This Week

As I mentioned last week, we’ve got ourselves a map editor called Tiled Map Editor. (Tiled Map Editor). The editor allows us to specify areas where the player should be colliding, where light is supposed to bounce on, and since we’re going with a isometric perspective, we’ve also worked in a “Layer” (think Photoshop) so that the player can be present UNDER a wall or a pillar.

Tiled Map Editor (see above for link). This is the main-hall of our first level.

So let’s take a look at how it works:

The Tile, Object and image layers.

Collision

While in this layer, I’ll draw a box around an object or a wall that needs to have a hitbox. This means that everywhere I’ll draw a box, the player won’t be able to pass through.

Collision Boxes

If you compare the picture above with the Picture with all the objects placed and colored, you’ll notice that some of the collision boxes are smaller than the object, this is because of the blocking layer; I’ll get into that later.

Entities

In this layer, I’ll place small boxes that will spawn different entities in the world, such as the player, guards, cameras etc.

In the Map Editor, I’m also able to modify the properties of the entities. For example: The Camera.

There’s three different properties attached to the camera. It’s the cameras Rotation (which side is it looking at?), Rotation Value (how long is the turn radius of the camera? For example, if the rotation of the Camera is 0, and you enter a Rotation value of 30, the Camera will go from 330 degrees to 30 degrees) and Rotation Speed (self-explanatory, how fast the camera rotates. This is especially interesting when working on the level difficulty and puzzles)

Light

In this layer, I’ll drag lines to define where the light will collide with the wall. Works Similar to the collision boxes, except I use polylines instead.

Pathfinding

This layer is not yet complete. It works as follows: you drag a polyline to give a guard (for example) a walkpath. The guard will move to the first point, and then go to each other point (in descending order) defined. We’re currently working on combining this with A-Star so that we’ll have a properly functioning pathfinder.

Objects

This layer is filled with Sprites, such as a paintings, chairs and tables. In other words, items on the map that you can’t walk behind.

Blocking

This layer is the most interesting layer of the Tile Layers. What it does is that every item in this layer will appear above the player, giving an illusion of being able to hide behind certain objects.

Walls

Any sprite that the player won’t be standing behind. This layer is mostly filled with forward facing walls.

Background

This layer is filled with floor panels that appears below all the other layers.

Designing a Map

Our blueprint for Level 1

The map is modeled after a mock-up that was created after having a design meeting with the group. The first level is centered around the dining hall, where the player learns the basics of the game. Since the game is not supposed to be extremely long, most game-mechanics is thrown into this area in one way or another.

Incredibly ugly explanation of the map. (Click for larger version)

Since the guards rotate at a certain degree during their walkpath, they’re prone to see large areas. This means that I have placed objects close to every single walk-path to provide the player with hiding spots, instead of creating indentations in the wall.

This is still early work in progress, as we have A LOT (read A LOT) of sprites on the way, which will drastically change the look and feel of the map, but it’s a great start, and a great exercise of level design.

Oh, and since Tiled Map Editor is so easy to use, all I have to do is copy the map I’m working to into a a release version of our program, and then test it out in-game. The process takes less than 20 seconds. It’s brilliant.

That’s it for me this week. If you’ve got more questions about the inner workings of the Tiled Map Editor, you should visit our lead programmers blog. Anthon’s blog!