How a map works
Five ideas are all the editor asks you to know. Project, map, tileset, layers, entities — in that order.
1.A project is a world
Everything one game needs lives in a project: its maps, the things that live on them, what happens when the player talks to them, and the art and music it all uses. You can have several projects and invite other people into one.
Where: Create → your projects.
2.A map is a grid of tiles
A map is a rectangle of square cells — a town, a cave, a whole region. Each cell shows one tile of art. A map's tile size is how many pixels wide one cell is; every sheet of art you paint with must use that same size, so it is fixed once the map has one.
Where: The Maps panel on the left; New map creates one.
3.A tileset is the sheet of art you paint with
A tileset is one image cut into tiles of the map's size: grass, water, walls, trees. Add a tileset to a map and its tiles appear in the Tiles panel; pick one and paint. New projects start with the starter tilesets, and you can upload your own. Blocks on the sheet include their own edges and corners; a brush places the right one for you as you paint. A tile's settings come from its tileset; a project can change them for a tileset it did not upload, and a map can change them again for itself.
Where: The Tiles panel on the left; Add tileset… finds one at the map's size.
4.Layers stack tiles on top of each other
Every map has five layers, bottom to top: ground, decoration, objects, entities and overlay. Paint the grass on ground and a tree on objects, and the tree sits on the grass. The overlay draws above the player, for things like roofs and treetops. Tiles on entities stand in the world with the player: a tree there hides the player walking behind it, and a trunk that is not walkable stops them.
Where: The Layers panel on the right; [ and ] switch the active layer.
5.Entities are the things that live on a map
A character, a chest, a door: define it once in the Database with its sprite and behaviour, then place it on any map. An event on a placed entity says what happens when the player talks to it, steps on it, or when the map loads.
Where: Define in Database → Entities; place from the Entities panel; add a trigger in the inspector.
Words this editor uses
- Tileset
- One sheet of art, cut into tiles of the map's size, that a map is painted from.
- Tile
- One square of that sheet — the smallest piece of art a map cell can hold.
- Brush
- A stroke that draws edges and corners for you, and re-draws them around a tile placed inside; hold Ctrl to keep them.
- Terrain
- What a tile is — grass, water, wall — so brushes and the terrain view can group them.
- Tag
- A word you attach to tiles so search finds them.
- Walkable
- Whether the player can step on the tile.
- Tile settings
- What a tile is here — walkable, where it stands, its terrain and tags — from its tileset, this project, or this map.
- Stands on
- The row a tall object's base is on: the player passes behind it above that row and in front of it below.
- Stamp
- The block of tiles you are about to paint.
- Layer
- One of the five sheets a map stacks, from ground at the bottom to overlay above the player.
- Section
- A named area of the sheet.
- Command
- One step of an event — show text, walk, set a switch — run top to bottom.
- Switch
- An on/off flag the whole game shares, which events set and test.
- Variable
- A named number, text or yes/no value events can set and compare.
- Scene
- An event that takes the player's controls while it plays.