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So I'm beginning the planing phase for a 2D game that I hope to deploy for iPhone, Android, and maybe windows phone, and I am writing it in Cocos2DX and I'm looking around for map editors that I could use... and I keep seeing that most if not all of them seem to be for tiled games.. which leads me to my question.. are most 2D games tile based? for example is angry birds, or tini wings, or the silent age? if not what are the other alternitives? and what would the drawbacks or advantages be to either technologies?

One thing that I probably should add... I used to write Flash games, and most of them where not tile based, and it seemed to be much more flexible that way.

any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

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How do you define "most 2D games"? And what does it matter? – Nicol Bolas Mar 17 at 4:26
@NicolBolas I don't know how I would define that... I mean it seems to me that most games that are not in 3D are 2D and that most of them are tilled. and the reason I think it matters, is because, uless I'm missing something, there seems to be some creative and graphical limitations with a tille based game... that you would not have with a system more Flash like, where you can just drag and drop sprits of different shapes and sizes. – AlexW.H.B. Mar 17 at 4:47
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"uless I'm missing something, there seems to be some creative and graphical limitations with a tille based game"... and? If you don't want to make a tile-based game, you don't have to. The tile police will not arrest you. What does it matter what other people do? – Nicol Bolas Mar 17 at 4:56
I don't think it does matter what other people do, but generally, unless you want to spend far more time than normal on one project it is a good idea to do what other people do. This is true for a few reasons, one being that the tools usually are already there, and also because there is usually going to be more tutorials and help out there if you are using a method that many people use... my point is not to argue why this might be advantageous... I'm more wondering if this are alternatives already out there so I don't have to write my own map editor. – AlexW.H.B. Mar 17 at 5:00
possible duplicate of Tools for editing 2D sprite-based game levels – bummzack Mar 18 at 12:38

closed as not a real question by Nicol Bolas, Byte56, Sean Middleditch, Mr. Beast, bummzack Mar 18 at 12:38

It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, see the FAQ.

1 Answer

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It depends what you mean by tile-based.

Most 2D games that involve a level that you view from the top-down are tile based. In this way different tiles usually have different properties, and pathfinding such as A* is easy to implement.

A lot of level editors use a tile-based sprite-sheet to define all of the aspects of a level, but then use them in a tiled way to construct a platformer. (See Tile Studio)

Games that involve real physics, like Angry Birds, generally are not tile-based in that sense. Most of the characters are created as sprites and then their bounding boxes are used as physical objects to perform collision detection and response.

It is hard to discuss the merits of "tiles" without knowing exactly what the game you're trying to develop is. You should start developing the game and see whether or not a tile-based approach makes sense for you.

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well I appreciate your response... but I'm not sure what the alternatives to tiles there are without ether building my own map editor (Which I have considered, but is not ideal) or hard coding objects into my code, wich is also not ideal. – AlexW.H.B. Mar 17 at 4:42
Did you take a look at Tile Studio? There are already tons of tools for making tiled sprite-sheets and exporting them – Mokosha Mar 17 at 6:01

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