Creating and editing tile-based maps

For the BludBourne project map locations, we will be using tilesets, which are terrain and decoration sprites in the shape of squares. These are easy to work with, since LibGDX supports tile-based maps with its core library. The easiest method to create these types of maps is to use a tile-based editor.

There are many different types of tilemap editors, but there are two primary ones that are used with LibGDX because they have built-in support, as follows:

• Tiled: This is a free and actively maintained tile-based editor. I used this editor for the BludBourne project. Download the latest version from http://www.mapeditor.org/download.html.

• Tide: This is a free tile-based editor built using Microsoft XNA libraries. The targeted platforms are Windows, Xbox 360, and Windows Phone 7. Download the latest version from http://tide.codeplex.com/releases.

For the BludBourne project, we will be using Tiled. The following figure (Figure 1) is a screenshot from one of...