Game Maker Tips: Working with tiles

One of the most tedious steps of level design: Working with tiles. Depending on the complexity of your levels, and how complex your tileset is, tiling a big room can be tiresome.

Here are some tips to improve you tiling skills. In this example I´ll be doing a test room for my project (AM2R), I´ll be using Game Maker.

- When you prepare your tileset, make sure it´s 8 tiles wide, this way you won´t have to scroll right to acess all your tiles.
- After you´re done with the room collision layout, start with the edges, slopes and corners.
- Whenever you select a tile, try to use it in all the necesary places before switching to another one, this will save you a lot of time.
- If a tile is part of a tile block (any part of scenery bigger than 1 tile), make sure you count how many times you applied the tile before selecting the next tile in the block.
- If the enviroment is organic, or some kind of ruins, you´ll have to avoid being repetitive. If you can see repeating tiles at first sight, you should add variety. Edit your tileset and add some new variations on your existing tiles.
- Don´t be afraid to modify the original layout if the tiles don´t match. As long as the level is still playable the way you wanted, you can change it.
- It can be tiresome at first, but once you get the hang of it, you´ll be making beautiful levels in no time.

If you find any of these useful, drop me a line, I´ll be happy to see your work.

http://metroid2remake.blogspot.com

Category:

Gaming

Tags:

• am2r
• metroid
• game
• maker
• design
• tips
• tiles
• level
• development

[lDGlHax0r]

I'm working on a Metroid Game under the influence of this game and I would like my game to be as good as this one one day. I'm really jealous and when I see some game so awesome and then I see behind the scenes it's just the same old Game Maker I use, that encourages me, good job.

[ninjatakedow]

WHY THE MUSIC!?!?!?

[ExistUNDRGROUND]

Please Help! my collision objects are appearing above the tiles! How do I fix it?

[LordApocalyptica]

@awesomesaucedgame Generally Game maker uses 16x16 grid blocks (I think) Any multiple of that and it should look fine.

[SuperPhazonSamus]

songs name please n nice tutorial

[xetrius]

why don't you use a code to left the game decide what sub-image should be used in the corresponding situation

[MrPingasProductions]

@DoctorM64 Where can i getthe scripts?

[awesomesaucedgame]

What are your tile settings? my tiles arent in the good shape they should have my settings are 24x24 what are yours? :(

[BreinStijn]

Placing tiles sucks :(

[JohnConnor365]

How did you make the background on top of the object?

[lelmadasarys]

Thx a lot, after playing your game I've decided to make my own fan game and am learning how to do GML now. :)