Good ways to map a 2D side shooter (somewhat like liero, or soldat)

Question

I'm wondering what way would be best to render a 2D map for a shooter (these will be static maps) similar to Soldat. Multiple options I've considered are a tile based map (stored in txt files), or just creating different classes for the different terrains I plan to use and creating a data structure to read/store them in a file. (I want to also be able to include things like jumping/running on walls, sliding down walls/slopes ect)

I feel like there must be a better way than either of these, but haven't been able to find definitive information :/

Thanks :)

Answer 1

I was going to go with the "just use a tile map," but then I looked at Soldat and it's a bit more complex.

I don't know what they're using, but I suspect they're using polygons and probably colliding against polygons as well. The levels are likely generated with the same sort of primitives you'd see in 3D games, but all in a plane. E.g. texture mapped triangles and collision against the edges of the surfaces rather than against the surface itself.

In my experience, "terrain" is usually an object in itself and the collision and visual representations are data inside that object (aggregated into that object, typically). The different pieces of terrain don't necessarily need to be different types of thing, indeed in all of the games I've made the entire world was generally a single object of type "Terrain" or "World" or something and it managed the doings of the various visible pieces coming into and out of view.

This doesn't feel like a great answer, but I thought I'd try to give you something.

Answer 2

Examples of platform games doing what you want are Braid and Aquaria. You can get Aquaria for 2 pennies litteraly, with the Humble Indie Bundle.

Here's the Aquaria's editor in action. I could not find a decent video of the Braid editor.

I found this other video about IndieLib, and a level editor that they have created which is similar to Aquaria's (Disclaimer: I haven't tried it myself).

Appart from that, googling for "Braid and Aquaria platform engine" should give you more results.

Answer 3

I would recommend reading the book Building XNA 2.0 Games: A Practical Guide for Independent Game Development. It walks you through the development of a 2D side-scoller game named Zombie Smashers (based on the author's award-winning The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai).

Chapter 4: The Map Editor is what you are looking for.

It will help you even if you don't plan on developing in XNA.

Answer 4

Soldat used a polygon based format to render and represent it's levels. The editor would have allowed the user to plot points and connections between them to make walls and structures when were then given textures and properties (such as collide = death). Items and images where then overlayed over this.

The soldat rendering engine would then use these structures to perform collision detection and to build up the polygon (triangles that are drawn) representation of the world.