Hello everyone,
I've just recently begun working on developing Android applications, and what I am attempting to do is build a 2D RPG game, ala Final Fantasy 1, and am running into issues with setting up multiple tile layers.
Basically, what I want to do is set up a GameMap view which has 3 layers: a "background" layer with grass/roads/sky/etc, an "action" layer which will hold interactive tiles/NPCs and the avatar, and an "overlay" layer which will be things the "action" layer can walk through but is hidden by (so if you are walking behind a building's roof, you don't show up in front of it)
How I wanted to implement this was a series of 3 Views, 1 layered on top of the other which can hold tiles. All layers will have same number of tiles per map, and of course wherever there isn't a specific tile, it should be transparent.
So far, I have been unsuccessful in implementing this, and any advice on how to get started would be welcome.
The other issue I'm working on is, even with just 1 layer (which is no problem), I don't even know how I'd get started on making the whole tileset "move" under the player as they traverse it. If this is very difficult to implement, I might need to use old-school Zelda style screens, where when they reach the edge, it pans or loads the next one.
I'm not expecting anyone to basically code the whole thing for me (I'm trying to use this as a learning experience in Java, as I'm generally a PHP developer), but any ideas on where to look on how to do this type of thing (or even explain why this isn't a good way to go about it), I'd very much appreciate it.
Thanks again,
Shawn