Now that we have our forest tiles, we can start making a whole forest! A couple weeks ago we drew up this map for our whole forest area:
We’ve updated the forest tiles a tiny bit, and created some non-tile decorations that can go on top of tilemaps to add some extra flair:
These tiles are the general tileset for the entire map. The Village will have a different tileset, but will still use these forest tiles for the edges. The Cliffs and the Caves will also have a separate tileset. But anyways, with these forest tiles, we can start putting together the actual maps nodes, and link them together like in the big map.
To do this, we are using a piece of software called “Tiled”. Tiled is a simple program that lets you import a tileset, and build maps on it, that you can then export as json, in the same format that our game’s scripts are setup to read. This makes it really easy for us to make and modify maps, and then get them onto the Playdate.
These maps can then be linked together, so you can walk around them in the game!
Because we thought it would be a good place to start given its many interconnecting maps, Ean started the creation of these maps in the “Deep Forest”, an area adjacent to the Village made up of many interconnected nodes, where we intend to place sidequest objectives. Here is a zoomed out version of all the nodes put together.
And finally, turning to programming, Derek implemented the framework for our menu, which you can bring out by using the crank.
Also, since we’re finishing up here with programming, there was a bunch of backend detail stuff:
