Building 'Tilesy' : a lean tile map editor in unity

• Main Author: Chen, Chin Jieh
• Other Authors: Ong Yew Soon
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Computer science and engineering::Software::Software engineering; DRNTU::Engineering::Computer science and engineering::Computer applications::Computer-aided engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/70281
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This report details the research, design, and implementation of Tilesy, a visual tile map editor that facilitates the production of simple but usable tile maps that can be imported and translated into functional game maps by an already existing game editor, ‘Game Editor’. Parallel to the core motives of ‘Game Editor’, Tilesy is built with simplicity and leanness in mind, targeting audiences who are new to game development. With the Unity game engine driving its internals, Tilesy is a working example of how Unity can be harnessed for functions other than game development. The many features natively supported by Unity naturally presents an opportunity to ignore lower-level concerns normally present in application development, such as event systems, input handling, rendering, user interface and so on. As an external application that exports data readable by ‘Game Editor’ – which in itself is built on Unity – Tilesy provides a grid-based interface and supports the saving and loading of tile maps, customizable tilesets, custom parameter support, and automatic tile selection for ease of boundary tile placement between two perceivable environments with a simplified implementation of the Tile Bitmasking methodology. The world of level design is an intricate yet essential component of game development. Harnessing simplicity and accessibility, Tilesy is a foray in cultivating interest in this field amongst the keen and exploring.