Tile-Based Worlds

Chapter 7. Tile-Based Worlds

You have probably noticed that many games in a top-down or three-dimensional view tend to have a large map (an area that defines the world of the game). It would be a tremendous amount of work for a graphic artist to create every scene in the game without being able to reuse any visual assets. Luckily for the graphic artists (and, as we will see, for the programmers as well), the concept of tile-based worlds can make game creation much easier. In a tile-based world, we can reuse all graphical assets and also assemble worlds with code.

From Diablo to Pac-Man, tile-based worlds (TBWs) are used to make game creation a more efficient process, and to lighten CPU load. In this chapter you will learn about this and other advantages of using a TBW. We will close by looking at a simple example of how the tile-based world of a game like Pac-Man would be created. This is a must-read chapter for anyone who is serious about becoming a game programmer.