2D is NOT dead! Folks are still making really innovative, and sexy cool, 2D games that just wouldn’t have been possible back in the 8-bit and 16-bit days. In those days, tiled graphics backgrounds and 32×32 pixel 8-frame sprite animations (or smaller) were the normal, and limits of the hardware. These days, 2D games can have segmented body parts, bone animation (with IK) and parallax graphics using non-tiled backgrounds. I’ve been reading a lot lately about how games like Aquaria, Braid, Boingo and many other modern 2D games are building their levels.
Aquaria Level Editor Video
Level Editing in Braid
Boingo Trailer with editor footage
Some very cleaver guys have been working on how to make level editors for game engines like IndieLib and HGE. These are brilliant.
Mercior’s Polygon Level Editor
Game Tutorial on a Non-Tiled Level Editor
Do you guys know of others I should be looking for?
Tags: 2D, aquaira, boingo, braid, tile editor, video games
Well, I don’t feel like a “very clever” guy, but thank you very much for crediting me
I really enjoyed reading your tutorial and I definately think it showed some really cool techniques and good engineering. By my standards I’d say you qualify as clever.
Cheers,
Randy
A few people have asked about 2D grid tiled game and these newer “non-grid” game maps. One tricky new game that was a bit hard for me to indentify was Snapshot from Peter Jones and Kyle Pulver. While at GDC this week I was able to ask Kyle and he said it was definately 2D grid tile-based for all the static elements in the levels. Boxes and the elephant-thingy (I should have asked about that too) and whatnot are just big sprites. His engine can rotate a tiled map, but it is still a 2D grid.
So, if we are keeping count I’ll put Kyle and Peter on the ‘very clever’ guys list too
There you go,
Randy
Speaking of ‘very clever’ guys – lets put Mercior on the list too. He has a new post on HGE forums about his 2D Polygon Level Editor. Some very interesting new features including entity support and more.
-Randy
Working with Boingo we have spent a lot of time making the level editor as intuitive and easy-to-use as possible. The video your linking to is of the old, and severely outdated version of Boingo, so I though I’d give you some footage from the new, enhanced prototype of the game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKy6PthqQas (I suggest you watch in HD since the standard quality looks like crap). Enjoy!
Peter,
Thanks for sending the link to the newer version. The game and the editor look GREAT!
Folks who are looking for Mercior’s Polygon editor – it is out and has an official page – http://mercior.com/opal/ – there is a download – some docs and a sample game – what is your high score?
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