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I am in a limbo at this time. I am using AGKS, but also like the idea, of using "Tiled" for a game project.

So in this stage, the AGKS chat is more about the "editor", but AGKS and AppGameKit are using the same programming language, the same commands. Also AGKS maybe don't support the Raspberry Pi or the OUYA anymore (because of the new Vulkan renderer), so I would have to switch maybe to AppGameKit for exporting to these platforms.

So before coding all things twice or creating an complete new level-editor from scrtach, I wanted to know, how do you create and design your levels?
And how do you load them?

I found this "tool", but from what I understand, it doesn't support JSON yet.
https://forum.thegamecreators.com/thread/219035

And it is a little bit wired with AGKS, to find the right place, where editor / level loaders and so on, would be discussed.

The AGKS level editor is still in beta so its a little early to make any judgements on it as it is literally getting better by the day with each update. It could be really great depending on the support and updates its given over the next few months. Having tried it it does work pretty well.

Personally, I wrote a Tiled JSON loader which loads multilayer maps. Tiled is already well established and easy enough to use. Phealax's tool loads the tiled xml file version by parsing through it manually.

As I load the JSON version it simply fills out a type variable which contains all the scene/map data and populates it with no fuss - AppGameKit does that for you with its JSON functions so its quick too. It will also load CSV files (exported from excel or Tiled). So its possible to load a tilemap as well as sprites as well as tiled "objects" and backgrounds quickly and easily. Everything is populated into arrays It also allows support for isometric maps too (something which may be supported in AGKS eventually). You can define enemy positions as well as powerups if you want ...you just set the object properties in tiled and handle contacts and sprite collisions in your program. I liked to do my own loader as I could add any functionality that I wanted (Ie different layers for enemy positions and for parralax layers etc... plus an ability to load a tilemap as a single sprite rather than create a huge number of sprites.... and an ability to load the map into a 3d model) I actually like having control and an extensible set of functions as its always the case that you want to add a bit more functionality later down the line in code but you cant do that with a fixed tool developed by someone else.


I think the real question is what are you wanting to do?? What sort of game are you aiming at? What functionality do you want?

Moving forward the AGKS editor could be a great solution but I personally wont use it till its released and has all the functionality I would need. Its still very early days...But for simple 2d apps its probably already got most of what is wanted and its only getting better.

I coded my own. It gives you control over features and the output file... and they are rather fun to code!

@Bengismo

a 2D plattformer with multiple layers, that scroll in different speed. But not only static sprites, also some animated sprites and some skeleton-animations.

In my imagination it would be like: game logic in AppGameKit and the Level build in Tiled. I don't know how much scripting would be needed, or if I would create some kind of game-objects in Tiled and than code the logic in Tier 1 AppGameKit Basic.

There is also a question in my mind, how I would solve the many-onject-problem. Entities. If it would be an object oriented programming language, I could have parent objects and they could inherit from eachother. So I guess, I would have an Entity system with an Array, where I have to check the Type of the object and do it case by case.

Also another question would be, how I could do the collision checking. Would I use Box2D, or would I use an Array with fixed sizes of tiles or are there some other methods, which are the best?

At the beginning I don't need slopes, but I could imagine, to have not only slopes, but also water or some bouncing objects.