Map Files

Maps files are used to produce a meaningful map out of the tileset [Tile Set Definitions].

It's best to use map editor Tiled for this task. The map editor can directly export flare maps via an export plugin. So it is easy to generate the maps visually and then export it to flares own ini style format to save maps.

Sections

Flare is interpreting these sections for displaying maps:

• header Basic information, such as tileset, tile sizes, name
• layer Information about tile layers, which you can imagine as a 2 dimensional array of tiles to form the landscape.
• npc
• event
• enemy
• enemygroup

All other sections are ignored.

header

The header section may contain these key/value pairs:

• width=int
• height=int
• tilewidth=int
• tileheight=int
• music=filename
• tileset=filename
• title=string

layer

The layer section may contain only 2 attributes

• type This must be one of these values:

• "background"
  

• "fringe"
  

• "object"
  

• "foreground"
  

• "collision"
  

  The first 4 layers are just displayed on screen, whereas background and fringe layer will always be lower than the hero, npcs and enemies. The object layer is a layer which is rendered interleaved with the hero, npc and enemies. This will make sure that the hero can be rendered in front of a tree or behind it and hence be covered by the tree. The foreground layer will always be rendered above the hero, npc and enemies. The collision layer is special. It is not visible, so it will not be rendered and displayed. It will be only used to extract information, where the landscape is walk-able, non-walk-able or where flying can be done. Also the collision layer will be used for drawing the mini map.

• data This is followed by a comma separated list of the size as specified in the header section. There should be as many lines as the height specification in the header. Each of the lines should have as many entries as the width specification in the header section. Each number in that comma separated list specifies a tile.

event

An event can be created in tiled using an object layer called event and then placing rectangular objects. events are executed and can alter the map, the hero or enemies (their position or spawn new or change status, i.e. kill the hero in a trap)

An event can have these key/value pairs:

• type=string any string. Special handling if the string is one of
• location=int,int,int,int
• hotspot="location" or int,int,int,int
• tooltip=string
• power_path=int, int, string
• power_damage=int, int describing min and max of damage
• cooldown=int with suffix such as sec, ms, min
• further event component settings. These are: