Mercy 2Dâ„¢

[Mal]


**What is it?**

Mercy 2D is currently a light weight, highly dynamic map editor. It will eventually become an inclusive, feature rich tool set that can be used to develop a number of games in the 2D top-down or side-scrolling genre's. It was created out of need for a reusable solution for creating various kinds of maps for a number of projects that will be in development for the foreseeable future, and it was started only 5 days ago. Although it is currently closed source, and was at first intended to be a tutorial, I would like to formally share this with the community in object form.

**Why share it?**

For all intents and purposes I would simply like to have more hands on the application for thorough debugging and testing purposes across a wide range of graphics cards and resolutions.

**What is required?**

* Windows XP SP3 or later
* .NET Framework 4.0
* XNA 4.0 Redistributable
* Shader 2.0 or better
* DirectX 9.0c or better
* 500mb of RAM
* 2.0ghz 2-Core Processor or better
* Creativity

**What's in it for you?**

If you find yourself having created a map that you thoroughly enjoy and would like to share it all you have to do is the following:

1. Put your name on it for attribution purposes. If it is a large map you can simply submit the maps.xnmet file found in the same directory as the executable; please make sure to include the revision number and letter so that I know which executable to use to view it!

2. Submit it.

You can rest assured that anything submitted here and used for advertisement purposes will always be attributed to you. This is a great, creative way to fill your portfolio's if you have any interest in mapping for 2D games in the future.

**So when can we expect a game?**

Soonâ„¢. Just kidding. Although it has only taken me 5 days (not full days, either) to put this together it is far from complete. My goal is to develop a tool set first and a game that utilizes that tool set later down the road. I offer no promises except this piece of software and a few tidbits here and there going forward in terms of overall progress. Any comments or questions are welcome, and I appreciate the time you invest in playing with this great tool. A set of instructions on the application's use can be found in the linked archive.

**What's currently in the pipeline?**

* **Revision 1.02c (Released)**

* ​Mini-Map Scrolling (TAB + W, A, S, D)

* ​Allows scrolling of the mini map preview in the upper right hand corner of the screen; amazing for fully previewing maps not loaded to full size
* Updates

* Optimized rendering calls to render only the tiles within the viewport bounds; benchmarked with 55,959 tiles at 140 FPS on a Phenom II X6 1035T and Sapphire 6970
* **Future Revisions (1.03 and later)**

* NPC Manager

* Ability to set NPC paths manually, along with variable speed and other movement factors
* Ability to add, remove, and edit NPC's
* State Machine

* Allows fluid, controlled, and clean transition from one editor to the other
* Animated Tiles
* Teleport Tiles (map transitions)

**Media**

[attachment=750:MapEditorTutorial 2013-04-21 01-54-42-40.png][attachment=753:Mercy2D Map Editor 2013-04-21 21-21-33-84.png][attachment=754:Mercy2D Map Editor 2013-04-21 21-20-50-27.png][attachment=755:Mercy2D Map Editor 2013-04-22 02-29-00-32.png][attachment=758:Mercy2D Map Editor 2013-04-23 00-08-14-71.png][attachment=764:Mercy2D Map Editor 2013-04-24 00-45-55-72.png]

**Note:** Instructions for use are in the attached archive.

[Marsh]

Looking solid man, cant wait to see future updates. For anyone who is hesitant to try it out i have used it and it is a pretty solid piece of software. Might be good example code if you are wondering how to create something similar.

[Mal]

> Looking solid man, cant wait to see future updates. For anyone who is hesitant to try it out i have used it and it is a pretty solid piece of software. Might be good example code if you are wondering how to create something similar.

Thanks, man. If I were to be completely honest I'd say you were my inspiration. If you could throw E++ together in a few weeks I knew I could do something similar, just not necessarily on as grand a scale (at least not as quick) given our differences in education and me being the guy with two kids. Lol. I feel it necessary to publicly thank you yet again for your help with solving the "lock it to a grid" problem; as soon as you mentioned modulus and multiples it all clicked and started making complete sense; this is the product of that.

Unfortunately for some I won't be releasing the code for this at any time. However, I am more than willingly to help get any one started with C# and XNA 4.0; it's easier than you may think.

I updated the topic to reflect the future changes that will be coming to this project. There is no definitive time table for the release of revisions; all I can say is "soonâ„¢".

[Synergy]

I started making a map but the lack of a "fill" and the mouse locking to tiles made it feel like such hard work…

[Ertzel]

A fill button would kind of be a fail considering there are no map sizes and the map can go as big as a vector can….

[Marsh]

Yea well it could work like a traditional fill and only work inside stuff. Better not click it out of bounds though lol.

[Synergy]

> A fill button would kind of be a fail considering there are no map sizes and the map can go as big as a vector can….

Or just fill visible tiles.

[Mal]

> I started making a map but the lack of a "fill" and the mouse locking to tiles made it feel like such hard work…

I'll work on a "fill" option for you. I also want to get multi-tile selection done at some point, but that's just another small quality of life thing that wasn't a priority for me; you may be stuck with just "fill" for a while.

[Mal]

* Updates that are complete for Revision 1.02a

* Fill (CTRL+F) - Fills the map within the viewport with the selected tile.
* Fixed no tile being selected on startup; now set to the first tile in the first tile sheet.

[luriok]

Can you inform me why this is any better than Eclipse's current map editor?

P.S. Is Mercy 2D actually trademarked?

[Mal]

> Can you inform me why this is any better than Eclipse's current map editor?
>
> P.S. Is Mercy 2D actually trademarked?

Question 1) Unlimited number of maps with dynamic sizes with no set or fixed dimensions; unlimited tile sheets; map previews of all loaded/existing maps via mini-map; the list goes on and I'm no where near done. I look forward to your rebuttal.

Question 2)

[http://www.uspto.gov…cs/register.jsp](http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/basics/register.jsp)

Yes, it is. Is it registered? No.

[Mal]

Here's a little teaser eye candy of revision 1.02a. The sprite manager has been fully implemented and collision is functional. As soon as I clean up the movement logic for when a collision happens I'll be releasing it (soonâ„¢). The only thing not included in the map editor is the ability to move the map while the sprite is active. I felt that the additional logic required for scrolling was not necessary since the sprite acts as a testing tool and not as an actual game element. You can get around this by simply scrolling the map while the sprite is toggled off.

[attachment=751:MapEditorTutorial 2013-04-21 01-54-42-40.png]

[Helladen]

You're better off using [tiled](http://www.mapeditor.org/) for your engine in my opinion. I'm not trying to be rude or anything, but I was just offering advice. Don't take it like I'm superior or anything. I just have the philosophy of results over preference. 

[Mal]

> You're better off using [tiled](http://www.mapeditor.org/) for your engine in my opinion. I'm not trying to be rude or anything, but I was just offering advice. Don't take it like I'm superior or anything. I just have the philosophy of results over preference. 

Few points I'd like to touch on.

1) Who are you referring to as being "you"? Are you referring to me or are you referring to anyone who would be interested in helping me test a closed source, 100% proprietary work that will be used, more than likely, exclusively by me for my own personal works?

2) Your last sentence is entirely subjective. If I wanted to be subjective in kind I would tell you that, as a programmer, I prefer to write my own software that I can tailor to a very specific need rather than use a third party application that is bloated with tools or features that I will never use. Using third party software also comes with it's own learning curve; with me having developed Mercy 2D from the ground up I know exactly what every keybind does and how to use it to my full advantage. Oops. I tried to be subjective, but I ended up being rather logical and precise.

3) I'm not writing an engine; not yet, at least. I'm writing a tool set to be used in the creation of a game. Regardless of what the editor does it's entirely up to me to decide just how flexible it will be.

Thanks for your opinion, but I'm going to ask you to keep it strictly objective from now on.

[Helladen]

> -snip-

That's fine. All I want to say is that learning curve obviously is much quicker than writing your own map editor that doesn't suck. I offer advice to save you time/map editor is open-source anyway, and you call it subjective. Subjective has got to be your most used word. Let's call everything subjective unless it comes out of your mouth then it is logical…

[Synergy]

> That's fine. All I want to say is that learning curve obviously is much quicker than writing your own map editor that doesn't suck. I offer advice to save you time/map editor is open-source anyway, and you call it subjective. Subjective has got to be your most used word. Let's call everything subjective unless it comes out of your mouth then it is logical…

Just shut up now son. I haven't seen so much crap coming out of someones mouth since I pushed my friend in a cesspool that one time… You obviously have no concept of what Bud is trying (and succeeding, I might add) to achieve.

[Helladen]

> Just shut up now son. I haven't seen so much crap coming out of someones mouth since I pushed my friend in a cesspool that one time… You obviously have no concept of what Bud is trying (and succeeding, I might add) to achieve.

Subjective statement. 

[Synergy]

> Subjective statement. 

Well obviously. It was appropriate.

[Mal]

Going to be releasing Revision 1.02a by the end of the day.

[Mal]

Here's another last minute update to revision 1.0.2a; Day/Night! It's toggled and only meant to be used as a visual representation of a possible day/night system that you can implement in a game.

[attachment=756:Mercy2D Map Editor 2013-04-21 21-21-33-84.png][attachment=757:Mercy2D Map Editor 2013-04-21 21-20-50-27.png]

[Marsh]

Night system is looking good.

[Nook]

Looks great so far.

Does this have alpha blending (shadow color) and multi-tile pasting (e.g. pasting an entire tree at once rather than each tile individually)?

[Mal]

> Looks great so far.
>
> Does this have alpha blending (shadow color) and multi-tile pasting (e.g. pasting an entire tree at once rather than each tile individually)?

Multi-tile selection isn't done yet, but it will be once I get around to hammering it out (soonâ„¢). The day/night switch I just added (ambient lighting) is the first time I've actually messed with anything relating to lighting or blending for this, but I do plan to continue to develop these things in the future. As of right now no, alpha blending has not been implemented; I may reinvent the wheel and write my own hull lighting library. Who knows?

[Mal]

Revision 1.02a has been released. I've taken the liberty to clean up a few things in the original post; the download is now an attached, properly named archive instead of a hash value. Please let me know if you find any bugs, and I'm still graciously accepting feedback and suggestions regarding this work.

[Smallbro]

Looks more like its on its way to an engine/game but w/e ;D

A few things:

When pushing E the sprite disappears.

You need to update either the controls in this thread, or let people know that the full list of controls is in the zip.

Might just be me, but I prefer it to NOT start in fullscreen.

Aside from that it all looks pretty good.

Also these maps are bloody huge, what the heck are you storing them in?