Map Editor¶

The Map Editor lets you paint tile-based levels and backgrounds using the sprites you created in the Sprite Editor.

How the map works¶

The map is a grid where each cell holds a reference to a sprite index. When you call map() in your Lua code, the engine draws every tile in the grid at its correct position.

Each tile is 8 x 8 pixels (same size as a sprite)
The map uses the same sprite sheet as the Sprite Editor
Painting a tile on the map means “draw this sprite at this grid position”

Painting tiles¶

Select a sprite from the sprite sheet palette (shown alongside the map grid)
Click or drag on the map grid to place tiles
Erase tiles by selecting an empty sprite slot and painting over existing tiles

Drawing the map in Lua¶

To render the map in your game, call map() inside _draw():

function _draw()
  clear(12)
  map(0, 0)         -- draw the map at position (0, 0)
  draw_player()     -- draw the player on top
end

The x and y parameters control where the top-left corner of the map is drawn. Combined with camera(), you can scroll through large levels.

Map and collision¶

Important

The Lua API does not currently support reading individual tile values from the map or performing collision queries against it. This means you need to mirror your collision layout in a Lua table.

The recommended workflow:

Paint your level visually in the Map Editor – platforms, walls, ground

Create a matching Lua table with the same positions and dimensions:

platforms = {
  { x = 0,   y = 168, w = 320, h = 8 },  -- ground
  { x = 72,  y = 136, w = 40,  h = 8 },  -- floating platform
  { x = 136, y = 120, w = 32,  h = 8 },  -- another platform
}

Use the Lua table for physics and the map() call for visuals

Since tiles are 8 x 8 pixels, converting tile coordinates to pixel coordinates is straightforward:

-- A platform at tile column 9, row 20, spanning 5 tiles wide
{ x = 9 * 8, y = 20 * 8, w = 5 * 8, h = 8 }
-- Equivalent to:
{ x = 72, y = 160, w = 40, h = 8 }

When tile-based collision is added to the Lua API in the future, you will be able to remove the Lua collision table and query the map directly.

See the Build a Platformer Game tutorial for a complete example of this workflow.