![Tile set](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Tile_set.png)
A tile-based video game is a type of video or
video game
Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...
where the playing area consists of small square (or, much less often, rectangular, parallelogram, or hexagonal) graphic images referred to as ''tiles'' laid out in a grid. That the screen is made of such tiles is a technical distinction, and may not be obvious to people playing the game. The complete set of tiles available for use in a playing area is called a ''tileset''. Tile-based games usually simulate a
top-down
Top-down may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* " Top Down", a 2007 song by Swizz Beatz
* "Top Down", a song by Lil Yachty from ''Lil Boat 3''
* "Top Down", a song by Fifth Harmony from ''Reflection'' Science
* Top-down reading, is a part of ...
, side view, or
2.5D view of the playing area, and are almost always
two-dimensional
In mathematics, a plane is a Euclidean (flat), two-dimensional surface that extends indefinitely. A plane is the two-dimensional analogue of a point (zero dimensions), a line (one dimension) and three-dimensional space. Planes can arise as s ...
.
Much video game hardware from the late 1970s through the mid 1990s had native support for displaying tiled screens with little interaction from the CPU.
Overview
Tile-based games are not a distinct
video game genre
A video game genre is an informal classification of a video game based on how it is played rather than Computer graphics, visual or narrative elements. This is independent of setting (fiction), setting, unlike works of fiction that are expressed ...
. The term refers to the technology that the hardware or
game engine
A game engine is a software framework primarily designed for the development of video games and generally includes relevant libraries and support programs. The "engine" terminology is similar to the term "software engine" used in the software i ...
uses for its visual representation. For example, ''
Pac-Man
originally called ''Puck Man'' in Japan, is a 1980 maze action video game developed and released by Namco for arcades. In North America, the game was released by Midway Manufacturing as part of its licensing agreement with Namco America. Th ...
'' is an action game, ''
Ultima III
''Ultima III: Exodus'' is the third game in the series of '' Ultima'' role-playing video games. Exodus is also the name of the game's principal antagonist. It is the final installment in the "Age of Darkness" trilogy. Released in 1983, it was the ...
'' is a
role-playing video game
A role-playing video game (commonly referred to as simply a role-playing game or RPG, as well as a computer role-playing game or CRPG) is a video game genre where the player controls the actions of a character (or several party members) immers ...
and ''
Civilization
A civilization (or civilisation) is any complex society characterized by the development of a state, social stratification, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond natural spoken language (namely, a writing system).
Ci ...
'' is a
turn-based strategy
A turn-based strategy (TBS) game is a Strategy video game, strategy game (usually some type of wargaming, wargame, especially a wargaming#Unit or map scale, strategic-level wargame) where players take Time-keeping systems in games, turns when pla ...
game, but all three render the world as tiles. ''Ultima III'' and ''Civilization'' draw the tiles via software, while the maze in the original arcade version of ''Pac-Man'' is made of tiles displayed by the game's graphics hardware. Tiles allow developers to build with a set of reusable components instead of drawing everything individually.
Tile-based video games usually use a
texture atlas
In computer graphics, a texture atlas (also called a spritesheet or an image sprite in 2d game development) is an image containing multiple smaller images, usually packed together to reduce overall dimensions. An atlas can consist of uniformly-siz ...
for performance reasons. They also store metadata about the tiles, such as collision, damage, and entities, either with a 2-dimensional
array
An array is a systematic arrangement of similar objects, usually in rows and columns.
Things called an array include:
{{TOC right
Music
* In twelve-tone and serial composition, the presentation of simultaneous twelve-tone sets such that the ...
mapping the tiles, or a second texture atlas mirroring the visual one but coding metadata by colour. This approach allows for simple, visual map data, letting
level designer
In video games, a level (also referred to as a map, stage, or round in some older games) is any space available to the player during the course of completion of an objective. Video game levels generally have progressively-increasing difficulty t ...
s create entire worlds with a tile reference sheet and perhaps a
text editor
A text editor is a type of computer program that edits plain text. Such programs are sometimes known as "notepad" software (e.g. Windows Notepad). Text editors are provided with operating systems and software development packages, and can be us ...
, a
paint program
A raster graphics editor is a computer program that allows users to create and edit images interactively on the computer screen and save them in one of many raster graphics file formats (also known as bitmap images) such as JPEG, PNG, and GIF ...
, or a simple level editor (many older games included the editor in the game). Examples of tile-based
game engine
A game engine is a software framework primarily designed for the development of video games and generally includes relevant libraries and support programs. The "engine" terminology is similar to the term "software engine" used in the software i ...
/
IDEs include
RPG Maker
RPG Maker, known in Japan as , is a series of programs for the development of role-playing video games (RPGs) with story-driven elements, created by the Japanese group ASCII, succeeded by Enterbrain. The Japanese name, ''Tsukūru'', is a pun m ...
,
Game Maker,
Construct
Construct, Constructs or constructs may refer to:
* Construct (information technology), a collection of logic components forming an interactive agent or environment
** Language construct
* ''Construct'' (album), a 2013 album by Dark Tranquillity ...
, and
Godot.
Variations include level data using "material tiles" that are procedurally transformed into the final tile graphics, and groupings of tiles as larger-scale "supertiles" or "chunks," allowing large tiled worlds to be constructed under heavy memory constraints.
Ultima 7
''Ultima VII: The Black Gate'' is the seventh installment of the ''Ultima (series), Ultima series'' of role-playing video games, released on April 16, 1992. In it the player returns as The Avatar, a would-be paragon of moral virtue who faces down ...
uses a "tile," "chunk" and "superchunk" three-layer system to construct an enormous, detailed world within the PCs of the early 1990s.
History
The tile-map model was introduced to video games by
Namco
was a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational video game and entertainment company, headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo. It held several international branches, including Namco America in Santa Clara, California, Namco Europe in London, Na ...
's
arcade game
An arcade game or coin-op game is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are presented as primarily games of skill and include arcade v ...
''
Galaxian
is a 1979 fixed shooter arcade video game developed and published by Namco. The player assumes control of the Galaxip starfighter in its mission to protect Earth from waves of aliens. Gameplay involves destroying each formation of aliens, who ...
'' (
1979), which ran on the
Namco Galaxian
Namco was a video game developer and publisher, originally from Japan.
Bandai Namco Entertainment is the successor to Namco and continues manufacturing and distributing video games worldwide. For Namco games released following the 2006 merger wit ...
arcade system board
An arcade video game takes player input from its controls, processes it through electrical or computerized components, and displays output to an electronic monitor or similar display. Most arcade video games are coin-operated, housed in an arc ...
, capable of displaying multiple colors per tile as well as
scrolling
In computer displays, filmmaking, television production, and other kinetic displays, scrolling is sliding text, images or video across a monitor or display, vertically or horizontally. "Scrolling," as such, does not change the layout of the text ...
. It used a tile size of 8×8
pixel
In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device.
In most digital display devices, pixels are the smal ...
s, which since became the most common tile size used in video games. A tilemap consisting of 8×8 tiles required 64 times less memory and processing time than a non-tiled
framebuffer
A framebuffer (frame buffer, or sometimes framestore) is a portion of random-access memory (RAM) containing a bitmap that drives a video display. It is a memory buffer containing data representing all the pixels in a complete video frame. Modern ...
, which allowed ''Galaxian''s tile-map system to display more sophisticated graphics, and with better performance, than the more intensive framebuffer system previously used by ''
Space Invaders
is a 1978 shoot 'em up arcade game developed by Tomohiro Nishikado. It was manufactured and sold by Taito in Japan, and licensed to the Midway division of Bally for overseas distribution. ''Space Invaders'' was the first fixed shooter and set ...
'' (
1978
Events January
* January 1 – Air India Flight 855, a Boeing 747 passenger jet, crashes off the coast of Bombay, killing 213.
* January 5 – Bülent Ecevit, of Republican People's Party, CHP, forms the new government of Turkey (42nd go ...
).
Video game consoles such as the
Intellivision
The Intellivision is a home video game console released by Mattel, Mattel Electronics in 1979. The name is a portmanteau of "intelligent television". Development began in 1977, the same year as the launch of its main competitor, the Atari 2600. I ...
, released in 1979, were designed to use tile-based graphics, since their games had to fit into
video game cartridge
A ROM cartridge, usually referred to in context simply as a cartridge, cart, or card, is a replaceable part designed to be connected to a consumer electronics device such as a home computer, video game console or, to a lesser extent, electro ...
s as small as 4K in size, and all games on the platform were tile-based.
Home computers had hardware tile support in the form of
ASCII
ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because of ...
characters arranged in a grid, usually for the purposes of displaying text, but games could be written using letters and punctuation as game elements. The
Atari 400/800 home computers, released in 1979, allow the standard character set to be replaced by a custom one.
The new characters don't have to be glyphs, but the walls of a maze or ladders or any game graphics that fit in an 8x8 pixel square. The video coprocessor provides different modes for displaying character grids. In most modes, individual monochrome characters can be displayed in one of four colors; others allow characters to be constructed of 2-bit (4 color) pixels instead. Atari used the term ''redefined characters'' and not ''tiles''.
The tile model became widely used in specific game genres such as
platformer
A platform game (often simplified as platformer and sometimes called a jump 'n' run game) is a sub-genre of action video games in which the core objective is to move the player character between points in an environment. Platform games are charac ...
s and
role-playing video game
A role-playing video game (commonly referred to as simply a role-playing game or RPG, as well as a computer role-playing game or CRPG) is a video game genre where the player controls the actions of a character (or several party members) immers ...
s, and reached its peak during the 8-bit and 16-bit eras of consoles, with games such as
Mega Man
''Mega Man'', known as in Japan, is a Japanese science fiction video game franchise created by Capcom, starring a series of robot characters each known by the moniker "Mega Man (character), Mega Man". Mega Man (video game), The original game w ...
(
NES
The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redesigned version, was released in American ...
), ''
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past'' (
SNES
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), commonly shortened to Super NES or Super Nintendo, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan and South Korea, 1991 in North America, 1992 in Euro ...
) and ''
Shining Force
is a 1992 turn-based tactical role-playing game for the Mega Drive/Genesis console. While primarily a traditional fantasy-themed game, it contains some science fiction elements.
The game has been repeatedly re-released: in Sega Smash Pack Vol ...
'' (
Mega Drive
The Sega Genesis, known as the outside North America, is a 16-bit fourth generation home video game console developed and sold by Sega. It was Sega's third console and the successor to the Master System. Sega released it in 1988 in Japan a ...
) being prime examples of tile-based games, producing a highly recognizable look and feel.
![BOEcombat1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/BOEcombat1.png)
Most early tile-based games used a top-down perspective. The top-down perspective evolved to a simulated 45-degree angle, seen in 1994's ''
Final Fantasy VI
also known as ''Final Fantasy III'' from its initial North American release, is a 1994 role-playing video game developed and published by Square for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It is the sixth main entry in the ''Final Fantasy'' s ...
'', allowing the player to see both the top and one side of objects, to give more sense of depth; this style dominated
8-bit
In computer architecture, 8-bit Integer (computer science), integers or other Data (computing), data units are those that are 8 bits wide (1 octet (computing), octet). Also, 8-bit central processing unit (CPU) and arithmetic logic unit (ALU) arc ...
and
16-bit
16-bit microcomputers are microcomputers that use 16-bit microprocessors.
A 16-bit register can store 216 different values. The range of integer values that can be stored in 16 bits depends on the integer representation used. With the two mos ...
console
Console may refer to:
Computing and video games
* System console, a physical device to operate a computer
** Virtual console, a user interface for multiple computer consoles on one device
** Command-line interface, a method of interacting with ...
role-playing games.
Ultimate Play the Game
Ashby Computers and Graphics Limited, trading as Ultimate Play the Game, was a British video game developer and publisher, founded in 1982, by ex- arcade game developers Tim and Chris Stamper. Ultimate released a series of successful games for ...
developed a series of video games in the 1980s that employed a tile-based
isometric perspective
Isometric video game graphics are graphics employed in video games and pixel art that use a parallel projection, but which angle the viewpoint to reveal facets of the environment that would otherwise not be visible from a top-down perspective o ...
. As computers advanced, isometric and
dimetric perspectives began to predominate in tile-based games, using
parallelogram
In Euclidean geometry, a parallelogram is a simple (non- self-intersecting) quadrilateral with two pairs of parallel sides. The opposite or facing sides of a parallelogram are of equal length and the opposite angles of a parallelogram are of equa ...
-shaped tiles instead of square tiles. Notable titles include:
*''
Ultima Online
''Ultima Online'' (''UO'') is a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) released on September 24, 1997 by Origin Systems.
Set in the '' Ultima'' universe, it is known for its extensive player versus player combat system. ...
'', which mixed elements of 3D (the ground, which is a tile-based height map) and 2D (objects) tiles
*''
Civilization II'', which updated Civilization's top-down perspective to a dimetric perspective
*The ''
Avernum'' series, which remade the top-down role-playing series
''Exile'' with an isometric engine.
Hexagonal tile-based games have been limited for the most part to the strategy and
wargaming
A wargame is a strategy game in which two or more players command opposing armed forces in a realistic simulation of an armed conflict. Wargaming may be played for recreation, to train military officers in the art of strategic thinking, or to s ...
genres. Notable examples include the Sega
Genesis
Genesis may refer to:
Bible
* Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of mankind
* Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Book of ...
game ''
Master of Monsters
''Master of Monsters'' is a turn-based strategy game developed by SystemSoft for the MSX and NEC PC8801. It was ported to a variety of consoles and PCs including the PC Engine CD, NEC PC9801, and Sega Genesis/Mega Drive. While it never had ...
'',
SSI's ''Five Star'' series of wargames starting with ''
Panzer General
''Panzer General'' is a 1994 computer wargame developed and published by Strategic Simulations Inc. (SSI). It simulates conflict during World War II. The designers of ''Panzer General'' were heavily influenced by the Japanese wargame series '' ...
'', the ''
Age of Wonders
''Age of Wonders'' is a 1999 turn-based strategy game co-developed by Triumph Studios and Epic MegaGames, and published by Gathering of Developers.
''Age of Wonders'' underwent a long production cycle, and was originally developed under the n ...
'' series and ''
Battle for Wesnoth
''The Battle for Wesnoth'' is a free and open-source turn-based strategy video game with a high fantasy setting, designed by Australian-American developer David White and first released in June 2003. In ''Wesnoth'', the player attempts to build ...
''.
See also
*
Texture atlas
In computer graphics, a texture atlas (also called a spritesheet or an image sprite in 2d game development) is an image containing multiple smaller images, usually packed together to reduce overall dimensions. An atlas can consist of uniformly-siz ...
*
Top-down perspective
A variety of computer graphic techniques have been used to display video game content throughout the history of video games. The predominance of individual techniques have evolved over time, primarily due to hardware advances and restrictions ...
*
Isometric graphics in video games and pixel art
Isometric video game graphics are graphics employed in video games and pixel art that use a parallel projection, but which angle the viewpoint to reveal facets of the environment that would otherwise not be visible from a top-down perspective ...
*
Tiled rendering Tiled rendering is the process of subdividing a computer graphics image by a regular grid in optical space and rendering each section of the grid, or ''tile'', separately. The advantage to this design is that the amount of memory and bandwidth is re ...
*
Heightmap
In computer graphics, a heightmap or heightfield is a raster image used mainly as Discrete Global Grid in secondary elevation modeling. Each pixel stores values, such as surface elevation data, for display in 3D computer graphics. A heightm ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tile-Based Video Game