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mapeditor/tiled

★ 12,535C++Audience · developerComplexity · 2/5Setup · easy

TLDR

A free, cross-platform visual map editor for designing tile-based game levels. Draw layered maps with custom properties and export them in the TMX format that most game engines can read directly.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((Tiled))
    What it does
      Visual tile map editor
      Game level design
    Features
      Multiple layers
      Custom properties
      Any tile size
    Output
      TMX format
      Engine-compatible
    Platforms
      Windows macOS Linux
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Code map

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Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Design a game world visually by placing tiles on a grid instead of hardcoding level data.

USE CASE 2

Add custom properties to map objects so your game engine knows which areas trigger events or block movement.

USE CASE 3

Export a TMX file and load it into a game framework like Phaser, Godot, or Love2D.

Tech stack

C++PythonQt

Getting it running

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min
Open-source project, check the repository for the specific license terms.

In plain English

Tiled is a map editor built for making tile-based game levels. A tile-based game is one where the world is constructed from a grid of small images, like many classic role-playing games, platformers, or puzzle games. Instead of placing each tile by hand in code, a developer uses Tiled to draw out maps visually and then load them into their game. The editor handles maps of any size and places no limits on tile sizes, the number of image sets used, or the number of layers stacked on top of each other. Layers let a designer separate background terrain from objects, walls, and interactive elements so they can be edited independently. Maps, layers, tiles, and objects can all receive custom properties, which are named values a game reads at runtime to know how to behave in a given area. Tiled saves maps in a format called TMX, which is a plain text structure other tools and game engines can read. Many popular game frameworks have built-in support for this format or community plugins that add it. The editor runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux. Pre-built downloads are available through GitHub and the itch.io store. Linux users can also install it via Flatpak or Snap for an official, up-to-date package. macOS and Windows releases are code-signed so the operating system does not flag them as unverified software. Tiled is an open-source project maintained by Thorbjorn Lindeijer and accepts contributions from the community. A Python plugin is available for those who want to extend the editor through scripting.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
I designed a level in Tiled and exported it as a TMX file. Write code to load and render this map in Phaser 3.
Prompt 2
How do I add a custom property called 'damage_zone' to a Tiled object layer so my game engine can read it at runtime?
Prompt 3
Walk me through setting up three tile layers in Tiled, background, collision, and objects, and explain how a game loop would handle each layer differently.
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