TileMap

TileMaps are maps made up of tiles. Each tile can have independent behavior. TileMaps are stored in an XML-based map format called TMX. TMX was originally designed for tile-based maps but is also suitable for more generic game levels due to its support for various object types. TMX objects are easy to create:

// reading in a tiled map.
auto map = TMXTiledMap::create("TileMap.tmx");
addChild(map, 0, 99); // with a tag of '99'

Tile-based maps can have many layers, determined by a z-order. You can access a specific layer by it's name:

// how to get a specific layer
auto map = TMXTiledMap::create("TileMap.tmx");
auto layer = map->getLayer("Layer0");
auto tile = layer->getTileAt(Vec2(1, 63));

Each tile has a unique position and id. This makes it very easy to cherry pick specific tiles. You can access any tile by its id:

// to obtain a specific tiles id
unsigned int gid = layer->getTileGIDAt(Vec2(0, 63));

Example tiled-map layouts:

How do you make a tiled-map? There are many tools that do this. Tiled is a popular tool. It is actively developed and has a great user community. The screen-shots above are actual Tiled projects.