Editor

The editor is a tool for designing custom levels in Fish Fight. You can use it to examine and edit existing levels, and also create your own. This chapter will contain guides on how to use all of the features the editor has to offer and even a high-level overview of its API for those who are interested in contributing to its development.

Controls

Only mouse and keyboard is supported, for now. We will implement gamepad support for the editor in the future, however.

• Arrows or WASD pan map
• Left Mouse Button use selected tool
• Middle Mouse Button hold to pan map
• Right Mouse Button open context menu
• Del delete selected object or tile
• ctrl + S save
• ctrl + shift + S save as
• ctrl + L load
• ctrl + Z undo
• ctrl + shift + Z redo
• G toggle grid
• ctrl + G toggle object snap to grid
• P toggle background parallax effect

Accessing the editor

The editor can be accessed from the main menu by selecting the "Editor" option. This will then present two options: "Create Map" and "Load Map".

User-interface overview

There are 3 main areas of the UI for designing your level: the tool selector, map, and layers list. Perhaps the most important area is the map as it acts as a preview of your level. The tool selector and layers list are available as toolbars that provide a set of tools for you to edit and examine your level as needed.

Toolbars

There are currently 2 primary toolbars available for the editor: the layers list and tool selector.

Layers list

Create or edit layers of your Fish Fight level. This toolbar provides a list of selectable layers. Selecting a layer will display another view containing a list of the components grouped under that layer. There are currently 2 types of layers: tiles and objects:

Tile layers contain textures that can be placed in the map area. They can be created to be collision layers as well, allowing them to behave like collidable objects.

Object layers are composed of game objects categorized by a MapObjectKind. The current types of objects available are: Item, Environment, and Decoration.

Tool selector

As the name describes: provides a set of tools for editing layers in the map area of the editor. Currently, the following tools are available:

Name		Description
Cursor		Select a tile or object
Tile		Place a tile
Object		Create an object
Spawn		Create a spawn point
Erasor		Erase a tile or object

Creating a new map

A new map can be created either by loading one of the core game maps and save a copy (save as) or by creating a brand new one. If you choose the latter, you can import the parallax backgrounds and tilesets from an existing map, by selecting Open/Import from the in-editor menu (opened by pressing esc), selecting a map from the list and clicking Import. This will open a menu that let you select what tilesets you want to import and whether you want to import the background layers, as well.