The Tiled Map Editor (http://www.mapeditor.org/) is a free, flexible, general purpose tile map editor. This editor can be used to create levels for any kind of game—be it a full-scale RPG/RTS game, a Breakout clone, or a platformer (like in our case). At the time of writing this chapter, the latest version of Tiled is 0.10.2 and it is the Qt version of the same. You can choose to opt for the Java one and that works fine as well.
Once you have visited the preceding link and downloaded the appropriate version for your development environment, start Tiled and you will see a window like this:
Looks pretty neat and simple, doesn't it? Tiled is extremely versatile and useful without being as intimidating as other editors. Well, what are you waiting for? Let's begin creating our first tile map. Select the New button from the toolbar or go to File | New. You will get a dialog box like this:
If you take a look at the different orientations supported...