Hi! I've been working on my sidescroller space ship shooter (in java) for about a month now and I have the basic components down so far (player, enemies, ect.), but one thing that I have trouble making is an easier level/map builder. Right now I am using a text map editor, but because the size of my game window the text editor gets pretty large (basically 50 lines down and 3,000 lines across).

Is there any better or efficient way to make a level builder instead of using just a text map? I haven't put in many of the sprites in for the enemies or players just mostly got the mechanics down.

Thank You for any help!

Is it going to be easy to implement into an existing game?

EDIT: Actually after having a brief look at the game im not sure if this will help me because in this side scrollershooter the map is basically the only thing moving while the player can move only up and down. Also I would need to place enemies which I'm not sure if this program will do that.

Actually that's a pretty interesting idea! I think I will consider doing something like this later. Thank you!

Continue to use a text-file, but instead of having 3000 columns and 50 rows, have 50 columns and 3000 rows. Text editors work much better with this kind of file, you can simply rotate the data through 90 degrees.

what language? if c++ qt offers some good solutions but it is an entire project in and of itself to make an editor. We are using the qt framework for the GUI portion of the 3d map editor we are making now

Continue to use a text-file, but instead of having 3000 columns and 50 rows, have 50 columns and 3000 rows. Text editors work much better with this kind of file, you can simply rotate the data through 90 degrees.

I might try that if my own editor doesn't workout. It will be a good backup.

what language? if c++ qt offers some good solutions but it is an entire project in and of itself to make an editor. We are using the qt framework for the GUI portion of the 3d map editor we are making now

I'm using java. Do you know of anything that works with that?

I'm using java. Do you know of anything that works with that?

http://qt-jambi.org/

Here's a forum post that talks about different java GUI options

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7358775/java-gui-frameworks-what-to-choose-swing-swt-awt-swingx-jgoodies-javafx