Hi!

I am currently creating a space shooter for practicing purposes and I got stuck on how to efficiently place enemies in the map and create a level.

One way is to hard code the enemies' positions on the map but that would obviously take too much time to create new levels and test the gameplay (level of difficulty more precisely).

I could also make random waves throughout the map but I'm considering this, my last resource since it'd be too 'inconsistent'.

Could someone help with some ideas on how to do it?

EDIT: I am using SFML btw (forgot to mention )

IMHO this is rather a game design question, instead of how it is achieved.

Do you want a scripted game, such that everytime you play it, you have to fight against the same enemies? Then maybe use a scripting approach (like using Lua, JS, C#, ...). You could also even write your own Game "World"-Editor.

As you mentioned - you could also go the random-Wave path. If this is too 'insconsistent' for you, you could try to parametrize those waves (delay until next wave, change in difficulty / enemy count, ...). You could even merge this idea with the previous idea: fully scripted waves. To test, you could then create an ingame command for reloading the script/level.

For that script you could for example put per-wave parameters separated into a simple text file.

BUT There is a lot more you can do about this. It's your decision.

I hope I could give some helpful ideas :)

Thanks for the quick reply guys!

If you're using a map editor (like Tiled), then it should be easy to set locations within the map to place your enemies, and, once they come onto the screen, they become active.

Well, I am not using any map editor. I could, but that would be just to place enemies

As you mentioned - you could also go the random-Wave path. If this is too 'insconsistent' for you, you could try to parametrize those waves (delay until next wave, change in difficulty / enemy count, ...). You could even merge this idea with the previous idea: fully scripted waves. To test, you could then create an ingame command for reloading the script/level.

For that script you could for example put per-wave parameters separated into a simple text file.

I've been thinking of using json as BeerNutts said, then I just get the elapsed time and place different waves with different combination of enemies. Removing the timed waves and just spawn new waves once the player defeats every enemies in the current one seems a nice approach as well.

The problem is: As you said, this is rather a game design question and that's something that I need to improve...