Getting Started

When you first launch the Wildflower Editor it will load the example world. A Wildflower world is composed of 24x24 screens, each of which is 16x16 tiles. You may notice right away that you can use the left mouse to draw tiles. If you draw anything on accident you can just hit Ctrl+Z to undo.

You can use the middle mouse button to pan the camera and mouse wheel to zoom. if you do not have a middle mouse button you can press tab + left mouse to move and tab + right mouse to zoom.

Before you start drawing tiles you should pay attention to what layer you are editing which is shown as the large red number in the upper right of the Wildflower editor window. When you are working it will only modify the active layer. You can use the mouse to click on a number to change the layer or just press that number key as a shortcut. There are 3 layers in the Wildflower engine:

1. Background Layer - The main tile layer which not only contains everything on the background but nearly all the solid tiles as well. This is layer is where most of the tile editing is done to create the level.
2. Foreground Layer - Tiles layer that appears above everything and has a 1 bit alpha. Used for decorations but also coins and many other special tiles. Has a hardware limitation of only being able to use a limited amount of foreground tiles per screen (about half the screen full).
3. Objects Layer - Game objects can be placed in the editor and will be dynamically created when a player opens that screen in game. Objects can be customized by changing [Object Attributes].

For beginners it's recommended that you stick with tile editing for now which is on layer 1 and 2.

To change the current tile you can click anywhere on the [Quick Pick Box] in the lower right, or use WASD to change the current draw tile. Another very useful way is to hold Ctrl + left click on any tile on the current layer which will copy that tile, kind if like the eyedropper tool in some image editing programs. A preview of the current tile will appear in the lower left and it will also be highlighted in green in the [Quick Pick Box].

Drawing tiles is done with the left mouse button. Press Z does a flood fill. You can also shift + left mouse to erase tiles and X to do a flood erase.

One of the most powerful tools available is the rectangle/group select tool on the right mouse button. You can click and drag the right mouse button to select a group of tiles or object, it will select everything in that box. Once you have something selected you can you can drag to re-position it or use standard cut/copy/paste commands. You can also hold Alt while selecting to grab only the tiles or objects in the current layer.

If you're more interested in art, then you can take a look in source/data/images, this is where all the [Images] for the game are stored. Try opening up background0.png in your favorite image editor and making a few changes, there is some space not being used. If you save your changes the Wildflower editor will automatically refresh the textures when you switch back to it! This way you can quickly flip back and forth from editing art to viewing the updated level.

When you're ready to try out your creation just click the Siftulator button to build and run the game. You can press 'M' to move where the player starts from, or for faster iteration just press the space bar to move the player to the cursor and launch the game all in one keystroke!

When you run your game you may notice that the [Minimap] does not match the level. This is because saving the map image results in a significantly longer rebuild time. Because of this you will only want to resave the minimap after you have made significant changes. So, just click the "Save Minimap" button on the [Menu Bar] when you're ready and it will generate tiny image files of your map that can be loaded onto the Sifteo device.

There is a video tutorial series you can watch for a demonstration of how to use the editor.

Wildflower Editor Window Diagram

1. The layer select buttons control which layer is being edited. You can also use the number keys.
2. The message window shows important information when you run, save, or perform other actions. The message window will automatically slide shut when not in use, you can mouse over it to open it back up.
3. The [Quick Pick Box] allows you to change what the current tile or object type is. When you draw tiles or add a new object this is the type it will be. You can also use WASD.
4. The [Menu Bar] is located at the bottom of the screen. It contains a row of buttons to control useful functions to save, load and run your game.
5. When the [Objects] layer is active, this area will show information about the currently selected object and allow you to edit its attributes string.
6. Shows a preview of the current tile or object type.
7. The [Sifteo Game Settings] are check boxes that allow for custom startup options for your Sifteo game. Control what powerups the player begins with and some other important settings. You can toggle showing this with the Show/Hide + Settings button on the [Menu Bar].
8. In the upper left corner it shows the exact pixel, tile and screen position of the mouse in Sifteo space.
9. Whenever you mouse over a user interface element, some help text will appear here.