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[TheAngryWaffle]

A while ago I tried out working with flixel by building a small game about a priest and some zombies. From the get-go, I had the thought that if either the game went over reasonably well (relative to what it was, anyway) or if flixel was awesome to work with, I'd build a prequel to the game which would be something vaguely Metroidvania-ish.

Well, flixel is awesome and the game was hardly a blockbuster, but nobody's chased me with any pitchforks or anything, so I did start work on the prequel... but I decided I wanted a tilemap editor with a different feature set from most of the other's I'd tried. I also wanted to dig into a C# project, because I felt like I'd been doing too much Flash / ActionScript work. So: I built a tilemap editor (now) called "Wasabi M". Right now, it's very flixel-centric, but I'd like to expand it in the future to be a bit more flexible (some basic support for this is already in place).

Since I had it handy, I used it during Ludum Dare #16 to put together the maps for "Ruins", and while it definitely isn't a rock-solid, polished, mature tool at this point, it served me pretty well during those 48 hours, so I figured it might be time to put it out into the wild. (I've gone the "free-for-non-commercial but please buy it if you use it on a commercial project" route, in case anyone find it compelling enough to care about licensing models.)

If you feel like you might want to give it a whirl, there're some more details here:
http://www.thewasabiproject.com/wasabi-m/
(Direct download link: http://www.thewasabiproject.com/downloads/wasabi-m/WasabiM-Alpha3-2.zip)

(I recommend a quick glance at the "Starting a Project" tutorial on the site if you are going to give Wasabi M a try.)

In particular, I've tried to build in the following features that I was looking for:

• A project-oriented structure that keeps collections of maps, tile sets, and sprite types together (the Metroidvania game has 8 major areas which might wind up broken down into multiple maps each, and the plan for the final version of "Ruins" has more than 40 individual maps, so I really wanted a way to keep all these maps and the related data together)
• Support for a structured source code layout (still fairly basic) -- I usually keep my basic game states, map classes, and interactive objects organized in separate packages, so I wanted the code generated by Wasabi M to be able to handle generating import statements automatically based on the sprites and objects placed on a particular map
• Flexible sprite creation, placement, and editing, with support for well-defined per-sprite properties. I wanted to be able to place sprites, resize sprites, edit their properties, and (by the time Ruins came around) place some sprites with auto-generated unique IDs, so I built all of that into Wasabi M.
• Plugin-based exports -- this feature isn't quite ready to be released publicly yet -- the plugin API exists and is being used by Wasabi M, but I don't feel like it's stable enough to let other people poke around with writing exporters yet. Originally, I wasn't going to pursue this idea, but when I started to consider making Wasabi M generally available I thought it might be the best way to go.

[nikki]

The computer i am at right now hasn't got .net framwork installed, so the program just crashes..
I've read the features and looked abit at your site, the thing i'm wondering is how is this program different then for example Mappy ?

As far as i can tell mainly in the organizing of sets ?

[Hideous]

Ohh. Works well with 1.4+?

[TheAngryWaffle]

@nikki: Organizing multiple maps into a single project is a big difference between FME and several other tilemap editors. The sprite support in FME is a generally a bit more flexible than you'd get from -- for example -- Mappy or Mappy Pro. FME also has flixel export support out-of-the-box (it generates both CSV and AS3 files), so that's a perk if your target platform is flixel (you could use the CSV files as they are currently in other projects, but FME doesn't add much to that scenario yet). FME is pretty flexible in terms of differently sized and positioned layers within a single map too.

@Hideous: Yes, hopefully -- FME is built to export for flixel 1.45 and 1.47, so the files it produces should work without needing to be tweaked (I'll probably add support for pre-1.40 versions of flixel as well at some point, since I have some code for that lying around from the first drafts of FME).

[TheAngryWaffle]

There is a new, minor update to my flixel-oriented map editor available -- in addition, the name has been changed to "Wasabi M" (this change was for trademark reasons, which happens to be why I've gone back and modified the original post to remove references to the original name -- sorry for any confusion there).

There's been some positive feedback in the forums at flixel.org, so I've taken that as encouragement to post an update to the devlog here too, for anyone who might be interested.

The new version is available for download here:
http://www.thewasabiproject.com/downloads/wasabi-m/WasabiM-Alpha2.zip

Since I needed to address the naming issue, this update doesn't cover as many issues as I hoped it would, but it does include the following minor fixes and updates:

BUG FIX: Exporting sprites with properties should no longer change the case of the property name
BUG FIX: The flixel export plugin should now set the draw index of the tilemap before loading the tileset
CHANGE: The progress dialog displayed when loading a project should now be more tolerant of quirky exceptions; this may or may not resolve intermittent crashes related to loading projects
CHANGE: The tileset management button in the layer window now displays a gear icon instead of "...", to help make it clear that it invokes the tileset management window
CHANGE: A browse button has been added to the base path field in the project settings window
CHANGE: Some tooltips have been added, and others updated, primarily on the toolbar
NEW FEATURE: An experimental export plugin for Flash Punk is included; I'm 100% sure this isn't ready for "prime time" at this point, but it might be worth tinkering with if you're experimenting with Flash Punk anyway
NEW FEATURE: A naked CSV export plugin is also included, which will export just CSV files (with no AS source code, etc) into the data directory of the project; might be useful if you want to try Wasabi M for non-flixel / FlashPunk projects
MISC: Some behind-the-scenes changes to the export plugin hooks; hopefully I can make some export plugin documentation available to coincide with the next release for anyone who might be interested in writing their own plugins
MISC: Also behind-the-scenes: started tinkering with changing the right-click functionality -- should have several options available for the next release, along with a basic configuration dialog for the entire application
MISC: The FamFamFam silk icons are now mentioned in the about window

[TheAngryWaffle]

Just a quick note to mention that Wasabi M got a new version last week -- as well as an updated exporter with flixel 2.0+ support a few days later.

The current version (Alpha 3.2) is available for download here:
http://www.thewasabiproject.com/downloads/wasabi-m/WasabiM-Alpha3-2.zip

And the updated exporter for flixel 2.0 is here:
http://www.thewasabiproject.com/downloads/wasabi-m/WasabiM-Alpha3-2-Flixel200.zip

To install the flixel 2.0 plugin, you'll need to replace the Export_Flixel.dll file in Wasabi M's plugin directory.

The detailed change log for version 3.1 & 3.2 (3.2 is a minor bugfix release) is available here:
http://www.thewasabiproject.com/2010/02/wasabi-m-alpha-3/

Some quick highlights:

• Flood fill and whole-layer fill tools added
• Auto-edging tool added (automatically paints corner and edge tiles)
• Single layer CSV export and import added
• Square, rectangular, circular, and stair-step brushes added
• Better sprite resizing and code generation