Tilengine - The 2D retro graphics engine

Tilengine is an open source, cross-platform 2D graphics engine for creating classic/retro games with tile maps, sprites and palettes. Its unique scanline-based rendering algorithm makes raster effects a core feature, a technique used by many games running on real 2D graphics chips.

http://www.tilengine.org

Contents

• Tilengine - The 2D retro graphics engine
• Contents
• Features
• Getting binaries
  • Download from itch.io
  • Build from source
    • Windows
    • Debian-based linux
    • MacOS
• Running the samples
  • Windows
  • Unix-like
• The tilengine window
• Creating your first program
  • Windows
  • Linux
  • MacOS
• Documentation
• Editing assets
• Creating packages
• Bindings
• Contributors

Features

• Written in portable C (C99)
• MPL 2.0 license: free for any project, including commercial ones, allows console development
• Cross platform: available builds for Windows (32/64), Linux PC(32/64), MacOS and Raspberry Pi
• High performance: all samples run at 60 fps with CRT emulation enabled on a Raspberry Pi 3
• Streamlined, easy to learn API that requires very little lines of code
• Built-in SDL-based windowing for quick tests
• Integrate inside any existing framework as a slave renderer
• Loads assets from open standard standard file formats
• Create or modify graphic assets procedurally at run time
• True raster effects: modify render parameters between scanlines
• Background layer scaling and rotation
• Sprite scaling
• Several blending modes for layers and sprites
• Pixel accurate sprite vs sprite and sprite vs layer collision detection
• Special effects: per-column offset, mosaic, per-pixel displacement, CRT emulation…
• Supports packaged assets with optional AES-128 encryption

Getting binaries

Download from itch.io

The recommended way to get prebuilt binaries ready to install, run and test samples is grabbing them from official itch.io download. Just download the package for your platform, they contain required dependencies to run.

Build from source

You can also build the library from source. Tilengine requires SDL2 and libpng to build, you must provide these libraries yourself depending on your target platform.

Windows

You must provide development libraries:

• SDL: https://www.libsdl.org/download-2.0.php
• libpng: http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/libpng.htm

Put the following files inside the src directory:

Path	Files
src\libpng	libpng headers
src\libpng\$(Platform)	libpng.lib import library
src\sdl\SDL2	SDL2 headers
src\sdl\lib\$(Platform)	SDL2.lib import library

NOTE: If you’re having problems setting up these dependencies, you can download them already pre-packaged from itch.io downloads, file is windows_libs.zip. It contains headers and libraries for both 32 and 64 bit platforms.

Debian-based linux

Just install standard packages libpng-dev and libsdl2-dev

MacOS

Tilengine depends on having SDL2 in Framework format installed on your system. Homebrew port won’t work. Download the latest dmg here: https://github.com/libsdl-org/SDL/releases.

Running the samples

C samples are located in Tilengine/samples folder. To build them you need the gcc compiler suite, and/or Visual C++ in windows.

• Linux: the GCC compiler suite is already installed by default
• Windows: you must install MinGW or Visual Studio Community
• MacOS: You must install Command-line tools for Xcode. An Apple ID account is required.

Once installed, open a console window in the C samples folder and type the suitable command depending on your platform:

Windows

> mingw32-make

Unix-like

> make

The tilengine window

The following actions can be done in the created window:

• Press Esc to close the window
• Press Alt + Enter to toggle full-screen/windowed
• Press Backspace to toggle built-in CRT effect (enabled by default)

Creating your first program

The following section shows how to create from scratch and execute a simple tilengine application that does the following:

1. Reference the inclusion of Tilengine module
2. Initialize the engine with a resolution of 400x240, one layer, no sprites and no palette animations
3. Load a tilemap, the asset that contains background layer data
4. Attach the loaded tilemap to the allocated background layer
5. Create a display window with default parameters: windowed, auto scale and CRT effect enabled
6. Run the window loop, updating the display at each iteration until the window is closed
7. Release allocated resources

Create a file called test.c in Tilengine/samples folder, and type the following code:

#include "Tilengine.h"

void main(void) {
    TLN_Tilemap foreground;

    TLN_Init (400, 240, 1, 0, 0);
    foreground = TLN_LoadTilemap ("assets/sonic/Sonic_md_fg1.tmx", NULL);
    TLN_SetLayerTilemap (0, foreground);

    TLN_CreateWindow (NULL, 0);
    while (TLN_ProcessWindow()) {
        TLN_DrawFrame (0);
    }

    TLN_DeleteTilemap (foreground);
    TLN_Deinit ();
}

Now the program must be built to produce an executable. Open a console window in the C samples folder and type the suitable command for your platform:

Windows

> gcc test.c -o test.exe -I"../include" ../lib/Win32/Tilengine.dll
> test.exe

Linux

> gcc test.c -o test -lTilengine -lm
> ./test

MacOS

> gcc test.c -o test "/usr/local/lib/Tilengine.dylib" -lm
> ./test

Documentation

Doxygen-based documentation and API reference can be found in the following link:
http://www.tilengine.org/doc

Editing assets

Tilengine is just a programming library that doesn’t come with any editor, but the files it loads are made with standard open-source tools. Samples come bundled with several ready-to-use assets, but these are the tools you’ll need to edit or create new ones:

• Source code: VSCode, Notepad++…
• Graphics, tiles & sprites: Aseprite, Piskel, Grafx2…
• Maps: Tiled Map Editor

Creating packages

To create a package with all the assets, the add-on tool ResourcePacker must be used. It’s a Windows command-line tool that creates packages with files keeping the same directory structure. Tilengine has built-in support for loading assets from these packages just as if they still were stand-alone files.

Bindings

There are bindings to use Tilengine from several programming languages:

Language	Binding
C/C++	Native support, no binding required
Python	PyTilengine
C#	CsTilengine
C#	CsTilenginePure
Pascal	PascalTileEngine
FreeBasic	FBTilengine
Java	JTilengine
Rust	tilengine-sys
LuaJIT	tilengine_libretro (libretro core)
Ring	RingTilengine
Nim	nim-tilengine
V	V-Tilengine
Go	gotilengine
Zig	zigtilengine
D	dtilengine
Odin	odintilengine
Odin	odin-tilengine

Contributors

These kind users contributed to tilengine:

@turric4an - the Pascal wrapper

@davideGiovannini - help with the Linux-x86_64 port

@shayneoneill - help with the OS X port

@adtennant - provided cmake and pkg-config support

@tvasenin - improved C# binding

@tyoungjr - LUA/FFI binding

@vonhoff - provided CsTilenginePure binding

@system64MC - provided bindings for Nim an V