Organizing Your Maps

Every map in your world lives in the map tree, the panel down the left of the zone editor. It is where you create maps, group them, nest them, reorder them, and open them. This page covers how to keep a growing world tidy.

Where to author it: the map editor (Maps in the left navigation) — the panel on the left, under the search box.

Folders vs nested maps#

There are two different ways to put one thing "inside" another, and they mean different things.

A folder can hold maps and other folders, as deep as you like. A map can hold other maps the same way.

Moving things around#

Drag a row and drop it. The tree shows you exactly where it will land before you let go:

• A line between two rows — it will be inserted there, and that order sticks. Sibling order is yours to author; it is not alphabetical.
• A highlighted row — it will go inside that folder or map.
• Nothing highlighted, and the drag chip turns red — that drop isn't allowed. Hold still for a moment and the tree tells you why.

Two conveniences worth knowing:

• Hover a collapsed folder while dragging and it springs open after half a second, so you can drop into something that wasn't visible when you started.
• Drag near the top or bottom edge of the panel and the list scrolls itself.

To take a map back out to the top level, drop it on the empty space below the last row.

Selecting more than one#

• Click — opens the map and selects it.
• Ctrl-click (⌘-click on Mac) — adds a row to the selection without opening it.
• Shift-click — selects everything between the last row you clicked and this one.

Then drag the whole selection at once, delete it in one go, or edit its settings together. The chip that follows your cursor counts what's coming with you.

If you select a map and one of its children, only the parent moves — the child is already travelling with it.

Editing many maps at once#

Turning nine dungeons Full Loot one map at a time is nine trips through Map Properties. Select them instead and do it once.

1. Select the maps — Ctrl-click each one, or Shift-click a run of them.
2. Click Bulk edit at the bottom of the tree, or right-click the selection and choose Bulk Properties (N maps)….
3. Tick the setting you want to change. Anything you leave unticked is not written at all, so each map keeps its own value.
4. Set the value, then press Apply to N maps.

The strip along the top lists every map that is about to change, so a stray Ctrl-click is visible before you commit.

What you can set#

Names, sizes, tree position and map content are deliberately not here — those are what make each map itself, and setting them all to one value would flatten the selection rather than configure it. Rename in the tree with F2 instead.

Gotchas#

• A row marked "mixed" means the selected maps do not currently agree on that value. Ticking it overwrites every one of them with what you set.
• Typing in a row ticks it for you. Nobody edits a value they do not want applied.
• Text fields apply what's there, including empty. Ticking Combat music with an empty box clears the combat track on every selected map — which is exactly how you remove one in bulk.
• Description replaces, it does not append.
• Nested maps are not included. Bulk edit changes exactly the rows you selected; a child map inherits its parent's rules when it is created, not for life. Select the children too if you want them changed.
• Folders and the selection's structure are ignored. Only map rows are edited.
• The level range fixes itself if you invert it. A min above the max is swapped rather than saved, because an inverted band silently stops every spawn rule on the map from matching.

Choosing what a map's palettes offer#

By default every map's palettes list everything in your world — every biome in the tile palette, every object category in the object palette. On a project with twenty biomes and forty categories, painting a cave means scrolling past every desert tileset and every piece of ship rigging you own.

Where to author it: the zone editor → open a map → Map Properties → Gameplay Rules, under Default Biome. There are two pickers:

1. Tick what this map is actually made of.
2. Save. The palettes on the left now list only those.

Each palette says so when it is hiding something — "3 biomes hidden by this map's palette" with a Change link straight back to Map Properties — so a shortened list never reads as a lost catalog.

To do it across many maps at once, select them in the tree and use Bulk edit → Visuals, which has a row for each.

Rules worth knowing#

Both pickers work the same way:

• Ticking nothing means everything. That is the neutral state, not an empty palette, and it is what every map does until you say otherwise. Show all clears the selection and puts everything back.
• Uncategorized always shows. Tiles filed under no biome, and objects filed under no category, belong to no bucket you could pick — so hiding them would strand them.
• The built-in Grassland tile set is a normal bucket. Pick it like any other biome; leave it out and it hides like any other.
• This only changes the palettes. Nothing already painted or placed on the map moves or disappears, and the game is not affected at all — these are authoring filters, not world settings.
• Watch the default biome. If your map's Default Biome is not in the biome selection you will not be able to paint the ground the map is made of. The picker warns you when that happens.
• A deleted biome quietly drops out of the selection. A renamed category stays visible in the picker marked (missing), so you can see why a bucket vanished and un-pick it.

Tidying a palette#

Both palettes have an Edit button (the pencil) in their toolbar. It turns the palette into a selection: tap things to pick them, then act on the lot.

1. Click Edit in the palette toolbar.
2. Tap what you want — or Select all shown, which takes exactly what is on screen after the current biome/category and search filters, never rows you cannot see.
3. Then either:
   • Move to… — pick a destination and the selection is re-filed under it. In the tile palette that is a biome (Uncategorized included); in the object palette it is a category.
   • Delete — removes the definitions. This cannot be undone.
4. Done leaves edit mode.

Rearranging tiles#

In the tile palette, edit mode is also how you put tiles in the order you want them.

1. Click Edit, then tap the tiles that belong together — a cliff top and its bottom, say.
2. Drag any tile you have ticked. All of them travel; the chip under your cursor says how many.
3. A line shows exactly where they will land. Release and they land there together, in the order they were already in.
4. They stay ticked, so you can nudge them again — with ◀ and ▶ in the edit bar, or another drag.

Dragging a tile you have not ticked still selects a run, exactly as before.

Gotchas#

• Moving something changes which maps can see it. Once maps are scoped, re-filing a tile or object into a different bucket takes it out of the palettes scoped to the old one. Both actions confirm before they run.
• Built-in tiles cannot be selected. The Grassland set is generated by the engine rather than stored as rows, so it can be neither moved nor deleted. The same goes for demo objects.
• Moving does not change any art. Tiles and objects already placed keep exactly what they have; only the palette's filing changes.
• Tiles rearrange inside their own group. Floors, walls, ramps and everything else are separate rows of the palette, and a tile stays in the one it belongs to. Changing which group a tile is in is a job for Manage Biomes.
• Clear the search first. While the search box has something in it you are looking at a filtered list, and a position in a filtered list is not the position you would get back.
• Moved tiles now land at the end, together. Move to… puts the selection at the bottom of the destination in the order it was in — and takes you there so you can see it. They used to scatter through the destination in the order of the sheet they came from.
• New tiles queue at the end. Anything imported later joins the bottom of its category, grouped by sheet, and never disturbs an arrangement you already made.
• Built-in tiles stay put. Same reason they cannot be moved or deleted — they hold their place and everything else arranges around them.

Dashing, fall speed, encounters and the preview start#

The map properties RPG Maker gives every map. Set them per map; a map you never touch keeps the defaults.

Where to author it: the zone editor → open a map → Map Properties → Gameplay Rules, under Diagonal movement. The preview start is set on the map itself: on the Events tab, right-click a tile.

1. Open the map and click Map Properties, then Gameplay Rules.
2. Pick Dashing: Allowed, or Disabled (players walk on this map) for a shrine, a library or a stealth room.
3. Pick a Fall speed for how fast a body drops off an edge on a Diorama map, or leave Follow the project.
4. Type an Encounter step if this map should have its own pace of random encounters (see below). Leave it blank to use the list's.
5. Click Save.
6. To set the preview start, close the dialog, open the Events tab, right-click the tile where a test should begin and choose Set preview start here. A ▶ Preview start badge marks it. Right-click the same tile and choose Clear preview start to remove it.

Gotchas#

• The server decides. Dashing disabled is enforced by the game server, not the player's browser; a player cannot run there by any key.
• Random encounters need a list. The groups always come from Database → Combat → Turn Battles → Zone encounter lists, and only fire in a project whose battles are turn based or per encounter. An Encounter step on a map with no list does nothing.
• The map's note is on the Notes tab. An RPG Maker map's note is imported there, under the "Imported from" line.
• RPG Maker U2U imports. A map that disables dashing, has an encounter list, a battleback, named music or ambience, fall preset 2 or 3, or a note brings it along. Its Preview Start becomes the map's preview start. A map that keeps RPG Maker's defaults imports exactly as before. Troops are not linked to your mob parties yet, and RPG Maker music names are not linked to your audio files: set the map's music under Audio.
• The preview start saves at once. Like Add starting location here, it is not an undo step. If Map Properties is open with unsaved changes, save or cancel it first.
• Hosted servers pick the change up after you publish and the server reloads the map.
• AI assistants use the same "set a map's atmosphere" tool: mapProps { dashing, encounterSteps, previewStart } and fall. Dry run first shows exactly what it would store.

Looping maps#

A map can loop like an RPG Maker map whose Scroll Type is set: walk off its east edge and you come back on its west edge, and the same north and south. Use it for a small planet, an endless desert, a sea that wraps round, or a dream corridor that never ends.

Where to author it: the zone editor → open a map → Map Properties → Gameplay Rules → Map loop.

1. Open the map and click Map Properties, then Gameplay Rules.
2. Pick Map loop: Loop horizontally (east and west join), Loop vertically (north and south join) or Loop both ways. No loop is the default.
3. Click Save, then publish so the game server picks it up.
4. Play the map and walk off the looping edge with the arrow keys: you step onto the other side. Click a spot just across the edge and you walk the short way, across the seam.

Gotchas#

• The server decides. The game server wraps every position, route and step; your browser only follows. Walls, passage settings, heights and solid events on the far side count at the seam exactly as anywhere else, and click-to-move takes the shortest way, even across the edge.
• Build the edges to meet. The seam joins whatever you painted: if the first column is a cliff and the last is grass, players walking off the grass are stopped by the cliff. Paint the two edges so they line up.
• Your editing tools do not wrap. Painting, Build mode parts and objects stay inside the map near an edge; nothing you place spills onto the other side.
• The map is drawn once. Neither the game nor the editor draws copies of the map past a looping edge yet, so near that edge you see the empty space past it. The camera no longer stops at a looping edge, and it carries on smoothly when you cross.
• Events and monsters cross too. An event walking a move route steps over the seam and lands on the other side; a monster whose route reaches the edge does the same. Click-to-move on a looping map is planned on the game server's main thread.
• Players and monsters across the seam are shown once you are near them on the same side, as anywhere on the map.
• Phones play looping maps the same way; there is nothing extra to set.
• RPG Maker U2U imports. A map whose Scroll Type is Loop Vertically, Loop Horizontally or Loop Both imports with the same Map loop.
• Feature flag. Looping Maps in Feature Flags, on by default. Off = every map keeps its edges; your setting is kept.
• AI assistants use the same "set a map's atmosphere" tool: mapProps { loop: "x" (horizontally) | "y" (vertically) | "both" }, or loop: null for No loop. Dry run first shows exactly what it would store.

Parallax layers#

A map can show up to four parallax pictures behind it, like RPG Maker U2U's parallax list: a far sky, a mountain range in front of it, mist in front of that. Each one has its own order, size, follow rate and repeat.

Where to author it: the zone editor → open a map → Map Properties → Visuals. The first layer is Background Image at the top; Parallax layers below it adds the other three.

1. Open the map and click Map Properties, then Visuals.
2. Set Background Image for the first (farthest) layer, as before.
3. Under Parallax layers, click Pick a picture to add a layer and choose a picture from the media library. It is drawn over the first layer.
4. Set its Size, Follow X, Follow Y, Repeat and Shown (see the table).
5. Add up to two more. Move up and Move down change the order; Remove takes a layer away.
6. Click Save. Leave Show in Map Editor on to see the pictures behind the map while you edit.

Gotchas#

• Phones draw the first layer only. Layers 2 to 4 are off on phones and other low-memory devices, to keep the game smooth there. Put the picture that matters most in Background Image.
• The first layer is the classic one. It keeps its scroll mode and auto-scroll; layers 2 to 4 have no auto-scroll of their own, and their follow rate is measured against the first layer's.
• The editor shows the pictures in place. Follow rates are seen in the game (and in Play in Editor), where the camera moves.
• Order is drawing order. Each layer is drawn over the one before it, so put far things first and near things last; all of them stay behind the map.
• RPG Maker U2U imports. Every switched-on picture of a map's parallax list comes across in order: the first becomes Background Image with its loop, the next three become layers with their Scale as Size, Scroll Influence as Follow X / Y and Loop X / Y as Repeat. The pictures are imported from the project's img/parallaxes into the media library. RPG Maker U2U's size modes, a size and follow on the first picture, and a fifth picture or more are not imported: the import Warnings say so.
• AI assistants use the "set a map's atmosphere" tool with parallaxLayers: the whole list of layers 2 to 4 (image, scale, followX, followY, loopX, loopY, enabled). A dry run shows what it would store and notes that phones draw the first layer only.

Moving between maps without closing#

Map Properties carries a ◀ ▶ switcher in its header. It walks the other maps in your world, so tuning a dozen of them is one open, not a dozen.

• ◀ ▶ — the previous / next map. Alt + ← and Alt + → do the same from the keyboard.
• The middle button — a searchable list of every map, with your position in it (7 / 41). Type to filter, arrow up and down, Enter to jump.

Exteriors and interiors keep separate lists, matching the editor they each open in.

If you have unsaved changes, switching asks before discarding them — the same question closing asks. An Unsaved badge in the header tells you before you get there.

Renaming#

Press F2 on any row, or right-click and choose Rename. Type the new name and press Enter; Escape cancels. This works on folders and maps alike, and it is the fast path — you don't need to open Map Properties just to fix a name.

Deleting#

Select what you want gone and press Delete, or use the right-click menu. Deleting a map also deletes every map nested inside it, so the confirmation tells you the real total before you commit.

Deleting a folder deletes everything in it — every subfolder, every map filed anywhere below it, and every map nested inside those maps.

1. Right-click the folder and choose Delete Folder and Contents… (or select it and press Delete).
2. Read the confirmation. It counts exactly how many maps and subfolders will go, e.g. Delete "Locations" and everything in it — 12 maps and 3 subfolders?
3. Confirm. Each map is removed the same way as deleting it by hand: its events, spawns, placed objects and terrain go with it, and any players standing in it are moved to a map that remains.

To keep some of the maps, drag them out of the folder first. An empty folder asks a simpler question and deletes only itself.

Keyboard#

Search#

Type in the box at the top. Search matches maps at any depth — folders and parent maps open themselves to reveal a hit, and the matching part of the name is highlighted. The number beside the box is how many rows are showing.

What the editor remembers#

The tree remembers which folders and maps you had open and which map you last had open, per project, in this browser. Collapse a folder and it stays collapsed through saves and reloads. Reopening the editor puts you back where you were and opens only the chain of folders down to your map, rather than jumping to the first map in the world. The first time you open a project, folders start collapsed.

Gotchas#

• Deleting a folder deletes all its maps. It used to move them to the top level; it no longer does. There is no undo — drag out anything you want to keep first.
• At least one map must remain. A folder that holds every map in the project can't be deleted; move one map out of it first.
• Dungeon Room Library folders need the Studio or Enterprise plan to delete, same as to create them.
• Streaming maps can't be dragged. The children of an infinite/streaming map are positioned by their world offset, not by the tree, so the tree refuses to move them. Move the parent instead, or change the offsets in Map Properties.
• A map that owns streaming children can't take nested maps. Its layout is a composite of its streaming pieces; add nested maps to a normal map instead.
• You can't drop a folder inside a map. Folders group maps, not the other way round.
• You can't drop a map into one of its own children. The tree blocks it rather than creating a loop.
• Dungeon Room Libraries need a premium world tier. Creating one, and the Dungeon Room Settings / Rotating Dungeon Portals entries on maps inside one, require the Studio or Enterprise plan.
• Moves save immediately. There is no separate save step for the tree — the row moves as you drop it and the change is written in the background. If the server rejects it, the row snaps back and you get an error toast.