Hello, people in the VGMaps community!
Just thought those of you familiar with using Tiled Map Editor, as well as those not heard of it yet, to let you know that level map editor's been updated to 1.12(already 1.12.2, because of more fixes)!
Here's the site's news page link posted in March 2026 - Tiled 1.12 Update News (https://www.mapeditor.org/2026/03/13/tiled-1-12-released.html)
I've read the update notes, and it adds redone custom properties to allow vast improved flexibility in editing properties more, and list values in them, so anyone using it can no longer utilize tedious bypasses, like using comma-separated strings or numbered property values.
Remember classic dungeon crawlers and RPGs where beating monsters grant loot, such as gold and items, rare for tougher monsters or exclusives from bosses? Well, when working in such games, that became much easier!
Or, when doing platform games with particular blueprints not touched in too long, that covers it, too!
And, yes, that includes dialogue lines and voice clips for bosses, too, kind of like how bosses spoke in Super Mario Advance when you got close enough to confront them.
There's loads of flexible possibilities you can do when you create custom properties in different layers and their types!
There's also blending mode for layers added, so you can utilize different effects, such as lighting from fixtures, lamps, etc., to provide brightness in dark places, and a new capsule object shape to go with other shapes when doing object layers, and new Oblique map orentation that allows X and/or Y axis to be skewed. I think that's the kind of skewing is what many remember from Sonic Battle.
As far as engine feature compatibility goes, I don't think Tiled 1.12's additions are compatible with them yet. I think they may need to be updated to support such flexibility and more.
If any of you have been using 2D game engines, such as Unity, GameMaker, Unreal(yes, it still does 3D games, but I think 2D game development support's been added for quite a while) Hatch Game Engine, Construct, or Retro Engine(which, I don't think has Tiled, nor its changes, supported... at least, not yet), please do spend some time to contact the developers to add in changes from Tiled 1.12 in later updates to have their engines and their exports catch up on feature compatibility.
For those of you that have Tiled, update it to 1.12, and give those new changes a go! Just click "Download" to use its installer. Mind you, these changes will take some getting used to.
There's still loads more that need improving, such as needing a brand-new renderer to handle lots more bigger maps, fixed or infinite, even when using over 16GB RAM, but, from my perspective, donations are still needed there to allow such changes to happen more frequently.
You can provide extra monthly donations if you wish, or donate big enough to become additional contributors to Tiled. That would really help.
Have fun with Tiled's new changes out there!