Some background, I’ve got a long software developer background but not in gamedev. I’ve been struggling figuring out how to make use of a game engine, and it hasn’t been intuitive but am finally making some headway. I bought some courses on Udemy from Firebelley and that’s definitely helped some things finally start clicking and making sense.

I’m at a point in the course where I’m starting to build levels for a puzzle game (a 2D or simulated 2.5D terrain based game). For TileMapLayers, the course suggests making one layer for water - then another layer for a sandy beach - then another layer for some elevated terrain - then another layer for grass. Then insert another layer for foam around the water’s edge. Then another layer for some shadows at the edge of the elevated points and the cliff faces. Then another layer for some trees. Etc etc.

It all does work, but it felt like a joke as he started listing off all the layers he was adding for each level. For previous parts of the course he’s started with a naive approach and then refactored into something that cleans things up and makes more sense, which I appreciate, so maybe that’s coming, but I’m several lessons past that and haven’t seen the punchline yet. Is this is how levels get built normally?

PS. I hope this doesn’t come off as being critical of the course, because I actually highly recommend it - it’s the first one I’ve tried that’s actually hitting home for me.