Original Post
I'm making a 2D game that uses a tile based map system. I want to save information about each tile into a group that can be read back later. I've asked around about general ways to store data, and I've been suggested that saving the data as comma separated values would be an easy way to read and write the data, but I'm not sure yet.
I want the data to be able to be read and written by the game only, and I don't want the data to take up too much space (as there will be a lot of maps). The maps are of variable size. Some may have only a small area of tiles while others could span quite a bit.
I don't know much about different means of saving data to files (and the pros and cons of each), nor do I know anything about compression or anything (this was also suggested). I've read and written to files in certain formats, but the files were always text files and they were readable by anyone.
Can anyone point me in the direction of a good way to store and protect my data effectively?
I want the data to be able to be read and written by the game only, and I don't want the data to take up too much space (as there will be a lot of maps). The maps are of variable size. Some may have only a small area of tiles while others could span quite a bit.
I don't know much about different means of saving data to files (and the pros and cons of each), nor do I know anything about compression or anything (this was also suggested). I've read and written to files in certain formats, but the files were always text files and they were readable by anyone.
Can anyone point me in the direction of a good way to store and protect my data effectively?
