Most platformer and top-down maps are built by repeating small tiles across the screen. That's a different kind of work from drawing a single character - a tile doesn't need to look good on its own so much as it needs to look natural next to its neighbors. This guide covers the fundamentals of drawing a tileset, and how autotiling automates the tedious part of handling terrain boundaries.
Match your tile size to your character size
It makes the most sense to lock in a tile size first, then draw your character as a multiple of it. Common sizes like 16x16 or 32x32 also make it easier to mix in free assets from outside sources. The relationship between tile size and character size is covered in more depth in How to Choose Your Pixel Art Sprite Size.
Drawing without visible seams
Repeat the same tile across a row or column and any obvious edge gives away that it's a tile - that "tiled" look. To avoid it, any pattern that touches a tile's edge (grass texture, stone texture, and so on) needs to line up cleanly between the left and right edges, and between the top and bottom edges. The most reliable way to check is to use a wrap-around preview in your art tool, or simply duplicate the finished tile in all four directions and look for any seam that stands out.
Why one tile is never enough
A patch of solid grass can be filled with a single grass tile, but the border where grass meets dirt is a different problem. A tile with grass on top and dirt below, one with dirt only in the top-left corner, one with dirt only in the top-right - each combination of border directions needs its own tile. Draw and place all of those by hand and the workload grows exponentially with every new terrain type you add.
What autotiling actually solves
Autotiling checks whether each of a tile's 8 surrounding neighbors is the same terrain type or a different one, and automatically picks the right border tile for that combination. Most engines use a standard layout called a 47-tile blob set. Out of every possible combination across the 4 cardinal and 4 diagonal neighbor directions, only 47 are actually visually distinct - draw those 47 once, and the engine assembles everything else on its own. Godot's TileSet autotile feature and the Tiled map editor's Wang tiles both work on this same principle.
Starting smaller: a 9-tile set
Drawing all 47 tiles up front can feel like a lot. If you're just starting out, a 3x3 reduced set - a center tile, four edge tiles, and four corner tiles, nine total - is often enough to produce reasonably natural-looking terrain. You can add the remaining combinations one at a time later, once you actually need the extra detail.
Practical checklist
- 1. Lock the tile size firstdecide its relationship to your character size before drawing anything.
- 2. Test by tiling itduplicate the finished tile repeatedly and check for any seam that stands out.
- 3. Start with a 9-tile setcenter plus 4 edges plus 4 corners, then expand to 47 tiles if you need it.
- 4. Use your engine's autotile toolslean on Godot's TileSet or Tiled's Wang tiles to handle the combinations automatically.
Need character or object icons to go with your tiles? The Pixel Image Picks page has original icons you can download with no licensing concerns.
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between a 47-tile and a 16-tile (blob/Wang) set?
A 16-tile set only checks the 4 cardinal neighbors, so corners look slightly off. A 47-tile set also checks diagonals, so it renders inner and outer corners correctly. Start with 9-16 tiles and expand to 47 when you need the polish.
The tiling looks repetitive - how do I reduce it?
Make 2-3 variant tiles for a terrain with slightly different detail and scatter them randomly, and the pattern reads less. Also keep any bright standout pixel or distinctive mark toward the tile's center rather than its edge.
Should I add spacing (a gutter) between tiles?
To stop neighboring tile colors from bleeding in when the engine scales the texture, it's safest to leave 1-2px of spacing between tiles and extrude the edge pixels one step into that gap. Most tile packers support this.
Related guides: Sprite size · Building sprite sheets · Free game asset sites