Game & Map Screenshots 12

@KawaiiKid I think the challenge will be that it will be entirely situational, based on the map. For instance, in your example above, I don't any issue seeing the words when they are over the floor. But the words tend to blend with the bed because the bed it white.

I think the best way to figure this out would be to sample a variety of colors over a sampling of maps to see which colors have a tendency to blend in with parts of the map.

Now, having a dialog box could effect the appearance, but it looks like you prefer not having an actual dialog box. So sampling the base color on a variety of maps would probably be best.

And as you playtest, I would constantly keep that in the back of my mind. So if I discover that my color choice still clashes with certain maps, I need to make corrections.

Hey,
i bought RPG Maker MV and started making maps. I did 3 "sample" maps, just to kind of do some maps to beginn with. Can you share your feedback with me? Especially what incase something is wrong/bad with the maps.


Thanks in advance!

That's so much better. Your original screenshot literally made me think there was a glitch with your game and it wasn't displaying the floor until I looked closely enough to see the tiny tile lines :smile:

@eliaelia123 I think it looks pretty good. A few things that I notice:
Village
- The building in the top center looks to be the wrong height. The walls on the left and right edges look like they're only two tiles high instead of three.

- The gray building in the center left looks funky. You have the roof drawn so that the peak is six tiles up, it's a skyscraper in the middle of your wooden cabins.

- The left side of the map looks a bit monotonous. I'd try to find a resource for a few different kinds of tree stumps and mix the tree types up there a bit like you have in other parts of the map.

Mountain
In the second screenshot, you again have some funky things going on with height. It's a little hard to see perfectly because a tree is in the way, but the left side of the map looks like you start off on the south with the elevation going up two tiles.

Then behind the big tree it looks like there's a cliff face and the elevation is going up another two tiles. But go to the right of that and the wall going down to ground level is only three tiles.

@eliaelia123 I think these are pretty good for first attempts!

I would say, as a player, I would feel like I needed to explore all of the space to see if anything is there, like encounters, hidden objects, quest triggers, etc. So if your intention wouldn’t be for the player to roam about in all the more empty areas, I would either make the map smaller or block off those areas to restrict access.

And I also thought it looked a little strange to have so many dead and healthy trees spotted around on the left side off the town map.

But again, if these are your first maps then I say awesome!

@eliaelia123 ATT_Turan ninja'd the points I was going to make about the apparent errors in heights. I'd go a little further than him with the trees you have dotted around the village. They are autumnal in colour which clashes with the season implied by the apples on the trees. In addition, those apple trees have bright green leaves which also imply high summer. There are also, imo, far too many of them. With the size that they are it looks like someone has replanted the forest that was cleared to build the village. That behaviour is unlikely.

For your buildings - how are the houses heated? I see no chimneys for open fires, and it doesn't look like the right environment for central heating. The 3 lower buildings have no windows.

Paths don't go up to the doors, implying that the occupants jump the last step. To get them right up to the doorway you need to use shift+click mapping. If this is new to you, here is an excellent tutorial. This is a technique that you will need a lot, so it is worth getting to grips with now. Don't be put off by the fact that the tutorial was written for VX Ace, the method is the same in all engines.

For the mountain map, in addition to the points made about heights, I think you need to look again at how you do steps. If the steps have the same number of tiles as the cliff, then you don't have steps, you have a ladder. The steps need to be at least one tile longer than the cliff face. One way to do this easily is to have the cliff turn up one square which makes it straightforward to have e.g. cliffs one tile high and steps 2 tiles high. Here is a quick example

Hey, thank you all for the quick replies!

@ATT_Turan
Village:
Yeah, I see your points there... I must revisit the buildings a bit. Also haven't though about adding more different kind of tree stumbs, but would make more sense. Will look into that.

Mountain:
Yeah, I looked at the areas you pointed out and the high actually was meesed up… I actually did not notice that bevor.

@ZombieKidzRule
Well, I made those maps mainly to practice mapping a bit after looking at some tutorials, so I hadn’t though about player yet. Though if I actually used them in a project, I would have to keep those things in mind, I agree there.
The dead and alive tree section was where I though a woodcutter? Would cut down trees close to where he is, so he doesn’t have to carry them for long distances. And to make sure he doesn’t have to keep on going further he started planting trees there again. Though that’s not what you see there, than I have to make changes there too I guess.

@Kes
Mhm… yeah, I see your point. The colours do clash a bit, that was a mistake on my part. Did the trees mainly there, so it wouldn’t be so empty, but logically speaking I guess there are too many. And I forgot chimneys and such things.
I don’t know about shift mapping but will look into that now! Thanks for the link.
The way to do steps at mountains was also very helpful, didn’t though about that bevor.

I realise that I have not posted anything here for a long time. I'm working on a fort which was abandoned a few years back. The tiles are taking a lot of time and experimenting. I really need to just get on with it and think about using some default assets or something to try and speed things up.

The kitchen for the soldiers' canteen. I might bash things up a bit more. I'm undecided about that. I do know that I need to make the base of the stoves higher.



If you click anywhere on the overturned dresser, one of the party remarks:
"Bit of an extreme way to avoid the washing up."

First time posting, made this in RM2K3

@Kes I though a bit wether or not i should reply to your post. Since i want to return the favour, though I'm like not really good, I will try it nonetheless!

I think it looks good overall. You may think about, what happend when they abaondend the fort and what went on since then? If they left in a hurry, maybe but plates on the table and stuff, since then they wouldt like but them back where they belong. If it was ransacked by bandits afterwards, maybe make a bit more brocken furniture, like ripped out drawers or something like that? Since they would only care about valubles and not about furniture condition.

No idea if I could help, but would be happy if I did!

@eliaelia123 Thank you for taking the time to reply. It's a complicated bit of the story, but the short version is: the soldiers started clearing it out, but then events happened and the job was never finished. It wasn't bandits who roughed the place up but... something else. Valuables were of no interest.

@Kes I think over all it looks good - intriguing at least - however I would try and add some more details like strewn about cutlery and pots and pans... Right now the only thing that says it's a kitchen are the stoves and it took me two glances to see them if I'm honest.

The atmosphere tho is really good. It looks old, overturned and intriguing.

Hey all! Here are two screenshots from the game I'm working on. It's still all work-in-progress - I'm creating the environments and characters from scratch. It's supposed to be an abandoned Victorian manor that was swallowed up by the earth. Still in the process of making things more destroyed.

Ignore the strange character sprite for now lol! Scaled the images up to 720p.

@Finnuval Thanks for the feedback. I'll see what I can come up with.

After learning that I have to pay more attention to cliff heights and house and roof proportions, I gave it another go, hopefully better than last time.
I know that trees within the village where a critic last time around, but I come from rural Germany and we had trees all over the place, including close around buildings so I decided to stick with it in the end.
The way my lumberjack surrounded by dead tree last time was also criticised, so I tried to make it a bit better, whether or not I actually did, I hope for your feedback!
Note: Those weirds tracks besides the lumberjack are intended and needed, even if they may look weird.

So, personally, I think this looks great! But I suck at maps so my opinion probably matters less.

About the chopped down trees. The asset you are using doesn't remind me of a chopped down tree. Rather, it looks like a tree that died. Does your tile sheet have a tree stump? Because that is what I would normally associate with a tree that has been chopped down. A stump that is close to the ground and they usually don't end up looking dead.

But if your tile sheet doesn't have a stump, then I get where you are going with it.

Still, I say great job!

This looks how easter candy tastes

@ZombieKidzRule thanks a lot for the feedback!
There a treestumps there, but i only have 2 different ones, so i used the dead tree to get more variaty, until i find tree stumpf who fit the Tileset (fsm) i use. In fact, there a more treestumps than dead trees around the lumberjack, but i guess they are to small to be seen?

I added a few more just now.. but because of the colours it feels more.. wrong?

@eliaelia123 I think the map looks nice, especially if you're new to this.

The main negative that stood out to me is that there's almost no overlap with the trees. I'd bunch some up in the more rural areas.

@tumsterfest Hey, thanks for the reply.
Do you mean with "overlap with the trees?" that trees should overlapp each other?
Sorry if the question sounds stupid, but my english is improvemend worthy and when i googled it I endet up on a website about computer science and that didn't make too much sense somehow. : D

Right.