Can't create a Town

[Vilius]

This may sound a bit stupid but for the whole day I can't be able to create a town. I searched for tutorials on how to create a town and it didn't really help. I don't get from where you people get your inspiration to create town? I can't seem able to create the shape of it and been trying and trying and deleting and deleting...

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Now I can't seem able to create a story. There aren't really much threads about how to create a story. Creating story is the hardest thing in my opinion.

 

[Bloodmorphed]

Start with the simple things, then add detail. Do what comes to mind. I never plan my maps, because that hinders my creativity, I just let my mind do as it sees, while it sees it.

 

[bgillisp]

When I started out, I loaded the sample maps, just to see what they did and draw some ideas from them.

For making the actual town, I start by drawing it out on a blank piece of paper first, so I can figure out my layout. Do I want the shops on the main road, or off to the side? Should there be a blank building here? Why? I find that just doing the rough sketch with just lines and boxes gives me a decent idea of where to put things.

 

[Simon D. Aelsi]

Look at your favorite small cities around the world. This may help.  Mind you, a "town" can be as small as you want!  In my project, one "town" is a single family of crocodiles and another  house with refugees in it.

Be creative! WHY is the town there? Does it have a history? (Most towns do) Look at your local cities for inspiration. Even a town's NAME should have significance. If it's a random name like "Long Beach", WHY was it named that? (It could even be "That name was chosen as the winner to a 'name our city' contest" )

 

[Celianna]

It's as easy as drawing a wall, then a rooftop, and doing this a couple of more times to create more buildings ... and tada, you have a town!


Just think of which buildings you need in the town for the player to visit. Things like an inn to rest, a weapon shop, a potion shop, an armour shop etc. Is it a coast town? Don't forget to make piers! Is it a rural village? Then add farms. Then buildings that are relevant to the plotline, like a castle or something.

 

[Vilius]

I just found out you can load and use sample maps

 

[Earthtian]

I just found out you can load and use sample maps

There is also some tutorials on youtube to make some maps.



This is by Venthros


This is by Williamthe UnproPro

 

[whitesphere]

Some tips:

Sample maps are your friend.  I found them invaluable, because they show how the tiles all fit together.

Secondly, if you're stuck, try this approach.  It takes a bit longer but is a consistent method:

1. Draw the topology --- the height of the land.  Is it a mountain town?  Is it a plains town?   If there are any significant hills or mountains, draw them first.  It doesn't need to be pretty -- these are just placeholders.

2. Draw the town's borders.  These flow from the topology --- a mountain town might rightly be surrounded by mountain, or a hidden village might be surrounded by forest.  A town in the open plains won't have a specific border.  For these, you'll want a script that transfers the party when the party reaches an edge of the map, rather than using dozens of Transfer events.

3. Draw in any sources of water.  Use waterfalls where the water will go over a drop.

4. Now, put down some buildings.  Logically, an Inn would be towards the edge of town (easiest for travellers and helps townspeople keep a bit of privacy).  Especially in a desert, buildings will be clustered around a water supply, because, unless it's fairly modern, people got water for drinking by walking to the well/pond with a pot and taking some back to their houses.

In RPG Maker, there's nothing special about buildings.  They are sets of auto-tiles which form neat squares/rectangles/etc, which usually have some Transfer event placed at the bottom, allowing the party to enter.  The Transfer would be to an Interior map which is the inside of the building. 

5. Add dirt roads (cobblestone only if it's a wealthy or royal city) connecting the most obvious paths between buildings

6. Add rooves to the buildings

7. Add finishing touches like the "Inn" sign which lie on Tiles B-E, or grass.

With practice, you can blend these steps in your head and quickly lay out a town, but that's how I started doing them.

 

[Simon D. Aelsi]

Sample maps are amazing, just don't actually USE them ingame. People will know.

 

[BoluBolu]

I think the real problem is, maybe(just maybe, sorry if I'm wrong), you're not confident enough with your own town, am I right? If it's your first time, then I can understand. The same happens to me when I, for my first time try to create a town, I keep deleting and deleting. But then I try to build my confindence and I realize creating a town is not a hard thing. Really it just a matter of perspective, maybe you see that your town is bad, but wait for someone else to see it, they might have a different opinion. Well, the conclusion is, build up your confidence, and try ask other peoples for their opinion about your town . In the end it just a matter of time, wait until you have tried many times to create a town, I'm sure not over than a week(if you keep try everyday) you'll got a beautiful town .

 

[Euphoria]

Make a town, take a picture of it, and post it in the picture critique thread? People will probably give you tips there. It's hard to give you specific advice without seeing what you've done.

 

[Shaz]

Check out the Game & Map Screenshots threads too (there are 3 or 4 of them right now). Just look through what other people have done - for inspiration, and to try and figure out how they did them. Be aware though, some of those will be parallaxed, and many will use non-standard tilesets, so you won't always be able to make the same thing.

 

[Vilius]

Now I can't seem able to create a story. There aren't really much threads about how to create a story.

 

[Shaz]

That's not really a VX Ace Support issue though


There ARE a few threads on how to go about writing a story. Take a look in General Discussion, or the Art/Literature forum. There IS a Game Ideas feedback thread too somewhere, I think.


Usually people don't want to make a game unless they HAVE a story to tell

 

[Vilius]

How about a story when "Max" goes searching for his childhood, since he has grown up without parents?

 

[whitesphere]

How about a story when "Max" goes searching for his childhood, since he has grown up without parents?

To make a good story, I find it real helpful to mentally construct the world the game will take place in.  Unless it is explicitly taking place in the current world and time. 

For example:

- Is this a magical world?

- Is the feel of the world fantasy?  Sci-fi?  A mix (i.e. Incarnations of Immortality book series)?

- Are there any significant events which happened in the past?  This is helpful because it can lay down plot points/antagonists/friendly and hostile entities/etc.

- Are there multiple empires/countries/etc?  If so, why?  Are there fantastic species such as faeries, werewolves, mummies, vampires?  If so, do they have their own communities?  How do they interact with humans?

When I come up with these ideas, I test them for internal consistency first --- if, say, vampires are hostile to humans, if humans are a real threat to them, they might stay hidden.  If not, it might be a constant war.  Both profoundly change the game world.  If vampires are friendly to humans, is it mutual?  Do vampires trade services for blood? (I.e. use their greater strength/flight to help build castles)

Then, I say "OK, what are all of the significant characters, good, evil and neutral?  What are their special qualities?"  For villains, WHY are they doing what they do?  I find "just for the evulz" to be useless, because it doesn't tell me how said villain will plan his/her/their actions.

If you have a party of PCs, WHY would they be together?  People don't just say "Hey, here's a group of strangers!  I'll go with you all!" since that could be nearly suicidal, depending on the game world. 

That should give enough of a framework so you can set a series of events down and see if they make sense, and most importantly are enjoyable to play.

 

[Ralpf]

If you are trying to make a story for a practice game just so you have something to work with. Maybe just look for something in history that you can recreate with a little bit of fantasy added in (such as Jeanne d'Arc). That will at least get you some practice in story telling.

 

[BoluBolu]

I love a classic RPG story, like a good kingdom, a(or some) hero, a villain with his/her kingdom, then the main plot is the villain will cause a judgement day if the hero could not stop him/her. After that just add more settings and style to it, the years, is it modern era or medieval times, What happened there? Why the villain is there? How come he/she becomes a villain? Is there a religion issue? Or different races? Or even a war between two(or even three) kingdom, I love war story. The in the end the true villain is not the villain we are first suspect, the true villain is perhaps the hero best friend, or the good kingdom prince/minister, or something like that. A twist ending can gives more feel and memory.

Well I admit a story like that is not really insteresting. But I love that classical RPG story, blend with a nice BGM and main theme, somewhat can brings memories.
 

 

[Shaz]

I am going to go ahead and close this. VX Ace Support is not the place for people to help you come up with a story for your game. I've already given you a few places to look. You could also try some writers' forums or look elsewhere (Google) for tips on storywriting. That's something that's certainly not exclusive to RPG Maker or even to games, and there should be plenty of information available.


And it's also got nothing to do with the reason this thread was opened


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