Game & Map Screenshots 4

[mlogan]

They both are beautiful Slim! I love the rounded "ceiling" tiles in the second - is that standard XP or custom tiles?

Honestly, I think the second map looks great. But I think I would just bring in the dimensions of it a tile or two and just scrunch everything together a bit more. I think that will take away the bare look. Also, and this is just my personal opinion, but I would probably switch the beds and the ladder going down. The only other thing I noticed that seems a little odd is the little table next to the big table. But really, those are nit-picky things. Overall, I love the maps!

 

[slimmmeiske2]

Standard XP. It's in the Farm Village tileset.^^

Tiled it down (well horizontally) one. That does look better, also changed the position of the stairs and beds. Never noticed how weird it looked before, thanks

For the small table, I need to put the main's basket on there still, though I guess it does look strange. I'll try and change that table to a nightlamp table.

 

[mlogan]

If there's a reason for the table, then I probably wouldn't worry about it. It would make sense in the game. That's the trouble with screenshots, is that they can't explain all of the mechanics of the game, so I can only go by what I see in a shot.

 

[slimmmeiske2]

Psst Sharm, wrong topic. Love the design btw.

 

[Sharm]

Ach, that's the second time I've done that. Sorry, I'll get it to the right place. Thanks Slimmmeiske2.

 

[Allerka]

Good lord. Please add some transparency to that cave for all that is good and holy. Do you want your players taking one look and walking straight back out again? That is far, far, far too dark. >.<;

Also there's a lot of mapping errors in your forest. The trees are showing double roots. The cliffs have no sense applied to them and making someone walk through something like that is... look, frankly, there's good mazes and bad mazes. Yours is currently a bad maze. Why? Because it looks like a maze. It might as well be made of hedges. Nature does not work like that. Trees do not grow in lines on cliffs that are one line thick and straight lines all over the place. That looks less like a forest maze and more like someone got a bulldozer, dug out the ground in areas and let grass grow back and said "Hey, your cliff maze is done". It's not great.

Also, also, the saturation is very high with the grass and the trees. And lastly, the map is over-large. You don't need it to be so big. There's so much wasted space, it'd be hell to walk through especially with random encounters plaguing you every 10 or so steps. Cut the map in half, use the trees to create the actual maze outline, use the cliffs a bit more sparingly and try to make them more natural - not all straight lines. Add some long grass to the actual walking area, maybe a dirt path where most people walk. Make it look natural - random tree spouting, overlapping trees, flowers, bushes, stuff. Not all over, but here and there at the least. Maybe I should do a Tutorial video on how to make a natural area? Would you watch something like that?

I'm well aware of the mapping errors, I guess I should have been more explicit about that, heh. It's been a pain in the butt trying to get all these stupid trees to line up properly, tweaking them in Photoshop, testing, etc. 

I guess this is what I get for using the "generate dungeon" feature as a starting point. Honestly, I hadn't been feeling it too much as I was working on this, and I was thinking of scrapping the whole thing and trying again with some parallax mapping. Still not 100% sure how that works, but I suppose one has to start somewhere. As for the size, I think our design philosophies in that regard are just different. For the record, I've set the encounter rate to about half the default, so monsters aren't quite a constant harassment.

A tutorial video does sound good, though!

@my homie allerka

The middle map is easily the best, the bottom one is so dark that i can't really see what is going on.

For the top, i don't like when you use the cliff as only one tile wide, it looks weird like a wall in the forest.   I would greatly break up the cliff shapes, some of them are straight as arrows for maybe 10 or so tiles, make a rule, every 5 tiles max you change something.  Remember the change can go in as well as out.

Take a look at your mapping errors with the trees, some are missing parts.

and lastly lets get some more stuff on the ground to make it interesting.

keep working at it man.

Yeah, I should have been clearer in saying I hadn't gotten to all the detail stuff. But yeah, methinks I'm gonna start over and break it into several smaller parallaxed maps, give that a try.

I tweaked the grotto a bit, reduced the opacity of the shadow overlay and increased the brightness of the player "lamp". I'd have liked to make the lamp bigger (so the darkness isn't quite so blinding), but if it's more than a few tiles wide the framerate grinds to a halt because it's calculating too many shadows or something. But how's this?

 

[Ksi]

For the record, the default encounter system is 'broken' in that you will always have the chance to get 10-or-less step encounters. Always. 1-step encounters are possible. So, yeah, unless you make your own encounter system  (which is dead easy btw - check out Seer Dell's one if you like. The game is open) there'll always be that problem. But really, redesign your dungeon better. Not using the random generator is a good start - it's okay for cave dungeons as a base, but never for natural outside areas.

Also, I'll get on that tutorial.

 

[C-C-C-Cashmere (old)]

Cashmere being illogical again and creating an entire game out of the 8-pixel wide paintbrush tool in the image editor. Classy, boy.

​

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

[Solo]

Cashmere being illogical again and creating an entire game out of the 8-pixel wide paintbrush tool in the image editor. Classy, boy.

​

Spoiler

Spoiler

Oh my gosh, I love it!!

 

[slimmmeiske2]

@Allerka: The cave looks better, though still a bit too dark for those with bad eyesight.

@Cashmere: Looks nice. It bothers me that the bed has no outline though :/

The updated indoor, in case you're interested:

Spoiler

Another indoor map. This is supposed to be a law office:

Spoiler

 

[Ksi]

They're pretty big indoor maps. The first can be excused due to being a one-room house (how unlikely is that?) but the second... try to condense the space some more. There's a lot of wasted space in each room.

 

[Stridah]

@ksi i do not mind the slightly larger interiors, as long as she scales all the buildings the same.

 

[Ksi]

I question an office room that is about 7-8 meters in height (each space is two steps = about a metre) and 5 metres in width, with only a desk, two potted plants, small bench-table and cabinet. My bedroom is about 5x3 and it has a couch, a double bed, three book cases, a desk, a wardrobe, a pedistal fan and enough room to swing garfield by his tail. My room could be a loungeroom.

That is a big office room. Big, bland and empty.

 

[AcosmicDevi]

@slimmmeiske2 On the Inn map, the room with the red bed and the rooms on the far right - are those two-room suites? If not, it would seem kind of odd for a stranger to have to go through another person's room to get to their bedroom.

 

[slimmmeiske2]

@Ksi: Scaled it down. I've also added some stuff that suits the character.

Spoiler

@Devi: Yes, the one on the right is a normal two room suit, while the left one is meant for a master/mistress + their servant.

 

[C-C-C-Cashmere (old)]

at Slimmm Wow, that looks so purrrrrrdy o3o

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

@Slim - maybe add a 1 tile space in the two walkways? I just find it weird in RM games when the ceiling tile of the "lower" wall directly connects with the lower wall tile of the "upper" wall

 

[HumanNinjaToo]

This first pic is of a temple/fortress in my game. I used some tiles by Celianna and some stuff from XP and VXAce. Some of it has been modified a bit.

Spoiler

This next pic is of the same place but further up the map. Forgive the blue line across the screen. The screenshot apparently captured a text box as it was closing. I created the stained glass windows myself but added a modified version of the angel battler in the middle one. The five statues are XP sprites that I changed a bit.

Spoiler

In these two pics, can you notice the mirror image of the glass on the floors? I tried to create the effect of sunlight coming through. I also plan to use a lighting script to make some subtle changes as well.

Also, do the images seem to match the DS sprite in color and art style? I tried to give everything a pastel color/hue.

 

[Stridah]

@ ninja the layout looks fine i have two things to mention thought

1-it is kind of barren, add some more objects

2-so GREY add some rugs or something to liven up the endless sea of grey

 

[C-C-C-Cashmere (old)]

to HumanNinja Looks pretty epic. I think that beam looks a little thin to be supporting itself though. I like the shadow of the beam. Those armor guys are pretty cool. How do those NPCs get in those desks, though? Perhaps you can make a gap for them to walk through? Otherwise they'd have to crawl over those desks? Seems impractical.


Also I'm not sure whether they make carpets in that cross shape.


...


More silly screens from my latest game Eternal Rain or Lexical Node or Untitled Game That's Undergoing A Lot Of Changes And I'm Not Even Sure I Want To Make - The Game.

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler