Game & Map Screenshots 5

Now that just makes me want to leave it because that's exactly the kind of thing the king in my game would do to satisfy his vanity and sense of self-importance.

 

Here is my first evented menu system.

 

The issue with that was that carpeting were used not only to show oppulence but they were hand-crafted. You'd be destroying an art piece by ripping it up - they paid a huge amount to commission pieces like that and destroying them by cutting them up was not only spitting in the face of the artist themselves (a guaranteed way of not getting any more pieces of the like, especially considering the amount of skill and time it took to make them) but would also show the doer of such a thing to be an uncouth, unsophisticated lout. Even a King had to be careful to appear better than everyone around him else suffer back-stabbing and loss of trusty courtiers and support of the Lords and Ladies of the court. Even the worst Kings had to have their support in order to rule properly. Wasting the Royal coffers on such decadence only to destroy it is unfathomable.

Add to that that carpeting served more than one purpose. It not only drew attention to the throne, it also made it hard for people to approach the throne without being seen or - more importantly - heard. Yes, the King could see ahead of him just fine, but bare floors also allowed for the sound of footsteps to carry and be heard - thus serving as a warning of someone approaching. Carpeting behind the throne would be a very unwise move - the King would not be able to hear if someone approached from behind. If one of his loyal guards turned traitor and tried to take him out from behind? Bye, bye Your Majesty. A runner could also be pulled to stop frontal attacks - sending any rushing the throne tumbling to their doom.

Not to mention that it was a luxury. Only the most important people had throw rugs in their rooms to allow for warm footsies - it was a sign of prestige.

Cleaning - no vacuums back then, I'm afraid. Rugs would be taken out and beaten to get rid of the dust, while stone floors were swept clean. The larger a carpet, the more effort and time was required for cleaning and with an already-large room like a throne room - one that was often the public place for the King to see supplicants and needed to look in tip top shape whenever in use - it made little sense to have a ton of carpeting. In fact, usually the only carpet was the runner so that it could be easily replaced with another if the room was needed in short notice. Just roll it up and unroll the new one. Viola~

Lastly, stone floors were very often pieces of art themselves. They were commissioned and carefully placed, keeping in mind where runners would go and added to the over-all decoration and eminence of a room. Often they were made of large stones, slabs of marble and rare minerals, shipped from rare locales and cost just as much -if not more than- any carpets. Covering them was practically a crime!

...I know too much about this subject.

Now, if you want to show self-importance, here's a few tips:

- A one-of-a-kind carpet. Even if it's a recolour don't use it anywhere else. Rarity = oppulance.

- Banners. Banners and sigils were the advertising posters of the medieval era. Want to claim something? Whack a banner on it. Want to make sure everyone gets the message that you rule the land and are of the most importance? Banners. Banners everywhere. And sigils. House sigils. Even bigger points if you work it into the stone floor or wall somehow.

- Speaking of, wall friezes. Carved into stone or wooden walls, they often depicted a story from the King's youth - a hunt that gained him a large prize animal, a battle where he out-did everyone, a competition where he wiped the floor with his challengers.

- Columns. People don't often realise that columns had more than one reason for existing. Firstly, they look grand as Frick. Secondly, they provide good cover for if enemies stormed the throne room. They could be pulled down and block the way to the throne as well as provide cover for the King. They could be used to block off the doors. They cost a mint when crafted out of certain stones and carved.

- Wall hangings. Carpets for walls. The more, the better. They often told stories of great heroes, as well as providing the important task of keeping the chill from the stone walls from seeping into everyone's lungs. Also, they cost a mint and a half and the more you had, the richer and more artistically inclined you appeared, especially if they were imported from other lands and were brightly coloured (key tip - blues, greens and oranges/bright reds/yellow/gold were rare because more often than not they needed to be imported in.)

- Art. It keeps coming back to it, but being able to spend money on frivolity like art showed not only that you were intelligent and classy, but also that you had a fuckton of money to throw around. Statues, fountains, portraits, landscapes, stained glass windows, chandeliers and even the cutlery and plates were ways of showing off your prestige.

 

Everyone, listen to Ksi. She taught me the ways of how carpets work in medieval times, and I consider her my Grand Maester of Carpetry! I can never look at a carpet that magically snakes its way around a pillar again without considering that either the carpet is magical, or the creator of this world did a woopsie.

@monkeyintartan: That looks pretty (scary). Looking forward to see the rest of the menus when the main menu is that unique!

I finished the purchasing part of my dynamic trading system. Much joy and dancing was had!

 

That's a lot of great information @Ksi. Thanks for taking the time to share all of that. I'll definitely consider your suggestions

 

My WIP Menu. Completely evented so far, so the keyboard butons are used to navigate the menu.

How do you think it looks?

(Ignore the bust for now, it's just a placeholder)

 

@paladin:

I like where you're going with the menu, but personally, I find that some of the elements don't blend well together. The red lines you've added at the corners jar because they're so small and sharp, so I'd consider removing them, or changing their design(personally I never liked putting red and blue next to each other in any design).

The use of different fonts also jars IMO. As I said though, the overall design is good though, I just feel you need to sit down with each of the elements and work on having them blend better, stylistically speaking.

I'm working on my custom battle system. Still a heavy WIP, but I'm getting there.

 

@Galenmereth

That is a seriously good trading system.  I can see people having fun with that.

@paladin

What Hian said, plus

The font you are using for the main headings is not easy to read.  The 'e' and the 'a' are particularly difficult to make out, and as they are the most common vowels in the English language, that's a bit awkward for the player!

 

@ksi - I am so sad I am out of likes because such an epic post on medieval carpets needs many, many likes. Such an informative post!

@Paladin - I feel like the blue/black lettering is getting lost on the blue/black background. I would change the background to gray or something so the lettering stands out more.

@hian - Overall I like your battlebacks - nice Asian feel to them. I still don't get the swirly letters(?) overtop everything, but perhaps it makes sense in game.

 

Thanks for the comments.

So if I change the background to grey, and maybe stick with the font I've used to describe button function it might look better?

I'll do a tell and repost the changes when I can.

 

The swirly letters only run in the background though, not over the top of the battle window.

But yeah, I'm still really thinking about dropping them. They're a buddhist mantra about rebirth, which is a large theme in my game.

You start out in these dream-world for the tutorial, which establishes this central theme of the plot which is supposed to have the player question the nature of the game world, so I thought it was fitting, but it really is kinda distracting.

 

here is my latest map

I saw a few errors with things showing up behind objects they are supposed to be in front of, but was to lazy to post another image.

Still need to add some road & pathing but ran out of steam last night

 

@Stridah

Nice layout, I like it.

The thing I was wondering about was the alternation between grass and sand.  I can understand having sand at the lowest level and grass a couple of levels up; that's normal.  But I find it odd that when it goes up another level it reverts to sand, and that it does that only in some places and not in others.  For example, centre bottom - it goes sand, up to sand, up to grass and then the small pillar on that level goes up to sand.  The larger level goes up to grass, but then there is another level just visible which is sand.  The top left corner goes sand, sand, grass, sand, grass.  So in different places the same level can be sand or grass.  

 

Oh, hey, you're right. That would be a pretty bizarre weather pattern that would support that kind of growth. It would make more sense for it to transition from one landscape to another or have different levels get different rain amounts or something.

 

I actually have many maps on here & deviant art of the same terrain & have never had anyone say anything about that.  If the mountains all go up to the same color it becomes an eye sore, not visually appealing.

knowing ksjp we are probably getting to the overly nit-picky category. Nature can be extremely random, sticking to that.

 

I agree with ksjp. If it is all about randomness of nature, I would at least put grass here and there and not fill whole floors with it. It would look more natural that way imo.

btw, kind of of topic but, are those walls xp tiles editted by hanzo kimura to vx format?

 

The hell are the heroes doing in jail? hmm..

 

Here's the thing that i'd hate to tell you, but it's a known fact.

This is a game. Not real life.

I don't know why, but almost every single person criticizes a game because it doesn't look realistic, or it doesn't look like anything normal from around here.

WHAT IF carpets in that world actually looked like that? Looked more creative? Pretty much nobody here is an architect. His map DOES NOT have to follow the rules of medieval architecture. "Carpets don't work like that". What if I told you that it's very possible to make carpets that look like that? Sure, it'd have to be a super huge carpet, and it'd take a lot of time, including the fact that nobody would really do it, but it's 100% possible.

Sorry, but it's called an imagination. A video game. Not Science on Earth.

 

@Redeye: I agree with that. But what is important is coherency of the game world. You want the world to feel "real", in the sense that it should feel like an actual world, with actual rules and all the other things that come with it. If you want to redefine how carpets were used and made in medieval times, that is fine, but then you have to make sure that you make it coherent. You have to think of the players that come in and are thrown off seeing carpets like this; their eyes will subconsciously look for other "logical holes" in the game world in contrast to what they are used to. At this point, it becomes important that such "logical holes" are coherent and don't feel like happenstance. Eventually, the player will accept that in this world, things work differently. But it's really hard to do this without it feeling like an oversight, or a mistake. And no matter what, it will be a gamble. That's why, at least to those new to game development and map design, it can be better to stick to existing rules to a certain extent; it lessens the burden on the challenge of making a believable world.

 

@Galenmereth Here's the thing. The rules Ksi is talking about regarding the rugs apply to Earth, and medieval Earth at that. I agree that games that take place on Earth should follows the rules and history et al of this planet if the developer is trying to create a believable Earthien world. The problem comes when the game is doesn't take place on Earth, as is the case with proably a good portion of RPGs. The rules are subject to change according to the needs of the world.

Certainly you want to have some similar things to make the player feel comfortable as they explore your world, but everything doesn't have to be exactly the same in order to be believable. Ksi gave some awesome information and I appreciate the feedback, but after I logged off last night, I started thinking 'Well why can't the maids use magic to clean the rugs?' Okay, so medieval people didn't have vaccuums. Maybe in my world, maids know the spell Vacuum! that magically transports dirt to another place or they can levitate rugs and float them outside for a good shaking. Alright, so carpeting muffles footsteps. Maybe to counteract this, carpenters put special crackling stones underneath the carpet around the throne that snap, crackle, and pop each time someone steps on them.

Even in real life, alien worlds do not operate according to Earth rules. Because of that, I feel like as long as the logic is sound, you can do anything you want in your game. Gamers are smart people who would understand that things work differently in the world they're playing and not flip out because one relatively minor thing isn't exactly the way it works in the real world.

That's not to devalue any feedback given, though. Sometimes people can point out lapses in logic or mistakes that would toss a player out of their immersion. Each game developer has to look at the feedback and decide if the suggestions make sense for their worlds or makes things better. If it does, then incorporate the changes. If not, then go with whatever you feel is right.