How many towns/villages/cities are there in your game?

[Canini]

I was going over my game last night, trying to streamline the experience. I found that a lot of the towns can be discarded since they are merely padding (although a continent with a single village and a capital feels kinda silly). This got me thinking what the average for rpgmaker games could be? I am particularly interested in small one-person projects but of course everyone is free to share. For the sake of the poll a central hub of any sort counts as a town. 

 

[Kes]

At the moment there is no discussion point, simply a poll about numbers.  As this is a forum for discussing principles of game making, it doesn't really fit here.  So...


I've moved this thread to General Lounge. Please be sure to post your threads in the correct forum next time. Thank you.


My memory is that I've had to move a couple of your threads for this sort of reason.  [If I'm mixing you up with someone else, apologies.]  Please pay attention to where you post.


Thanks.

 

[Diretooth]

Generally speaking, my games tend to have three to four towns per continent, not counting miscellaneous dungeons or plot related places. Sure, they're padding, sure, they're not important to the main plot, but they breathe life into the world. They give backstory as well as side quests.


The only game so far that averts this to a certain extent is the very first game I started making, and that's because it takes place after a terrible war that decimated most of the population.

 

[BigToastie]

I am a 'one man band' at the moment.


In my first (smallest) area (island/continent areas), I have 2 Villages, and 1 Huge City, this is due to most of it being forest, caves etc. - after the city there is no more 'hubs' per say.


In my other areas, there will probably be 2 main cities, a few towns per area, but I am a fan of when you walk through plain style areas, there are 1-2 houses setup (like a small inn and a couple of houses) it breaks up the feel of, every hub is bordered off and such. - its nice when you walk along and come across other non combatants in a somewhat remote area!


But TL;DR


My game is looking to have 6 Cities, roughly 9-12 villages/towns 


My game is going to be big, my first area (not including the city) is up to 70 maps.

 

[LaFlibuste]

The game I am working on has a single city. And the whole game takes place within it (ok, there might be one or two short optional stretches where you technically go outside the walls). Although you DO hear about other cities and places. You just never visit as they are outside the scope of the game.


Personally, while I understand how too many cities is redundant and useless, I also hate world maps where in large continents may have like 2-4 cities on it and large expanses of empty land. This just makes no damn sense. I'd personally maybe advocate some sort of tileset where you could differentiate between "functional cities" you can visit and "decorative cities" that are just visual filler for the world map. You know, cultivated fields, little burgs, etc., just so your world doesn't feel empty.

 

[bgillisp]

16 cities. 2 are capitals and are really big (so big the player will not see all of it), and 2 are ruins that were never rebuilt after a war. The other 12 are small to medium cities that the player will interact with in various chapters in my game.



Also, these cities are all pretty close to each other, most were designed to be < 1 day walk from the other, which means you have very little distance between them on the world map. Most are 5 - 8 tiles apart, if that. Helps keep the endless wandering of an empty map down.

 

[Canini]

Whoa, from people´s responses it seems like I should have added much larger numbers. Very interesting, I was certain 3-4 would be the norm, at least for smaller projects.

 

[BigToastie]

It depends on what you want to achieve I suppose @Canini from your game.


I want my game to take part all over the "World" so it needs to feel like it expands for a long distance.


3-4 Cities would probably be the norm, as small villages can litter areas as villages are small (some don't even need Inns!!) :3

 

[taarna23]

Four for certain. I may increase that if I find it to be too few, but due to the design of my game, more towns would probably need a different means of access, or getting to them would become tedious.

 

[Diretooth]

It can also be practical if you want to add an economy to the game. Say you have rats in one area dropping rat pelts that you can sell for cash (To avert the money spider trope), the town closest to where you get the rat pelts would buy them for much cheaper than a town far away from them/closer to much tougher rats with the same drop. This can make grinding for gold a bit easier, since all you would have to do is gather a bunch of rat pelts from earlier on and sell them for a mark-up elsewhere.

 

[HexMozart88]

Well, there's the town right next to the castle, there's the elf village, there's the town of part-animals, then there will be a few more in between. So for now, probably around four or five, but it may become more if the story requires it. 

 

[Leon Kennedy]

Just one city for me, one city I'm putting my heart and soul into

 

[IamGilgamesh]

For my primary game I'm prioritizing for release, its meant to be sort of a micro game as well as an unlockable immersive media player, so it doesn't require much civilization like that.

 

[Canini]

Okay, following up my question a bit:


When making a game, is it important for you to make each city stand out graphic-wise or do you prefer to make each town/city on a given continent/country share the same general aesthetic?

 

[slimmmeiske2]

My main game has 4 towns/villages/cities, unless you count the village you see shortly in the intro, then it's 5. My side game has 3 towns. Neither are RPGs or long games though. 


As for your second question a bit of both? I mean I won't be mixing Asian style buildings with Middle-Eastern or Western ones. On the other hand, the towns need to be distinct enough, so the player doesn't confuse it with another town. 

 

[consolcwby]

For my first game, I've broken it up into 3 chapters per act with 3 acts total. So, out of 9 chapters, I have 5 towns. Since the scale is small, I don't see a need for anymore than that. Besides, I'm probably 1/4 of the way through after this week, and the game is already running at 45min. So... Not too shabby!

 

[IamGilgamesh]

I'm always one for pushing limits, trying new things, and experimentation. I also like to only make a map with purpose, direction, and cohesion. 

 

[Sunless]

I've based my game off a story a started a little while ago which was situated in a sort of a archipelago of islands. Each of those islands either had a town or two or had some location of interest to explore. It really is trying to get a balance of making the place feel populated but not overcrowded, so currently out of the 13 islands I have 8 towns but I may expand upon that - everything is still in the drafting phase.


I always dislike seeing large sparse world maps with a single town in one corner and a city in the other corner with maybe an inn somewhere in the middle - so I decided to try and do the opposite.

 

[The Stranger]

I have one city divided into three hubs\sections.

 

[TheTsunaru]

5 countries, each with a capital city and 3 or 4 smaller villages surrounding it, one of which also has an abandoned village that the player ends up taking over as a base. As the story progresses, the town will gradually grow larger with more buildings being made and areas being unlocked. You can recruit various PCs/NPCs around the world and they'll take over the empty buildings to create various shops or other amenities. On a couple of occasions, you're required to reach a certain point in the story AND have a certain number or a specific character recruited before the town will expand.


As you adventure throughout the world, you'll find that all the villages and cities have certain specialty products. You'll be able to barter with the shopkeepers (either through coin or favors) in order to receive the rights to stocking their specialty product in your own town, making it so you don't have to return to that town if you want to pick up more of their item. This is a work in progress for me though, since I have no idea how to alter a shop's inventory by switches without making it require a million conditional branches (ideally I want something where I can just flip 'Town A: On' on and it'll add those items from Town A to the shop in your town). I'm hoping between the recruiting and the shop mechanic, I can make town's worthwhile to investigate even if they don't really have much of a role as far as the main plot is concerned.