Maps, how do?

[Arkbennett 16]

Looking for some advice and tips regarding map design.

 

More specifically, I am trying to figure out how I want to pre-plan my maps. Should I draw them out of paper first?

Should I just go with the flow? Any article on solid advice for this? I want my maps to have purpose, each one carefully tailored.

 

[Ardaceus 21]

When making a map, you need to take in to consideration many things. The main thing is the style of the game.

For 3 examples, let's take Ib, To The Moon, Undertale, and Lisa.

Also yes I know, I'm bad at counting.
 

Ib is a psychedelic thriller game with quite a lot of beauty into story and writing.

 

That is an example of one of the maps.

 

What this game does well with mapping is not that it is complex, and I prefer that over complexity.

 

What it lacks in detail, it certainly makes up for in everything else. It uses atmosphere to create emotion, sounds to create tensity, lighting to create the effect of decoration, and certainly the gameplay. The game mostly works as you have to not die, and sometimes it involves running from, or into things that want to kill you, so the ability of easy passage works well as it gives you space to move, time to think on where to run, and it is balanced this way. So the mapping in this game is very great, despite not having a care for walls half the time. One more thing to add is that it really makes that empty art gallery feeling, it really did make me feel as if I was in an art gallery when I played it, as they are usually spacious rooms and hallways with paintings on the walls and statues in the middle of it.

 

 

To The Moon is a fantabulous RPG, it really gave a good example on what mapping should look like in RPG Maker when you take it to the limit. RPG Maker is constantly thought of to be a simple program for amateurs, but when put in the hands of an artist, it can make legends and stories in our minds that will last with us for the rest of our lives.

 

That is probably the most well-known map from this game.

 

In this scene, you can see all the intensive detail, and it's perfect for this game that focuses more on story than any actual gameplay and challenge. It is resource heavy in the lights, the decorations, and the parallax, which were all made to work with one another. Just look at how the map is terraformed. nothing is in reflect with one another, except for the lighthouse, and it creates the feel of a natural setting on a cliff. And the best part is that this isn't parallax mapping! This is tile mapping! This looks like the perfect kind of graphic for the game. As to say, you also need to take in mind the other graphics of the game, such as how this game uses Mack sprites, which are more in detail than most other spriting types. So it stands to reason that you’ll use graphics that are really detailed, and mapping techniques that are more random. I’ll go over later on what not to do when mapping, which is the perfect example.

 

 

Undertale is my favourite game of all time, mainly because of its ingenious story and soundtrack.

 

You can really take any single map you’d like, and I’ll always give you the same reply… but this one stands out among the rest, for it’s just so different from the rest of the game.

This manages to completely captivate the player through just the way the room acts. The map uses no music whatsoever, and waits until you finally get judged to release the music on you. Timing and choice of music is an important part of mapping, so don’t choose music that doesn’t fit the time at all, or if it’s better, consider no music at all. Then just look at how this map matches the rest of the game, it keeps that retro style the game has had the whole time, which are in match with what the characters look like.  This has made for some pretty awesome moments, like pretty much every map in Waterfall. Speaking of Waterfall, I like how the map glows all over the place, and the use of darkness as an element in mapping and eventing. If you want to get good at doing this stuff, first figure out how to do it, by figuring out how to play with your graphics to achieve this, or find a script to achieve it. Play around, you won’t get good from hearing words as much as if you play with it yourself.

 

 

Finally, Lisa. I’ve only gotten into this game recently, but it’s captivated me pretty quickly.

Mainly what this game does best to captivate me is the lifefull and lifeless maps. It knows when to have people appear, how to appear, and where to appear. Positioning events carefully can add to a lot more to the player’s emotion. Don’t make any map be pointless, have every map have good points to them, whether it be just to talk to a pointless character, a battle filled field, or a stop and gaze at beauty point. Truly, nothing is completely pointless, everything is there for a reason. This game draws that out beautifully, even though you play in a barren wasteland where almost everybody is a pedophile. And going back to graphics, this game focuses more on character animation more than environment animation, which is perfectly fine. What it lacks in environment animation, it makes up in blood, gore, and creepy ass mutants.

 

 

Now what don’t you do?

Pretty much everything in the game below.

Too linear, no detail, basic trees, too much RTP showing, all characters are from the RTP, the music is loud, no pointfull maps, just try not to be that.

 

Tricks I use when mapping, that actually not many people know of or utilize, include:

-Hold shift while auto-tiling to disable it.

-Get a script that plays sound effects on certain tiles, makes it sound like you are walking on certain things… like a wooden bridge.

-Use as much graphics that you made yourself as possible.

-Use the pitch when you are playing music and lower the volume.

-If shadow scripts don’t work for you, make all the damn shadows yourself. And pay heed when placing in walls, they may put in awkward autotiles.

-Use color hues to do the work when adding atmosphere to a map.

-GET A WEATHER SCRIPT!

-GET BGS’s!

-Look around on the internet for inspiration, such as when I didn’t know what to make the main antagonist of my game look like, I searched “Red and black knight†on Google till I found stuff that I liked, and made a character out of it. Which mainly involved a black mask, a horned crown, bright red and black plate armour, and a big damn cape.

-It also works for graphics, when you don’t know what to do for a map. Just either a)Search the kind of map you want, whether it be a canyon or a waterfall, or a place you saw in a dream. B) Play video games for inspiration for maps. Such as Firewatch, it inspires quite frankly into a valley filled with trees and lush colours.

-It doesn’t matter if you have your houses a little smaller than the interior, cause it always feel like that in real life. But don’t make a tent lead into a 2 story house, or a garage into a mini-airship workshop with a huge basement.

-Finally, make nature and dungeons 1 map big. Don’t have the map transition all the time, have it all on one map. I personally don’t like transitions, as they sometimes take away from the players attention, and it makes the place your in feel bigger than it is. I use this in my game, and it feels good to not be restricted while exploring, except for random encounters.

 

 

And to answer your question on how to plan your maps... you can go in blind, or make drawn out maps, but what I find works best is to draw your world map down on a piece of paper, or a large area, like from a city to a cave, with forests and a mountain inbetween, and figure out what directions the player has to go in to get to the cave.

Such as:

Start off with a medium speeded harp and drum soundtrack

You spawn in the City of Lembornoobsberg

Leave through the west gate

Play melodic harp and synth theme

Travel west through a willow filled forest

Drop down north to a swampy area

Play a low Oboe soundtrack

Travel in a question mark shape through the swamp which has a maze built of water

Exit to lower mountain entrance

Play a high flute and bass woodwind soundtrack, with some drums in the middle

Circle the mountain once to get to the dragon cave

Dragon cave has an ominous feeling, with dark and booming music

Dragon cave's caverns are randomly shaped with a drawer

 

Once you are done and got the general idea of what the ground the player can walk on/through, then you add in decorations and detail.

 

If you want an idea of what maps should maybe look like, I could get a screenshot of the maps I've drawn if you like.

 

So yeah.

 

 

That’s my ‘short’ self-approved 5 star guide of the year award guide on how to make maps. Hope it helps.

 

:o) Honk.

 

Plz like flavortie n supscrib!

[Arkbennett 16]

Thank you for the detailed and well though out reply Ardaceus. I will definitely use the advice you so kindly dispensed.

 

Also, I would like to see some of the maps you've drawn, if you could post them at your convenience.

 

Thanks again for your reply!

[Kushito 2]

There's some nice tuts here, bruh http://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com/categories/level-design

[Bob423 52]

Those actually look interesting. They might help me too.

[Yokuto Akiyama 0]

That let's play tho...