Help Thread: Map Rating/Review Thread

[DrFuji]

Map Name: Carol Road
Map Game: Pokémon: FireRed Version
Mapshot:

Spoiler:

Comments: THIS IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE A NATURAL MAP. I map in the Game Freak style and always will, so there's no point trying to make me criss-cross my trees and randomly place my tall grass. Thank you. :3

u need 2 b moar natureal brah.

Review: I can see why this map tied for second in the Map-Off. It is very easy on the eyes and generally has good playability throughout it all. There is a single grass tile between the bottom-left mountain and the the forest to the upper right of it. It isn't a gigantic problem, but I think that it could have been dealt with better. On a more aesthetic note, I'm not a big fan of the top sandy path, changing halfway from two tiles in width to three - If you're going to have a long path it might as well have a somewhat consistent width.

This is a delightful map none the less and was a deserving entrant to the contest :D

Suggestions: Get rid of that one-tile path and make the sandy path more consistent.

------- (-o-) -------​

Might as well get my entry done as well :P

Map Name: Novus Town
Map Game: Fire Red
Credits: Alucus, Alistair, Kyledove, PrinceLegendario, Trifindo, Light-PA, Kizemaru-Kurunosuke and Lu-Ho (Advance Map)
Comments: This was made for the New Years mapping contest and features a small town getting ready to celebrate. There is a party section in the north, while a dock can be found in the south which will take people on a midnight cruise or something like that.

Spoiler:

Sorry for the .jpg file ;___;

 

[Ninja Caterpie]

Might as well get my entry done as well :P

Map Name: Novus Town
Map Game: Fire Red
Credits: Alucus, Alistair, Kyledove, PrinceLegendario, Trifindo, Light-PA, Kizemaru-Kurunosuke and Lu-Ho (Advance Map)
Comments: This was made for the New Years mapping contest and features a small town getting ready to celebrate. There is a party section in the north, while a dock can be found in the south which will take people on a midnight cruise or something like that.

Spoiler:

Sorry for the .jpg file ;___;

What I don't understand is how this didn't come first in the map-off. o_o Looking at the scores, it just seems the map has a little something missing, but I just can't tell what it is ._.

The shape of the map is nice, and there's nothing wrong with the playability or theme of it in general, but... The land shape feels a bit...narrow. The town is a bit small and feels like just a rectangle of path. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it feels a bit weird to me. Thing is, you can't really change it without completely remaking the town. Just a point, I guess.

Now for my map-off entry. :D

Map Name: N/A
Map Game: Fire Red
Credits: Thrace, Neti, Fangking Omega
Mapshot:

Spoiler:

'

Don't really think too much about the difficulty level of the ice puzzle, because it's not meant to be difficult haha. The caves connect to each other with an ice puzzle and a few items in between, I suppose.

 

[Zeffy]

What I don't understand is how this didn't come first in the map-off. o_o Looking at the scores, it just seems the map has a little something missing, but I just can't tell what it is ._.

The shape of the map is nice, and there's nothing wrong with the playability or theme of it in general, but... The land shape feels a bit...narrow. The town is a bit small and feels like just a rectangle of path. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it feels a bit weird to me. Thing is, you can't really change it without completely remaking the town. Just a point, I guess.

Now for my map-off entry. :D

Map Name: N/A
Map Game: Fire Red
Credits: Thrace, Neti, Fangking Omega
Mapshot:

Spoiler:

'

Don't really think too much about the difficulty level of the ice puzzle, because it's not meant to be difficult haha. The caves connect to each other with an ice puzzle and a few items in between, I suppose.

This is what I said about this map during judging:
Rating: 9/10
Reason: The map has a real wintery feeling into it. When I look at the other maps with winter tiles, its just like looking at a picture, but this one has something very different. It also has that natural feeling, and the tile placement, or tree placement, is really very natural in my opinion. The mountains to the houses--they're all great. That lone small tree ruins the map, though. That's the only thing itching me.

 

[Johto_legend]

Now for my map-off entry. :D

Map Name: N/A
Map Game: Fire Red
Credits: Thrace, Neti, Fangking Omega
Mapshot:

Spoiler:

'

Don't really think too much about the difficulty level of the ice puzzle, because it's not meant to be difficult haha. The caves connect to each other with an ice puzzle and a few items in between, I suppose.

Rating:9/10
Reason: everything just seems right. i dont see any errors and your choice of tiles and placement work well in the map. ive never been really fond of the snow-on-building thing, but this map seems to take me away form that thought. nice job!

____________________________________________________________

My Turn!

Map Name: Route 3

Map Game: Pokemon Peridot(temp.), Firered Base

Comments: first mountain route, feel pretty good about it but know it needs work. the entrance is the bottom and there are two exits, at the very top to the first gym, and near the top on the right to route 4. the reason there is so much space in at the top is because theres an event where people evacuated the first gym city and are all in that open space.

Mapshot:
(see attachment if needed)

Spoiler:

 

[Try4se]

Map Name: Novus Town
Map Game: Fire Red

Spoiler:

I rate it 9/10.
It is a very nice scene, but I feel it may be too empty, and if an event isn't in it, then people will just pass by and ignore it all together.

-------
Now for me :D

I am making a zelda/pokemon hack.
Map Name: Goron Village
Map Game: Sapphire

Spoiler:

 

[Purple Materia]

Looks very nice, even though there's nothing really complex going on. 8/10

Spoiler:

Map Name: N/A
Game: FireRed

It's supposed to be a starting town. I don't really know what the bit behind the Professor's house is supposed to be yet, though.

 

[Rayce]

Looks very nice, even though there's nothing really complex going on. 8/10

Spoiler:

Map Name: N/A
Game: FireRed

It's supposed to be a starting town. I don't really know what the bit behind the Professor's house is supposed to be yet, though.

Okay I grade like a Russian judge so don't feel bad about anything I say; It's strictly constructive criticism

-The map is quite a bit bigger than necessary, the starting town is usually the smallest town in the entire game.
-The trees behind the the two houses to the right come up unnaturally like someone was attempting to cut a awkward V into them.
-Above the town there are some trees that stop abruptly in a straight line...?
-You can go around the trees in the top right corner to what seems to be a game border, usually you won't want anyone to go to the game border really, but it's not a huge problem.

Overall rating 6/10
That might seem a little low but the map needs a little work. With a few adjustments it would be a nice map

 

[altariaking]

Looks very nice, even though there's nothing really complex going on. 8/10

Spoiler:

Map Name: N/A
Game: FireRed

It's supposed to be a starting town. I don't really know what the bit behind the Professor's house is supposed to be yet, though.

Paths are way too thin. Make them something like three or four tiles wide, not one. Also, it's incredibly empty, and wild grass like that in a town is a bad idea. Also you need to give credit to Dew for the water (which, btw, is too square and that rock in it is completely pointless).
2/10

Here's mine:
Map Name: Ivy City
Map Game: Pokemon Iron and Stone
Credits: First post of hack thread
Comments: The third Town/City you visit. There is a gym to the south-west of the town, and to the north there is the Triaso Museum of History. Professor Ivy also lives in this town, next to the museum.
Map:

Spoiler:

 

[Alice]

The main issue with this map is just the lack of space. There are a few spots with only one tile of walking space, and some of them are diagonal, making it even worse. Even 2 tiles isn't enough, which is about as big as this map gets. Another thing you may want to change is the grass placement. You literally have the bottom half of the map covered with grass, and the top half of the map is empty. Try splitting it up into 2 or 3 groups instead.

-----
Map Name: No name, as always.

Map Game: Made in Emerald. Not made for any hacks.

Comments: So, this map is supposed to be a first route. Basically, you if you follow the path, you'll end up at that big wall of rock smash rocks (It's supposed to be a landslide. lol), and have to turn around. Odds are, you're going to try the path that you haven't taken yet, so you'll end up at that cave. On the other side is a town, where you'll get Rock Smash.

I wanted to include some tree or bush secret bases, but I just couldn't get them to look good, so I left it out. I'm quite happy with this map though (for once).

Mapshot:

Spoiler:

Mind if I repost this?

K thx.

 

[Ninja Caterpie]

Here's mine:
Map Name: Ivy City
Map Game: Pokemon Iron and Stone
Credits: First post of hack thread
Comments: The third Town/City you visit. There is a gym to the south-west of the town, and to the north there is the Triaso Museum of History. Professor Ivy also lives in this town, next to the museum.
Map:

Spoiler:

I like this map. :) The shape is nice, the layering done well (with some nintendo-esque secret bit things). The paths though, imo, should be more regular in size (as they are paths, not just patches of sand or different grass). Instead of changing the size of the path for the map, leave the size as a regular thing (2 or 3 tiles, preferably?). Also, that secret thing is far from secret. The pool is too small and you can see all the "secret" area from the ledge next to it. :\ Make the pool and/or secret area bigger so you can't see if there's anything in it, at least.

Now for my maps:

Map Name: Rantel-Vinar Border
Credits: Intelligent Systems
Comments: Start at the bottom, fight your way up to seize the castle at the top. Simple stuff.
Mapshot:

Spoiler:

Map Name: Vinar Castle (and surrounding area)
Credits: Intelligent Systems
Comments: Nothing much. You come out of castle with a small band of dudes, bandits take over village and villagers ask you for help. Take out all the bandits, good game.
Mapshot:

Spoiler:

Map Name: N/A
Credits: Intelligent Systems
Comments: You come from the south-west portion of the map, where there's a group of guys needing your help on the ledge above because of, once again, bandits.
Mapshot:

Spoiler:

 

[Purple Materia]

Mind if I repost this?

K thx.

The map looks really detailed, like you spent a long time on it. But then again, it looks a little too detailed. I like the mixture of little and big trees, personally.

 

[Binary]

Map Name: No name, as always.

Map Game: Made in Emerald. Not made for any hacks.

Comments: So, this map is supposed to be a first route. Basically, you if you follow the path, you'll end up at that big wall of rock smash rocks (It's supposed to be a landslide. lol), and have to turn around. Odds are, you're going to try the path that you haven't taken yet, so you'll end up at that cave. On the other side is a town, where you'll get Rock Smash.

I wanted to include some tree or bush secret bases, but I just couldn't get them to look good, so I left it out. I'm quite happy with this map though (for once).

Mapshot:

Spoiler:

The first thing I notice is the tree placement. It's pretty inconsistent, which suites the default R/S/E tiles you're using. It looks pretty natural too. But then again, I feel that in some places you should've just placed a particular tree in like ..patches. And I notice the placement of the flowers, which I like. Next, the shape of the mountains and their placement. I like these kind of rocky and mountainous landscapes. The mountain placement, however, I feel are aligned, sort of parallel. I feel you could've diversified their placement, a little, mostly near the bottom portion of the map. I like the way you've used the paths, and the boulders which block certain areas. The grass placement is good. I like grass placed in patches like in your map ..so yeah XD; I think you could've maybe used a few ledges. This is just my viewpoint.

Overall, a very nice map. 8/10

 

[Tenn Tenki]

Map Name: Blue Beach

Map Game: Pokemon Azure (FireRed ROM base)

Comments: This is the Hero's home town in my first hack Pokemon Azure. The house that has a fence around it is the main characters house. The body of water in the back is the pool. The small house next to the Prof lab is the Prof and rival's house. I'm not sure if I should keep the Pokemon Center or not. Please give me suggestions to improve my mapping. Just don't kill me.

Mapshot:

 

[adhdguitar]

Here's mine:
Map Name: Ivy City
Map Game: Pokemon Iron and Stone
Credits: First post of hack thread
Comments: The third Town/City you visit. There is a gym to the south-west of the town, and to the north there is the Triaso Museum of History. Professor Ivy also lives in this town, next to the museum.
Map:

Spoiler:

Very nice, the map is put together beautifully. The only problem I can see is that the placing of the water seems a little random, but even that is a very minor detail. Also, the houses are more clumped together than in towns in the actual games, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Overall:9.5/10

My Map:

Spoiler:

Map Name: Shinyleaf Town
Game: FireRed(Hack unnamed at the moment)
Comments: I am aware that this map is quite bland, so any suggestions to make it better would be appreciated.
Mapshot: See attachment 1.

Map Name: Flowery Field
Game: FireRed(Hack unnamed at the moment)
Comments: The first route in the game. Directly north of the above map.
Mapshot: See attachment 2.

 

[PKMN Trainer Alison]

@Adhguitar
Your map has a lot of space, the only way I can see to fix it, is by making the map smaller or
adding houses/more trees/flowers. There is a few tile errors but overall, its an okay map.
Rating: 7.5/10


Map Name: Unsure, Thinking Dawn town but it's been done before.
Game: Firered
Comments: My shading on the trees, I know I got a lot of tile errors. I only noticed them when I started taking the screen shot, they'll be fixed though. Also: the town is the starter town.
Mapshot:

Spoiler:

 

[Andrew McKenzie]

@PKMN TRAINER Alison:

Rated Map: "Dawn Town"(Map above this post)

Rating: 8/10

Reason: The layout seems well planned out.
It's not perfect but it's not the usual square shape starter towns usually tend to be.
I'll post in the suggestions below what is bugging me a bit about it.

Suggestions: First of all. There seems to be too much wide open space below
the lab and the house in the corner and around the houses in the middle.
A few trees could occupy a bit of this space to make it seem more cosy and less empty.
My second gripe with it is that the flowers seem really out of place.
I'm not sure what it is but maybe because it just seems all too arranged.
4 flowers in the middle and 4 in the corner, just seems like they were just thrown there.


Now it's my turn!

Map Name: Garden District (Starter Town) (Connected to a bigger town map below it, which is not made yet)

Map Game: Pokemon FireRed (Punk Rocker Rombase used)

Comments: It has a quaint feel to it. Not something most people would go for, I think.
Just nice and peaceful with a controversial patch of grass in the left, blocked off by a
CUT tree of course to prevent any New Game breaking errors, which leads onto another route.
And a cave up top that is being guarded/blocked until you have a certain badge.
I'm thinking maybe that I should put in a few puddles of water and maybe a small pond.

Mapshot:

Spoiler:

 

[Legendary Silke]

Rated Map:

Map Name: Garden District (Starter Town) (Connected to a bigger town map below it, which is not made yet)

Map Game: Pokemon FireRed (Punk Rocker Rombase used)

Comments: It has a quaint feel to it. Not something most people would go for, I think.
Just nice and peaceful with a controversial patch of grass in the left, blocked off by a
CUT tree of course to prevent any New Game breaking errors, which leads onto another route.
And a cave up top that is being guarded/blocked until you have a certain badge.
I'm thinking maybe that I should put in a few puddles of water and maybe a small pond.

Mapshot:

Spoiler:

Rating: 8 out of 10.

Reason: Nice layout, and it is easy to go around. It feels like a starting town. However, the map area is somewhat too large for a starting town. I also noticed tiling errors on the mountains. Especially the upper corner tiles. There are too many small rocks on the mountains - it looks repetitive.

Suggestions: Fix the tiling errors, condense your map, remove unneeded rocks, and it might improve your map!

Now for my maps... I'll be posting two of them. First-timer here!

(NOTE: I don't do natural mapping.)

Map Name: *unnamed* Starting Town

Map Game: Emerald

Comments: Where it all began. Well, more like, for a new Trainer. This'll be the starting town. The patch of land in the other side of the pond holds an hidden item. The lab is there for obvious reasons. (I might want to make actual maps for the lab and houses... or maybe I'll just reuse Littleroot Town's.) I wonder if I made the houses a bit too wide?

Mapshot:

Spoiler:

Map Name: Route 1

Map Game: Emerald

Comments: A straightforward path to the next town. As a route, it has the obligatory grass patches. A few ledges here and there are for an easier return trip.

Mapshot:

Spoiler:

 

[DrFuji]

Map Name: *unnamed* Starting Town

Map Game: Emerald

Comments: Where it all began. Well, more like, for a new Trainer. This'll be the starting town. The patch of land in the other side of the pond holds an hidden item. The lab is there for obvious reasons. (I might want to make actual maps for the lab and houses... or maybe I'll just reuse Littleroot Town's.) I wonder if I made the houses a bit too wide?

Mapshot:

Spoiler:

Review: This map is very good for a beginning mapper, but there are a few thing that need to be taken into account.

I'd agree with you in thinking that the houses are too wide - They take up far to much space in what is already a small map. The one thing that I find to be really distracting about this map is the flower placement; traditionally if you aren't trying to map 'naturally' the flowers are placed in small diagonal bunches rather than by themselves in the open. Seeing how as you aren't maping 'naturally', I'd advise you to group them up. Also, the entrances to the lab and the right-most house are restictive - You can see this as the player will have to walk down a path which is only one tile wide and can actually be associated with poor mapping. Finally, check out the original R/S/E map to learn how to do the correct tree shadowing.

Don't get me wrong, this map is very good for a first attempt, but there are still some issues that need to be dealt with.

Suggestions: Make the houses smaller, group the flowers in diagonal bunches, remove the one tile paths and study how to do R/S/E tree shadowing.

Map Name: Route 1

Map Game: Emerald

Comments: A straightforward path to the next town. As a route, it has the obligatory grass patches. A few ledges here and there are for an easier return trip.

Mapshot:

Spoiler:

Review: I'd have to say that this map isn't as strong as your other map.

There is absolutely no difficulty in this map whatsoever as the player only has to walk through two patches of grass going right and absolutely none on the way back. Making a return trip easier via ledges is fine, but it isn't worth anything if trip beforehand was also easy. You don't have to make the route hard to go through, but you should make it challenging - Making the player deviate rather than follow a simple line and having them walk through a decent amount of grass are good ways to do this in earlier routes.

The emptiness of the route also quite striking, especially if you have a look at the large bald patch in the centre and left. Filling it up with something (Large trees, small trees, rocks, flowers, mountains, water etc) would make it much more interesting than nothing. Also, there are a few tiles errors: Both ledges have incorrectly placed ending blocks (The highest point on the left ledge and the lowest point on the right ledge), which a tree is missing its top (One of the two trees grouped together on the bottom). Finally, my earlier points about tree shading and flower placement still stand.

Suggestions: Make the route more challenging as there are almost no points where the player is forced to explore the tall grass. Fill up the route with more exciting things rather than leaving it barren. Fix the tile errors.

 

[romancandle]

Rated Map:


Rating: 8 out of 10.

Reason: Nice layout, and it is easy to go around. It feels like a starting town. However, the map area is somewhat too large for a starting town. I also noticed tiling errors on the mountains. Especially the upper corner tiles. There are too many small rocks on the mountains - it looks repetitive.

Suggestions: Fix the tiling errors, condense your map, remove unneeded rocks, and it might improve your map!

Now for my maps... I'll be posting two of them. First-timer here!

(NOTE: I don't do natural mapping.)

Map Name: *unnamed* Starting Town

Map Game: Emerald

Comments: Where it all began. Well, more like, for a new Trainer. This'll be the starting town. The patch of land in the other side of the pond holds an hidden item. The lab is there for obvious reasons. (I might want to make actual maps for the lab and houses... or maybe I'll just reuse Littleroot Town's.) I wonder if I made the houses a bit too wide?

Mapshot:

Spoiler:

Review: Kinda bland, but that is exactly what you would expect from a small town. The pond is a little weirdly shaped, but my only real beef is to increase the space between the bottom two houses and the tree lines. 1-2 tile space to walk through in towns/cities is annoying.

Rating: 4/5

Map Name:

Route 1

Map Game: Emerald

Comments: A straightforward path to the next town. As a route, it has the obligatory grass patches. A few ledges here and there are for an easier return trip.

Mapshot:

Spoiler:

Review: There is just too much free space for this to be a first Route. If you look at all the Route 1s in the actual GBA games, there are several large patches of mandatory grass you have to go through on the your way from the beginning town to the next one.

Rating: 1/5

Now, for my VERY large map.

Map(s) Name: Viridian Forest
Base: FireRed
Hack: Just some fun I have editting FR for my friends
Map: In attachment

Background: I was playing around with expanding the forest to make it more diverse. The large map you see is actually 9 24x24 tile maps posted together (its how I made sure the trees line up). I also took the events from the original forest (because I'm just editting a few things for my friends), so it feels a little barren.

The reason I made it 9 smaller maps instead of one BIG map was to expand the diversity of the forest: A lot of the bug types and some of the other pokemon found on the FR/LG Forest Pokedex were added.

 

[Legendary Silke]

Map(s) Name: Viridian Forest
Base: FireRed
Hack: Just some fun I have editting FR for my friends
Map: In attachment

Background: I was playing around with expanding the forest to make it more diverse. The large map you see is actually 9 24x24 tile maps posted together (its how I made sure the trees line up). I also took the events from the original forest (because I'm just editting a few things for my friends), so it feels a little barren.

The reason I made it 9 smaller maps instead of one BIG map was to expand the diversity of the forest: A lot of the bug types and some of the other pokemon found on the FR/LG Forest Pokedex were added.

Rating: 3/10

Reason: It doesn't look like a forest at all. It looks more like windy paths surrounded by trees and grass. A player doesn't need to go through the grass patches at all to reach the exit - bad for forests! In a forest, it is usually expected for an encounter to pop up.

There's no challenge in navigating the forest. The paths are too clear-cut, and it is too easy to go around.

The gatehouse at the top part of the map is... not symmetrical. Is it intentional? I couldn't tell.

Some of the trees overlap poorly. Take a look at the middle-right part of the map. Notice the strange trees, looking as if they were merged?

The map is too boxy, by the way. The paths are... too... artificial.

Some points for splitting up the map for different encounters.

Suggestions: Replace some of the paths with a lot of grass for the forest feel. Don't use that many straight paths - try to use turns. Fix the tree issues. Try to make the trek through the forest a challenge for the player.

OK, now for my turn! I'll post multiple maps, as usual. Map data and images are in spoiler tags! Why? I am posting 9 maps. Note: All maps will pop out when you click the spoiler tag.

Clear your browser cache - they have the same URL of the old images, but they are new.

Spoiler:

(I don't do natural mapping most of the time. By the way... what should be their names?)

Map Name: *unnamed* Starting Town

Map Game: Emerald

Comments: Everyone has a place to start their journeys, right? What better place than a starting town? The two houses close to each other are your house and your rival's, respectively. The lab is for, well, the usual. The extra house is for a certain otherwise useless NPC that might teach you a thing or two about basic world concepts. (Yes, I'm making a tutorial room. Maybe I should put a sign there...)

Mapshot:

Spoiler:

Map Name: Route 1

Map Game: Emerald

Comments: The first route you'll be going in! As always, I revised this map after seeing your comments. Now that there's challenge, a player might need a Pokémon, no, definitely need a Pokémon to get past even the first grass patch. Seeing as this is the first route, I'm making this semi-straightforward. One still has to go through the grass the first time around, but if you're heading back, the ledges couldbe of help.

Mapshot:

Spoiler:

Map Name: *unnamed* Second Town

Map Game: Emerald

Comments: That generic stop that has multiple paths? Well, this is it. Since the original was so cramped, I decided to increase the vertical height. That gave me space to shuffle around the houses, and to fiddle with tiles and flowers and stuff. Well, not much.

Mapshot:

Spoiler:

Map Name: Route 2

Map Game: Emerald

Comments: This is the second route of my possible ROM hack. Well, guess what? It has Berry patches! This is also the route where Trainer battles will be present. Well... This is yet another grass-filled path, with ledges going back.

Mapshot:

Spoiler:

Map Name: *unnamed* First City

Map Game: Emerald

Comments: A bunch of recycled stuff from Petalburg City. I kinda like these tiles, you know? The mountain is for the next cave, which, by the way, leads to the next route. This is also the town where the first Gym exists. Not much else to say, though.

Mapshot:

Spoiler:

Map Name: *unnamed* First Cave

Map Game: Emerald

Comments: The first cave of the ROM hack. Anyway, well... This cave is probably as straightforward as it can be. It's for story purposes. That small entrance in the inner cave, on the far topleft side is for something special, when you can access Surf. I'm not going to disclose anything more.

Mapshot:

Spoiler:

Map Name: Route 3

Map Game: Emerald

Comments: A breath of fresh air after all the time going through the cave? Sure! Anyway, this route will lead to a currently-unmapped city that's the hub of the region. At first, there are still a lot of grass patches, but the grass patches eventually thin out, and give way to roads. Trainer battles can be found in this map as well - moreso at the upper part. The house is a resthouse - for Pokémon recovery. And to reduce the need to backtrack to the last Pokémon Center.

Mapshot:

Spoiler: