What better way to spend my time after vacation than to tidy up the map rating thead a bit, eh? Let's see who got left behind...
Map Name: Rough Rock Plateau
Map Game: Aura Shard
Credits: 874521, Kyledove
Mapshot:
This looked very promising before I brought it up to full size. So the idea is good. High rocky plateau in the middle of a forest.. you seem to have nailed that pretty well, especially with the custom buildings and the large rocks scattered all over. There's a few things I'd tweak, though.
Stairs. You tried playing around with the shape of the plateau, which is good, but having those stairs ascend the entire way up in a straight line is not a good idea in my book. Try to avoid putting more than 2 stairs together, or even better just leave it at 1. However, considering the number of levels you have to climb in this map, that would probably be too complicated, so 2 is fine.
Grass. The tall grass, rather. Putting it in cities is generally not a good idea. While the forest area at the very bottom of the map could actually be okay for tall grass (since it's away from the buildings like that), the grass on the bottom right and that random patch in the middle are bad, imo. Save the grass for routes.
Rocks. Most importantly, the small ones on the cliffs. You used them in a different way, which is a nice thing to try with maps, but I'm not sure what purpose it serves here. If you just put them there as decorations, I'd suggest removing them and tweaking the slopes themselves a bit to make it more interesting. You'll have to do that for the stairs anyways. Finally, while the big rocks up top add to the rocky feel nicely, I would suggest moving them around a bit to give more "paths", making it feel more like a town carved out of the plateau, rather than a bunch of houses peppered onto a slab of rock.
Walking Space. Not a huge issue, but you've got some narrow ledges which aren't very good for playability. Also, thinking about it in terms of a real place, people don't want to be walking on a narrow ledge right next to a big cliff. Add some railings OR just extend the ledge a bit and add a few rocks on the side (not a full border) to make it more "safe".
That just about covers it for the big problems. The squareness is nintendo-ey, so that's fine. I'd bug you about flower placement and whatnot, but I think you have enough to work on as is. Just remember that flowers go in clumps. And with that, I'm done. Good job!
Final rating:
7/10
One more, shall we?
This is my first submission!
Base: Punk Rocker and Kyledove's rombase
Map Name: Longshore City
Comments: I've only been mapping for a few weeks and this is one of the better one's (i think) that I have come up with. Be brutal, I want to get better :)
edit: I know the cave looks a bit wierd but I cant figure out how to get the top of it looking right. suggestions?
Map shot:
I know this map got a few.. "ratings".. but really you guys, it's his first submission. He deserves a bit more than just "too square". It's also not really a "nice layout", but hey, that's what this thread is for, eh? Let's see what we can cook up.
Shape. The entire map is two giant squares; one is the city, the other is the beach. Yes, as previously stated, it's too "square", but what exactly can you do to fix that? First, extend the forest. Add more trees to the sides of the town. That will give it more of a shape. Next, tweak the shape of the cliff that borders with the beach. Imagine erosion, if you will, wearing away at that wall. Add a little canyon here and there as if a stream cut through there, a little rocky outcropping here and there, and you already have a much better shape. Finally, bring the water's edge closer to the cliff, and mess around with the shape of the beach. All of this brings me to the next point.
Space. Man, the other raters didn't even touch on this subject. Squareness isn't even the biggest issue of this map. This map is
empty and
huge. There's too many wide open spaces in the town itself, and the beach is much too wide. Once you change the shape of the town and add more stuff, the space issue should be solved there (at the very least, you can put trees in whatever wide open spaces you have left over). However, the beach must be made smaller by at least 2 tiles' width, if not 3 or 4 in some places. Also, some paths in the city are just too wide. Most notably, the lower left and lower right patches of dirt take up too much space (I'll let the top left one slide since I see it acts as a sort of center for the town).
Detail Placement. One of the raters said the map is "too busy". On the contrary, it is ridiculously empty, and only feels busy because small, one-tile details such as rocks, bushes, and flowers were incorrectly used to make up for vast amounts of empty space. This shouldn't be a problem once you add more trees, but know that bushes and rocks cannot fill up space that way. When building a map, these "detail tiles" usually go last, after you have dealt with trees, mountains, paths, and other foundations.
-Optional-
Elevation Changes. The map is really flat, I'll admit. The ledge on the bottom left shouldn't be a substitute for the cliff tiles. I like the other idea of making the cave go "under the city", and that could be made even more interesting if you add another layer or two of cliffs near it. Likewise, the edges of the map could be more interesting with not just trees, but also some hills. The amount of elevation changes you put in your map should depend on the kind of topography you are trying to illustrate in this region of your world (if it is in a hack). If it is mountainous and rocky, then more elevation changes are good. If the land here has gentle slopes and no rough terrain, then don't add more than 2 or 3 different elevation layers in the map.
Seashore Details. Ocean rocks are always nice to add, since they fill up some space in that big blue patch of the map. They also help with borders, which you'd have trouble with if you tried connecting this map to anything else. Some large 2x2 rocks could also be added to the beach, to fill up space, and/or to the ocean. Other ideas to fill up beaches and oceans could include small islands, insertion of palm trees and small shrubs, and a simple downsizing of the map so you have as little ocean/beach space to fill up as possible.
I've written quite a bit here, so you should get an idea of what to do. The town layout itself isn't too bad. Not too square, variation of buildings, plenty of details thrown in, etc. With some more practice, I think you could easily manage to make very interesting maps. I hope my wall of text helped you more than it intimidated you. Walls of text tend to do that sometimes. Good luck!
Final rating:
3/10 ("brutal", as you said, but you know what to do ;p)
