Map Rating/Review Thread

[DuoRyan]

The starter town for Pokemon Horizon sea [may change]

 

[manomow]

I have maps for my hack Pokemon: Distant Johto with all of the beta stuff https://s887.photobucket.com/albums/ac74/manomow1/

 

[Alice]

My First Interior Map

Map Name: Team Aqua Base

Map Game: Emerald

Comments: Made for my hack. One of the floors in Team Aqua's base. (Basically the starting town, except it all takes place in one building.) This is the first time I've EVER done a building interior... so I'm looking for some real, constructive criticism.

 

[Tyrantrum]

Map Name: N/A

Map Game: FireRed

Comments: This is the first map I ever made where I had to scroll around, and I wasn't used to it. I kept forgetting I had to scroll around and missed parts and changed a few things. I guess good maps take time? XD Anyway, I'm quite pleased with this map, except for the tree, grass, and flower placement. I need to work on those...

Map:

Spoiler:

omg, perfect quality. :D thank you, imageshack

 

[Rabbit]

I made these maps yesterday for a Hack I am helping with. I haven't mapped in some years now, so you could say my mapping skill is on a "novice-heading-towards-failure" level. Any tips/comments would be gladly appreciated.

Map Name: Celestic Town
Map Game: Fire Red
Comments: This is basically a FR-Tile Version of Celestic Town. I made it by looking at the screen of my DSi and mapping it on Advance Map bit by bit. I also made my own Blocks, but a few came out with a Black Line which I don't know how to fix o-o It's also missing the little shrine in the Middle ^^;;

Spoiler:

Your map is full of mountain tile/elevation errors. I've circled them in red. Maybe error is the wrong word. What I mean to say is, your use of mountain tiles is inconsistent with Nintendo's. Generally, if you want players to enjoy your maps, you should follow Nintendo's lead.

Basically, elevation works like this: The outer edge of the elevation layer has to form an unbroken shape. Here's a good example. See how you can trace the edge of each elevation level from one side of the map to the other? In your map, elevation levels tend to disappear or get cut off by other elevation levels. If the PC and left-side building weren't there, some would disappear into grass tiles.

There's another issue that's related to this one - you have to have stairs or mountain tiles in between elevation levels. No exceptions. You can't say, "There's an invisible slope there!" the way you do in the middle of this map en route to the cave. You wouldn't have this issue if your elevation levels were done right. Then again, you also wouldn't be able to reach the cave, since FR/LG tiles don't have the right stairs for it. You'll have to put the path to the crater on the same side as the cave entrance.

On the left and right, I've circled spots in blue. I call these things canyons. It's just an aesthetic thing, but I think it looks a lot better if you fill them in. Otherwise, your solid mountain may end up looking like several rectangular slabs of rock. Mount Moon is the classic example. Boy, do I hate that map.

The black lines on the tiles you mentioned may be a block editing issue. Pokemon tiles have two layers: background and foreground. Your tile needs three: grass, mountain, and PC. So the grass layer gets tossed out. You have to merge the PC and mountain tiles into one layer somehow. Dunno how. There are also two tile errors in the paths.

So much for the errors. Aesthetics, now. The edge of the town is too rectangular. The paths are likewise too rectangular, and they form patches rather than paths. Because there are no streets, the town doesn't feel much like a town. Maybe a monastery. None of the blue houses have windows. Flower placement is okay in the crater, but the trees seem to be scattered around quite randomly. The cave in the middle is intriguing. It could pull the whole town, if done right.

Is this town meant to be in a canyon? If so, you might want to add another layer of mountain onto the outer edge. That would really accentuate the fact that the town is surrounded by high ground.

I have maps for my hack Pokemon: Distant Johto with all of the beta stuff https://s887.photobucket.com/albums/ac74/manomow1/

Noooo. I'm not going there. ): What if it's, like, 100 maps? If you want rates, you ought to post individual maps in the proper format, with credits and all.

Map Name: Team Aqua Base

Map Game: Emerald

Comments: Made for my hack. One of the floors in Team Aqua's base. (Basically the starting town, except it all takes place in one building.) This is the first time I've EVER done a building interior... so I'm looking for some real, constructive criticism.

Heh...well, since you're using the tiles from Team Aqua's base, it looks a lot like...Team Aqua's base. And it looks okay. The mountains are a little confusing. Are they meant to be a reminder that the base is in a cave? If so, it's a brilliant idea, but you need more mountain to pull it off. Right now it doesn't look like the mountain belongs there. It's just dropping by the hideout to say hello.

As for the base itself, it looks pretty much like what I remember of Team Aqua's base. Consistently Nintendo-style. Nothing too out of the ordinary. I have just one comment. The corridor in the middle, with the model of a boal at the top, seems a little big to be a corridor, but it's too open to be a room. So I'm not really sure what it is. More to the point, what purpose does this floor serve? (I bet Nintendo never bothered with 'purpose'...they just filled up maps with colourful tiles. =P)

 

[Alice]

Heh...well, since you're using the tiles from Team Aqua's base, it looks a lot like...Team Aqua's base. And it looks okay. The mountains are a little confusing. Are they meant to be a reminder that the base is in a cave? If so, it's a brilliant idea, but you need more mountain to pull it off. Right now it doesn't look like the mountain belongs there. It's just dropping by the hideout to say hello.

As for the base itself, it looks pretty much like what I remember of Team Aqua's base. Consistently Nintendo-style. Nothing too out of the ordinary. I have just one comment. The corridor in the middle, with the model of a boal at the top, seems a little big to be a corridor, but it's too open to be a room. So I'm not really sure what it is. More to the point, what purpose does this floor serve? (I bet Nintendo never bothered with 'purpose'...they just filled up maps with colourful tiles. =P)

It's the basement floor, hence the cliffs. In this hack, you're actually a part of team aqua, so there's just a bunch of other team aqua members down there that say different things to direct you to the water, where you get on a submarine, and go to the ice caves. (See hack thread to find out wth I'm talking about. lol) https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=221031

Oh, and the base is actually still being built specifically for this operation, so you could just say that they're still carving out the walls on that end of the floor, or something like that.

 

[Blaziquaza]

....Yeah. Sorry 'bout the .jpg guys. Anyway...
Name: Stardust City
Hack: Fury of Shadows
Comments:
The second town/city in my game. The opening at the bottom leads to Stardust Beach, while the stairs leads to Mt. Stardust and Breaker Cave. (See the reference?) The gym uses Ground and Water Pokemon. There's no grass so... Yeah.

 

[Disturbed]

Map Name: N/A

Map Game: FireRed

Comments: This is the first map I ever made where I had to scroll around, and I wasn't used to it. I kept forgetting I had to scroll around and missed parts and changed a few things. I guess good maps take time? XD Anyway, I'm quite pleased with this map, except for the tree, grass, and flower placement. I need to work on those...

Map:

Spoiler:

omg, perfect quality. :D thank you, imageshack

The 2 things that bug me about this map are how you can walk on the mountain top... I would recommend changing that "mountain" tile to maybe dirt, or grass, and such. Also, bunch up the flowers, and add a bit more vegetation! Aside from some sloppy block edits, and tree shading errors, a few tile errors which I notice (mainly hidden in the mountains), and the two things mentioned above, I really like this map!
Nice job

 

[Chaos190]

New map made by me
Name:Huin Villa
credit to:875421,zeikaro from deviantart and weslyfg

Horrible Horrible tile error! Everything else is pretty good.
Place more bushes and flowers more but just a little
7.5

 

[Ninja Caterpie]

Horrible Horrible tile error! Everything else is pretty good.
Place more bushes and flowers more but just a little
7.5

You know, you might want to point out where it is? That's almost as bad as saying "this map sucks" without giving an explanation.

Anyway, I have a map myself.

Springbud Town. Basically, your starting town sans the lab (ie. like Twinleaf)

Spoiler:

Ignore the fact that I haven't block-edited the trees at the bottom. I only realised that AFTER I posted. ^_^'

 

[Chaos190]

You know, you might want to point out where it is? That's almost as bad as saying "this map sucks" without giving an explanation.

Anyway, I have a map myself.

Springbud Town. Basically, your starting town sans the lab (ie. like Twinleaf)

Spoiler:

Ignore the fact that I haven't block-edited the trees at the bottom. I only realised that AFTER I posted. ^_^'

Found an error It's in black

 

[Ninja Caterpie]

Found an error It's in black

Ignore the fact that I haven't block-edited the trees at the bottom. I only realised that AFTER I posted. ^_^'

...I'm sorry, but did you even read? o.o

 

[Chaos190]

...I'm sorry, but did you even read? o.o

ya.....
Well I liked the map it was really good.
The flower placement was good.
Something you should place is a pathway makes it look better IMO
9.5/10

 

[Fujitsu]

I just have a couple more maps that I'd like honest opinions on. Please be brutally honest. I don't want any "OMG I think your map is good" comments.

Caution: Some of these maps are somewhat large.

Spoiler:

Map Name: Route 12
Game Name: FireRed
Comments: The small island is part of a sidequest. Don't think too much about it.

Spoiler:

Map Name: Perseus Town
Game Name: FireRed
Comments: Some empty unaccessible parts of the map are for events

Spoiler:

Map Name: Prometheus Cave
Game Name: FireRed
Comments: I'm looking more to find out if I've used the right tiles around the water here.

Spoiler:

Map Name: Route 14
Game Name: FireRed
Comments: This map links to the right hand side of Perseus Town

Noticed more action in this thread; Looking for some actual thoughts on the maps.

 

[DuoRyan]

Horrible Horrible tile error! Everything else is pretty good.
Place more bushes and flowers more but just a little
7.5

First of all you can't just say horrible tile error,point it out first before you post. Second of all I hate when you have any reason for the error and I think you just rating without looking and caring about how much i put in this map.
so next time show the error, i know there a block error on the lab i didn't get to fix it now i did.
|
v

I fix my map now
Name Hiun villa
Credit to: WeslyFg,Zeikaro from DevianArt,and 875421

 

[DJ. Yabup 99]

Here's a map I made that is in my hack.
Name: Edge Town

Edit: the grass has been updated since this screenshot was taken.

 

[DuoRyan]

Here's a map I made that is in my hack.
Name: Edge Town

Edit: the grass has been updated since this screenshot was taken.

It a good and simple map.But it to small and cramp so try to give space and playability and this map will be good.
7/10

 

[Darkerm]

Here's a map I made that is in my hack.
Name: Edge Town

Edit: the grass has been updated since this screenshot was taken.

well your map is not bad also not very good. Why did you use wild grass in village\Town? also the mart and pc are very near to the trees. Use some flower, house or mart or pc should not be very near to each other. Use sand, grass or brick path to make the map better. Here is my rating 2.5 out of 10. Good luck.

 

[krillian]

@Fujitsu your cave map is really good there is one tile error I found in the top line of your map towards the left, but the [player] won't be ablr to see it but there is nothing there that makes me go 10/10 so I will give it 9.99999999999999999999/10

 

[Vrai]

First of all you can't just say horrible tile error,point it out first before you post. Second of all I hate when you have any reason for the error and I think you just rating without looking and caring about how much i put in this map.
so next time show the error, i know there a block error on the lab i didn't get to fix it now i did.
|
v

I fix my map now
Name Hiun villa
Credit to: WeslyFg,Zeikaro from DevianArt,and 875421

This map reminds me a lot of Sienna's starting town. :/

There are a few tile errors and the path completely dominates the map. Try giving the player some space to go somewhere that isn't directed to with the path; like that second branch from the right? Pointless.

Use a different grass tile throughout the map so it doesn't look monotonous. Flower placement /always/ has those stupid hedges in between them. Try cutting out some of the path and putting some flowers without hedges. I mean a couple is fine, but when every single flower is next to one it looks pretty bad. :/

I'm not fond of the tiles, especially when used in conjunction with the original tiles. If you're going to change some, change most of them. :/

Noticed more action in this thread; Looking for some actual thoughts on the maps.

The first map is not bad, but I don't like the grass on the mountain. I really feel like you're just trying to fill up space; rows of trees surprisingly do not look bad. At least, not as bad as spontaneous trees with random placements of grass and flowers. And it takes less time to map. Hooray! \o/

I don't know why but I also don't like the lower part of the path with the two ledges. It seems awkward with the two ledges that feel surreal, like they shouldn't be there. Try extending the ledges to the sides of the mountain. That should make them feel more "real" and less random than they do now, and if you place your grass right you can get it so they're still forced to walk through grass, while also avoiding it on the way down.

The one-way path to the house is nice. I like it.

Map two: again, I don't like the way you place the trees and such on your mountains. It's so incredibly moreso time-consuming than placing them in rows, and rows look so much more prettier. I get the feeling that I'll be repeating this throughout my rate, so you can assume it for the next two maps probably. ~_~

I think you could do with some block editing behind the buildings. If you put trees behind them, they'll actually look like they belong and not kind of stand out in the middle of nowhere. Beach shape isn't too bad, although you could steal some beach-y tiles from RSE to make it prettier.

You fixed it in a few places but one grass tile still dominates the map, really. When I make a new map from scratch, I create about an 8x8 square of thoroughly mixed grasses and then utilize the CTRL + right-click function (gross block something) to c/p all of the tiles all over the map. From there, you don't have to worry about the grass tiles.

Like I said to someone else before, you could do with some path removal so the player has some room to explore that isn't plotted out by the path. It could be used particularly in the parts that aren't near a building. Otherwise, I can't really think of much else on this one.

Oh, a cave map. I haven't rated one yet so I'm unsure of what to say besides that the mountains and stuff look decent. :>

Number four; to be completely honest, this is my favorite map out of all of yours. It works really well, and I think you worked the beach into the bend wonderfully. I'm still not a fan of those "grass-on-mountain" things, but the overall map is really nice. You could probably move the larger mountain on the beach down a tile so that you can prevent one-tile walkways that everyone whines about for playability. But aside from that and the trees, I see very little wrong.

One last comment about your tree mapping; Nintendo's FR trees, as you can probably tell, weren't made for that kind of mapping. Have you noticed how hard it is to tree shade? You might want to look into finding a similar tree without shadows if you're really dependent upon keeping your tree mapping that way.

Here's a map I made that is in my hack.
Name: Edge Town

Edit: the grass has been updated since this screenshot was taken.

At first glance I was like, "hey, this isn't too bad!"

And then I looked again.

Tell me; are most important buildings in your irl town facing away from any entrances and have such narrow walkways to get into that you might trip over a tree? Have you ever seen a PC or Mart in a real Pokemon game so close to the edge of any map?

I thought about why you would have both a PC and a Mart in such a small town in the first place, but then I remembered Oldale Town. Regardless, the map still feels too small to have both a PC and a Mart. I suggest sliding the PC up to where those houses are and moving a house down and cutting the Mart.

"The grass has been updated" means you've removed the wild grass, right? If not, you should. The gatehouse looks buried in the trees. Try, uh, backing them down one tile. :/ Those grass tiles look like recolored FR tiles so I'm going to say that you should use different tiles throughout your map. Also, I think your house tiles are gross. :/

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE TELL ME HOW I'M SUPPOSED TO READ A SIGN THAT'S FACING A TREE

Why is there a sign in someone's back yard? ...better yet, why does he have a back yard? :/

Also: all of you should note that the smilie I used the most was ":/". :/