Map Showcase and Review Thread

[MattII]

Nor me.

 

[out written]

Hrm, I'll just attach it then instead of trying to embed the images aha.
Anyway, the first island in its updated form:


The second and third islands which I haven't shown before:

(note the third island (far right) is still in progress)

Thoughts so far? :)

 

[xThatOneGuy]

Hrm, I'll just attach it then instead of trying to embed the images aha.
Anyway, the first island in its updated form:
View attachment 79883

The second and third islands which I haven't shown before:
View attachment 79884View attachment 79885
(note the third island (far right) is still in progress)

Thoughts so far? :)

First off all: very nice islands they look really great (although i think with a different tileset theyd be more beautiful, but thats up to you). Theres a few things i found to improve on. First off all you should try to make it so that the player wont be able to see the rocks in the water while he is standing on the land (so that the sea looks infinite). Second off all trees directly next to the water on mikan island are weird without a little beach first. That is just what i think though. Very nice work :)

 

[Inky]

House interior; thoughts?

 

[Rot8er_ConeX]

House interior; thoughts?

I hope the rooms aren't that close together on the actual map. Otherwise, you'll be able to see them in-game through the walls.

That said, the rooms themselves look nice.

 

[Inky]

I hope the rooms aren't that close together on the actual map. Otherwise, you'll be able to see them in-game through the walls.

That said, the rooms themselves look nice.

Yeah, they're just edited to be closer together so the image wasn't huge.

Thanks! Interiors are always my least favourite thing to map.

 

[Planetes.]

House interior; thoughts?

Nice map. It might be worth adding some sort of object [stack of books, pokedoll, globe, etc] next to the PC in the player's room to make the desk look less bland. I think you could go with a better selection of tiles for chairs and the trash can in the house's living room. The way the chairs have the back portion [the part on which the body would rest] look awkward and lacking in depth. It'd probably just be better to use cushions like the Pokemon series often has done; they lend themselves to working well with the style of NPC overworlds that the games use. The trash can tile looks a bit awkward as well, the shading/pixels directly above the white 'trash' are too dark and contrast with it too much, and the top-heavy shape doesn't seem to work well with your tileset, where most of the tiles have clean shading and simple shapes.

 

[Inky]

Nice map. It might be worth adding some sort of object [stack of books, pokedoll, globe, etc] next to the PC in the player's room to make the desk look less bland. I think you could go with a better selection of tiles for chairs and the trash can in the house's living room. The way the chairs have the back portion [the part on which the body would rest] look awkward and lacking in depth. It'd probably just be better to use cushions like the Pokemon series often has done; they lend themselves to working well with the style of NPC overworlds that the games use. The trash can tile looks a bit awkward as well, the shading/pixels directly above the white 'trash' are too dark and contrast with it too much, and the top-heavy shape doesn't seem to work well with your tileset, where most of the tiles have clean shading and simple shapes.

Thanks for the feedback man! Appreciate it.

I made some changes in the areas you specified; does it look better now?

 

[Planetes.]

Thanks for the feedback man! Appreciate it.

I made some changes in the areas you specified; does it look better now?

Absolutely. One final thing worth mentioning is that it might be a good idea to move the plant in front of the bed [in the far right screen] one tile down. It'd probably look better that way, as it looks strange to have a plant blocking what would be the entrance to the bed [even if the characters can't actually enter it]

 

[MattII]

Thanks for the feedback man! Appreciate it.

I made some changes in the areas you specified; does it look better now?

On the bottom floor the staircase is on the left, but in the top floor it's on the right, which IMO makes it look weird.

 

[Inky]

Absolutely. One final thing worth mentioning is that it might be a good idea to move the plant in front of the bed [in the far right screen] one tile down. It'd probably look better that way, as it looks strange to have a plant blocking what would be the entrance to the bed [even if the characters can't actually enter it]

On the bottom floor the staircase is on the left, but in the top floor it's on the right, which IMO makes it look weird.

Thanks again for the feedback; made some minor alterations. Totally missed the stairs.

- - - - -


Here's another map I've been working on, which is the starting town. I've posted various versions of this before, but I've changed up the tiles - most notably the houses, which now are a much better size in comparison to the character sprites, and I also changed the tree height to match this change. One thing I also tried to do is make the map look less 'busy' - less details on the ground and such, so it looks more simple, like the main series games. Does it look to sparse? Any feedback would be appreciated. :)

 

[Planetes.]

Thanks again for the feedback; made some minor alterations. Totally missed the stairs.

- - - - -


Here's another map I've been working on, which is the starting town. I've posted various versions of this before, but I've changed up the tiles - most notably the houses, which now are a much better size in comparison to the character sprites, and I also changed the tree height to match this change. One thing I also tried to do is make the map look less 'busy' - less details on the ground and such, so it looks more simple, like the main series games. Does it look to sparse? Any feedback would be appreciated. :)

I don't think it's a bad map per se, but it definitely could be perceived as 'sparse'. You've also got 5 houses in that tiny area, making the map feel a bit cramped, most 'starter towns' have 3-4 houses, and even then they have a bit of space and details such as a pond or fences/flowers. It's also a bit strange that you have 3 different house models and mailboxes for every house; the main series games usually only use 2 models [player/rival houses and townhouses] in their starting towns, with the latter not having any mailboxes. I think it's perfectly fine to go ahead with this map, although perhaps you could add space for a pond or something next to the house on the far right, to add some atmosphere and make it feel a bit more spacious. The path leading out of the town could potentially be fixed up as well; it's sitting directly next to the left row of trees, whereas most towns [and I believe all starting towns] have their outgoing paths sitting symmetrically between the two rows of trees. Even if you don't want to adhere to the game's style directly, I'd say the outgoing path looks slightly awkward as it exists now because of the lack of symmetry.

 

[Inky]

I don't think it's a bad map per se, but it definitely could be perceived as 'sparse'. You've also got 5 houses in that tiny area, making the map feel a bit cramped, most 'starter towns' have 3-4 houses, and even then they have a bit of space and details such as a pond or fences/flowers. It's also a bit strange that you have 3 different house models and mailboxes for every house; the main series games usually only use 2 models [player/rival houses and townhouses] in their starting towns, with the latter not having any mailboxes. I think it's perfectly fine to go ahead with this map, although perhaps you could add space for a pond or something next to the house on the far right, to add some atmosphere and make it feel a bit more spacious. The path leading out of the town could potentially be fixed up as well; it's sitting directly next to the left row of trees, whereas most towns [and I believe all starting towns] have their outgoing paths sitting symmetrically between the two rows of trees. Even if you don't want to adhere to the game's style directly, I'd say the outgoing path looks slightly awkward as it exists now because of the lack of symmetry.

Some really helpful points here, thanks. Honestly it's a map I've never been 100% happy with layout-wise. I've made some pretty major alterations to it - different layout, one fewer house, only two mailboxes, and an overall tighter-feel. I honestly prefer it to what I had before, but any thoughts would be appreciated. I toyed with having a pond but ultimately it felt unnecessary.

 

[Planetes.]

Some really helpful points here, thanks. Honestly it's a map I've never been 100% happy with layout-wise. I've made some pretty major alterations to it - different layout, one fewer house, only two mailboxes, and an overall tighter-feel. I honestly prefer it to what I had before, but any thoughts would be appreciated. I toyed with having a pond but ultimately it felt unnecessary.

Looks solid; I'd say it's definitely an improvement on the previous map. Only things I would consider changing would be to alter the ivy/shrub tile next to the small blue house in the bottom left, so that the ivy is the same height as the house [like it is for the other house]. The reed tile in front of the big house to the far right also looks slightly awkward, I feel like the map would look better without it there, maybe it'd make sense if there were more of them on the map, but as things are, it looks sort of out of place.

 

[Inky]

Looks solid; I'd say it's definitely an improvement on the previous map. Only things I would consider changing would be to alter the ivy/shrub tile next to the small blue house in the bottom left, so that the ivy is the same height as the house [like it is for the other house]. The reed tile in front of the big house to the far right also looks slightly awkward, I feel like the map would look better without it there, maybe it'd make sense if there were more of them on the map, but as things are, it looks sort of out of place.

Thanks again for the feedback man; I'm a lot happier with this layout. Made those two minor alterations, going to call it done for now. Was a great help!

 

[Derxwna Kapsyla]

Human Village, from several of my Touhoumon fangames in development (Warning: Large image)

Spoiler:

The first time I made the Human Village, I completely hated its design. There were so many issues with it, but no matter how much I struggled with it, I just could not figure out how out how to redesign it. Recently I got the Mapping Bug again and just.... had an absolute burst of inspiration on how to redesign the map.
The village is supposed to exist in what is akin to Meiji-Period Japan, where things are compacted together. Lots of houses right next to one another- on top of one another, even. However, the old map struggled with making use of remaining space while trying to squeeze in other prominent features; namely, the canal, and some of the important buildings. This map manages to capture the feeling of being slightly more compact, while still retaining all the important stuff featured in the old map. It is slightly rough to navigate, but there's no open space for the player to aimlessly wander in that has no purpose existing.
All in all, I think this map is leagues better than the old one, and more worthy of showing off.
Just uh. Pay no mind to the minor tile errors in the bottom right houses. I fixed those post-render.

 

[juliorain]

Hi all; this the first time I'll submit my maps for critique on the Pokecommunity. I'm going for a nuclear post-apocalyptic world so I hope some of the maps I'm sharing illustrate that!

Spoiler:

The Olympian Forest:

Seabreeze City:

EDIT:

The first time I made the Human Village[/URL], I completely hated its design. There were so many issues with it, but no matter how much I struggled with it, I just could not figure out how out how to redesign it. Recently I got the Mapping Bug again and just.... had an absolute burst of inspiration on how to redesign the map.
The village is supposed to exist in what is akin to Meiji-Period Japan, where things are compacted together. Lots of houses right next to one another- on top of one another, even. However, the old map struggled with making use of remaining space while trying to squeeze in other prominent features; namely, the canal, and some of the important buildings. This map manages to capture the feeling of being slightly more compact, while still retaining all the important stuff featured in the old map. It is slightly rough to navigate, but there's no open space for the player to aimlessly wander in that has no purpose existing.
All in all, I think this map is leagues better than the old one, and more worthy of showing off.
Just uh. Pay no mind to the minor tile errors in the bottom right houses. I fixed those post-render.

I think you should simplfy your design to have one principal canal with smaller ones branching off from it. Right now its a web of confusion and I wouldn't know how to navigate that area.

 

[MattII]

Hi all; this the first time I'll submit my maps for critique on the Pokecommunity. I'm going for a nuclear post-apocalyptic world so I hope some of the maps I'm sharing illustrate that!

Spoiler:

The Olympian Forest:

Seabreeze City:

Can't see either of them.

 

[Vendily]

Hi all; this the first time I'll submit my maps for critique on the Pokecommunity. I'm going for a nuclear post-apocalyptic world so I hope some of the maps I'm sharing illustrate that!

Spoiler:

The Olympian Forest:

Seabreeze City:

EDIT:

I think you should simplfy your design to have one principal canal with smaller ones branching off from it. Right now its a web of confusion and I wouldn't know how to navigate that area.

Can't see either of them.

You embedded the wrong links, you need to use the link from the pop-up from the download button.

Spoiler:

 

[juliorain]

Can't see either of them.

You embedded the wrong links, you need to use the link from the pop-up from the download button.

Spoiler:

Oh! whoops! Updated the main file on my devaintart page. Here they are:

Spoiler:

Olympian City:

Seabreeze City:

Olympian Forest: