Making a map III

じ☆ve冰风

I have written quite some basic tutorials before, and I really like them, but I also like to step by step show how I’d something in “a real game”, not just as a simplified tutorial version that shows as many things as possible at the same time.
If you haven’t read the other two making a map tutorials I’d recommend doing that, cause there is some “fake lore” that I made up for this region.
That is simply because our maps have a function in the game and are made to underline the lore.
You cannot tell one region is wealthy and the other poor and have them look the same if you want your players to immerse in them




(Result map from making a map II)
So for the lore part for this marked house we are looking at:
This is the house of the mayor, who tries his best to guide the people of the town in this time of need. Since the infamous mine collapse, the economy of this town is in shambles.
Since he comes from a lineage that traces back to Bremmer, the founder of the town and the gem mine, it will likely suit the house to have a few gems in there, as memorial pieces.
As the mayor, his house is likely in a good condition, not overly wealthy, but also not run down or poor.

What people don’t know:
Mayor Bremmer the vIth still has a secret access to the mine and still risks his life to get gems out of the mine to secretly trade and use the funds to help with the upkeep of the town. The miners were too greedy, and the mine collapse was actually caused by an ancient monster that has been sleeping down there for centuries. He has always shied away from sending adventurers down there, since he feared the monster might break free if agitated and destroy Bremmersville.
He also collaborates with the people in the hideout which’s outside I made inmaking a map.

This is probably the most interesting house and lore, but the others in the town will all get just a little backstory to make them unique and interesting:
The inn with the poor keeper trying to keep it up in those difficult times and that one sketchy tenant that has been living there for months.
The house with the people who would rat out the resistance AND open the mine despite the danger if they could - nasty, pretentious people who just want to up their financial and social status at any cost.
The honest worker family who now shifted from mining to farming trying to make it due and support their community as well as they can.
The old miner who will tell you some secrets about the mine that could help you along the way.

As you can see, there is tons of quest potential there and enough lore to make every house different.
You don’t have to spell everything out in game, but it really helps to make “a house for that person” instead of “one of five random houses so players have something to loot and one of them has a secret door maybe”. It will also help you have your NPCs not tell only the same boring one liners all the time.

For everyone who has not checked mentally out yet, let’s start!


At first I start by looking around some threads and resource sites to just gather some resources that I like and that fit what I have in mind.
Candacis MZ tiles helped me a lot for the outside, so for sure I’ll use her windows for inside as well to have in- and outside match.
PandaMaruis still kinda a go to for resources.
NuraRayhas some fun things that I will likely use.
Sadly some of Cyanide’s stuff is down, but she always has some unique and fun things.
I might or might not use some of my own stuff
MVMZ
Aquaalso has super cute stuff.
Aluminium Moon has also some unique pieces for variation.

And all I do is a browse and check what I need and like and use that to build my interior tiles: of course I build it not only for this one house, but I like to “build along” - I create my base tiles and edit and add them along the mapping process if needed. Some things that I know I will need later for sure I’ll already add to the start, but nearly every map asks for just a little extra or tweak


So, for my A2 I just collected some floors that fit the general aesthetic - as usually I do as little editing for these tutorials as possible, so those are all as is from the various authors:



I will likely not need all of them, but I still have plenty of space in case I wanna add more and could of course replaced the ones I don’t end up using later on.
I like to have at least one “stone/tile” floor for kitchens, at least one wood floor for the main areas and carpet to add some variation.
Generally I tried to keep my color scheme and theme without having everything looking the same-y.




I also like to be able to have stone, wood and either plaster and/or wallpaper, but due to the the town being not really wealthy and quite far out, I did not add wallpaper here.
But here I’ll definitly adjust the color of the wood:



Since all my outdoor wook is kinda dark-ish, I don’t want to keep the bright yellowy tone those walls have as of now.



But all that was needed was to copy and paste the wood parts on a separate layer, add my reference on a layer on top and play with the hue, saturation and brightness until it was close enough.
Again, still a lot of empty space in case I need it!

And, let’s have a look at my base for B:



I used these windows outside, but to make them inside, I first add a layer where I fill in all the black windows with the slight off white color the default window uses:



Then I add another layer where I select everything but the white windows and fill that in with the grey from the inside edges of the default window:



Here I will select all again and use a slight gaussian blur:



Here I just used 0,5 radius and also duplicated my resulting layer a few times to make it more opaque.
Then I select everything but the white window parts, delete that and can merge everything:





And so after a bunch of collecting, I have a base I am comfortable with for now:






Some choices will make sense along the way, but also there might be color adjustments (I did very few on the fly) and of course more additions down the line.
Since my set will only be used for those five houses max, I don’t bother organising this time, but if I had a larger town, I’d definitely be more strategic about what to place on which sheet.

But now, onto the actual map(s), right?
I picked 23x18 as map size, and I usually try to go as small as possible, since the smaller the space, the less to fill with stuff.
A lot of maps just look boring because they are giant empty nothingness.



For my ground floor I just planned two rooms. This is the mayor’s house, so I assume he has a large salon/living room to meet people and also a kitchen where he could dine with occasional guests. In his second floor I’ll have a guest room, private office and bedroom and then there is the cellar.
Since my outside map is finished, the shape and the amount of floors basically were already fixed. I also like To stick with simple room shapes that would make sense in real life, too!

I will start with the kitchen, but before I show it and talk about it, here is one of the on the fly changes I had to make pretty early:



As you can see my chairs (by me) and Cynide’s table are not lining up. So I adapted the positions on my sheet to be able to make what I wanted.


So, let me take you through this floor and explain a few things I changed down the line!



As you can see, I shortened the passage and added a little storage room for food related things - since I moved my stairs to one side of the house, I had this extra space.
You can also see that I tried to mirror the window situation we have on the outside of the house:



The chimney also kinda connects to the stove, I would assume the fireplace smoke is also connected to that with a curve or so?

So!

Entering the house we have the two accessible staircases in a passage.



I did not do too much to this space since it has to be walkable, but I added a chest for coats and shoes. If I wanted to add a little more extra to it, some shoes next to the chest could be nice.
Besides that this area is mainly just functional, both in gameplay and for the people living here.




The small storage room is just a little bonus touch, nothing fancy, no decoration, this is just to store everything that isn’t in the kitchen all the time. Extra food and dishes mainly.




The kitchen is the dining room at the same time, we talk about a small town mayor here, not a lord, so it is all good quality but nothing too fancy and not a separate dining room.
I opted for the large stove as a centerpiece and used this fun wash cabinet as a sink. Since the amount of available kitchen tiles over the internet is a bit limited, I try to see where I can get some variation so it doesn’t seem like everybody buys at the same IKEA store ;D
I also liked to add some cooking related details to make the space feel used for cooking and lived in. There is enough space to place an NPC (probably the lady of the house cooking) and walk around, but I also could avoid the empty nothingness - especially thanks to Candacis sideview shelf you can see on the bottom left. Since sideview stuff is a bit rarer, try to see what you can get and include so the maps don’t look too unnatural!




The salon/living room has a large fireplace where the mayor meets guests. It also has some show-off things - a nice chess board to show intellect and play with important guests, a bear head to show strength I guess and some of the black gems from the mine. All of those things could be talking points with him!
There is also a spinning wheel where the lady of the house spins her wool in the winter, a pretty chest, and a lot of books - again, this room is a little to show off.
You can also see that my carpet is rectangular, and I nearly never use the autotile in other shapes. It is added below the sofas for just the right amount of homy-ness.

So, there are two pairs of stairs, right?
Where do they lead?



Up the stairs the house is the same size and shape, but as on the bottom, I tried to place the windows to match the outside situation.
Bonus here is that the stairs also match the downstairs one, and that was kinda the element I planned the floorplan around.
I needed three rooms: a master bedroom, an office, a guest room and had some leftover space for a passage/more storage.
But let’s have a tour!



The office does not only sport a large desk, here are more books and storage for important papers and also another gem from the mine. He also gets a comfy fancy chair to work in and curtains for cozyness.
I added a painting that should resemble the mountain Bremmersville is situated on as a personal decoration.
If I had found something or was making stuff on my own for this, a painting of the founder Bremmer would have been even more fitting!




The space below was a bit leftover, so I used it for extra storage. One can never have too much storage! it also connects the office with the guest room, so they don’t ever enter the private bedroom!




Talking about the guest room, this one is really simple. When Bremmersville was on top of its game, miners who could not get a bed in the inn stayed here or other guests that were invited. It has not been used in a while and due to it mostly being practical, there is not really much to see.
Gameplaywise this could be where the mayor is hiding someone from the resistance or even the party might stay here for a night after the inn closes under mysterious circumstances…




The bedroom sports a large bed, a nice wardrobe and some more storage. Not really something where the player has something to do - maybe they even cannot enter, just see it, but also something that is more fancy than what the other villagers would have.

For the cellar…



There is not really much to see, since here the gems and equipment for the mine would be stored, but given the collapse, the room is sad and nearly empty.

Or… is it?



Mabe by finding a hidden switch, solving a puzzle, getting told the truth by the mayor, there is a chance to open a passage. The glaring hint about it is the floorplan, which is of course surprisingly smaller than the other floors.
The Bremmers always had a secret entrance to the mine, and Mayor Bremmer is using it to try to get some more gems to save his village!

As you can see, this house has many functions: it is basically a hub for information and quests, a possible place to stay for the heroes and a transition zone into a dungeon.
Your typical dungeon crawl or even fetch quest will feel a lot more meaningful if your maps and story are designed with them in mind instead of glueing them on as afterthought and have random locations being sent off to just to do a single thing.

A nearly final note: I did not do further color adjustments, since I did not need them. If you go too much into that direction, your maps can look too monochrome and boring. As long as everything works and nothing looks off, you really don't have to do it.

And finally, here is how your players will see the house! You can also see why my rim around the map is 3 tiles wide, so that the characters aren't at the edge of the screen at most of the time!







Will our heroes be able to help Bremmer VIth? And will he, in return, tell them how to find the resistance hideout? And what map is next? Will it take me another 2 years to make one of these?
Who knows?


本贴来自国际rpgmaker官方论坛作者:Avery处,因国际论坛即将永久关站,为了存档多年珍贵资料,署名转载到本论坛存档,由于官方帖子为英文原帖，需要中文翻译请点击论坛顶部切换语言为中文就可以将帖子翻译成中文浏览,方便大家随时查看,原文地址：https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/threads/making-a-map-iii.177033/