ID:2049325
 
Hello fellow members! I see many games today and they lack a major flaw in most of them. Is it Pixel Art? Not really. Programming? No, that's been covered many of times. I'm talking about the Lost Art of Mapping. Most BYOND games I play, there is little to no effort in maps. Those who put effort...they still aren't the best they can be. But today, I hope to be the first step, the first step to better Game Maps!

What this topic covers
* Biome Awareness and Transitions
* Paths
* Open Spaces
* Accessories
* Possible Progression

This topic does NOT cover
* The programming side of mapping
* Getting free art
Biome Awareness


Let's start with our first topic, Biome Awareness. What's Biome Awareness? Well, it's a special term I created to talk about Biomes and how they intersect. Many flaws you'll see in most BYOND games is a Grass Field, going straight into a desert or a ocean leading to the Grand Canyon. That's a big no no. Hell, even triple A games mess this up sometimes.



Let's look at this map for a second, specifically Africa. As you can see, it doesn't go straight from the lust rain forests to desert. In fact, there's a transition, that being the Savanna. Same could be said for the Eastern and Central United States. Eastern is mostly broad leaf forest, it transitions to Temperate Grassland, then into Desert.

Okay, that's a pretty map, what does it mean?

What this map is trying to explain is that climates aren't just next to each other. Most BYOND game's I see have this "block border" mentality about them. Either they are too lazy to put transition tiles, or they just don't care. For example:



That is absolutely is horrendous. Not only is it block border, but there's not transition what-so-ever. It's absoloutely disgusting.



This example is /slightly/ better. The dithering could use more work, but it shows a small transition.

Where do I go from here?

I'd hate to say it, but outside. Look at pictures of different landscapes. Get a feel for them. See how everything blends, how everything transitions. Don't just go on a wym and blop random tiles down like an idiot. Mapping is a huge part of any game. It's saddens me that it's outclassed by things such as pixel art and programming, because honestly, it should be on the same level. Mapping is an art, treat it like one. In the next tutorial we will talk about paths and how wide they should be. Hope this help some of you out. Let's take BYOND is a good direction, one step at a time.
(Note: I'm open to any criticism since this is my first tutorial)


Your example is pretty bad. Differing is essentially just blurring. You're not making any kind of transition, you're just blurring the edge a little bit.

How a terrain type transitions into another would entirely depend on what the type of terrain is and what it is transitioning into. Grass transitioning into dirt would be fairly messy, with patches of grass and dirt inside of each other. But grass transitioning into pavement would be much straighter and smoother.
Transitioning would also depend largely on art style.

That being said, games with the issue you've mentioned tend to be peoples first (or one of their first) games, and after a quick look, most of the games I saw didn't have this issue.

I agree that BYOND games need better maps and that most people confuse pretty graphics with good maps. But what you are going to cover isn't going to help people make good maps. A good map starts with a solid layout and foundation, if you do not have this, nothing you do will make a map look good, so this is what you need to be talking about before anything else. It's like trying to teach people to draw a person by starting with the lengths of fingers relative to each other. That doesn't matter if people don't even know what shape a human is.
I'm talking about the Lost Art of Mapping.

Lol that's so pretentious.

Most BYOND games I play, there is little to no effort in maps.

The same can be said about the programming and art.

even triple A games mess this up sometimes.

Care to provide an example of that? I can't seem to think of any. Most AAA games aren't open world, and the ones that are have usually if not always made climate change a gradual shift.

This example is /slightly/ better. The dithering could use more work, but it shows a small transition.

As The Magic Man said, that example's awful and should be avoided. Maybe you should take a lesson on the fundamentals of art and maybe even another lesson in game design before you try to give others advice on it.

Get a feel for them. See how everything blends, how everything transitions.

What about the parts of the world or scenery that don't blend-- are you going to dither them together too?

It's saddens me that it's outclassed by things such as pixel art and programming, because honestly, it should be on the same level.

You're placing tiles on a grid in a formation that represents scenery, it's analogous to placing colors on a pixel grid. I do agree they have the potential to be on the same level, but in your case, absolutely not.

BYOND is a very easy to use tool, with a fixed grid defaulting to 11x11, and most "mappers" use art they're incapable of creating. Assume there's 10 turfs, that's 11^2x10 (1,210) possible decisions that a user can see. Compared to pixel art, 32^2x255^3x100 (1,697,932,800,000 times 10 turfs), I hope you're joking. Even programs can be made to replace "mappers" because it doesn't nearly require as much decision making as drawing art.

There is little to no skill involved in what you're doing and it's not on the same level as programming or art. "Mappers" aren't being recognized on BYOND for good reason.

Mapping is an art, treat it like one.

Debunked.
Let's talk about purpose.



It doesn't matter how your tiles blend together. That doesn't make a good map. It doesn't matter how much clutter you have. That doesn't make a good map.

What matters is purpose. Purpose is everything. Why is there a house there? Why is that tree on its own?

Why is there a graveyard? What gameplay purpose does every individual tile give you?



A well designed map is a representation of the activities a player can expect to perform within that map.

How great your tiles look and how well they blend together, and whether your map has distinct biomes quite literally has no bearing on whether your map is a success or not.

One of the main reasons BYOND games showcase terrible mapping skills is because they lack an understanding of space and purpose. That's because BYOND games don't generally have purpose, and they generally have too much space for too little content.

This house is separated from the rest of the village. Why is that? Because it is important. Each of the other buildings has a different purpose than this one. Why is it next to the graveyard? Because this house's purpose connects with the graveyard's purpose. The house is owned by the village elder, who is responsible for his people's well-being. The graveyard is a reminder of his responsibility for his people. The paths to the two areas connect. The graves have messages engraved in the headstones that tell you how people of this village died. The Elder tells you quite a lot about the village's current plight.



This is the town's main market area. This is where the player will mostly spend his time while at this village. Notice how the Inn, the magic shop, the item shop, the weapons and armor shops are all very nearby? Notice how the inn is easily accessible from the village entrance? This is all done deliberately to give the player a quick entry/exit from town when they are working on progressing their character rather than entering into the story.



Notice how the entire market district fits within the player's screen? That's done deliberately to create a feeling of closeness and reduce meaningless travel time.



This is the entire tileset for this town. I deliberately limited myself to a 128x128 texture area for the entire town's tileset. The reason I did this was to reduce art load and decrease the urge to include meaningless details. Everything MUST have a purpose because I didn't have the room to spare for useless flavor art.



There's something special about that pond. What could it be? What's with that little statue on the lower-left of the screen? What could that be about?



Oh man, what's in that house? Who would live out here on the edge of the desert? Maybe a merchant that serves as the last friendly stop before the player enters a hellish wasteland?



The first thing you might complain about here is the total disregard for tile blending on the left side of this image. Why would I highlight this as a case of "good" mapping? Because you can never see that transition. It exists solely at the boundary of the game's viewport and the player will never see that these two areas don't properly blend. Look at the approach toward what is obviously a dungeon. Look how it builds the importance of the area above with the stairs and the statues.



Notice how the trees are escaping the island with the dungeon? It gives the hint that the evil beneath the land is spreading its hold over the realm. The bridge also serves as a divider between the mainland and the dungeon area, making it more memorable and isolated.



Man, if only those stairs weren't blocked... I bet that they would take you someplace cool! I wonder what you could do about it? See how the map gets tight? That would sure make enemy encounters difficult, wouldn't it?



Lastly, see how that cave has unique decorations? I wonder what's inside of it. You never see anything like those decorations anywhere else. That must mean that something unique is in this cave.


And if you really want to talk about purpose:



This is a very bland looking map, but every single object in the player's view has a purpose. The pressure plates trigger the door to be locked, forcing the player to have to move past the arrow traps to trigger another pressure plate that fires a fireball trap into the brazier, which acts as a switch that triggers a rolling boulder. The boulder rolls continuously, triggering the pressure plates that fire the arrow traps, hitting a teleporter trap, which resets its location to the beginning of the boulder corridor. The crate above the boulder acts as a logic gate which allows the pistons to determine whether the brazier is still burning or not before letting the player out of the trapped room. All of this creates a trap that forces the player to run through the trap quickly in order to escape. If he's too slow, he can't get out. If he's too fast, he may die from the arrows. Every element of this tiny portion of the level is designed around purpose. While the map itself may be bland, this is a particularly nasty trap and will create a memorable experience for the player.

With mapping, purpose is everything. Aesthetics like tile blending must take a back seat.
Often times people are too focused on how something looks that they completely forget how something is designed to be played in.

Take the below map I made a couple months ago as an example:



On the surface, the map looks really well thought out and realistic, but taking a better look, you see otherwise. I mean, it was thought out, but not done so to be realistic.

This map incorporates a large diversity biomes in a fairly small area clumped together, about the size of Europe. While it wasn't designed for realism, it WAS designed to be something fun for players to explore. The theme was to have large biome diversity to also have large cultural diversities. Just a huge number of opportunities for exploration of completely different areas and societies so players have more to explore than large expanses of woodland areas and the occasional mountain.

To reinforce Ter's point: at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how good your map looks if it's not fun to explore and play inside of.
To reinforce Ter's point: at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how good your map looks if it's not fun to explore and play inside of.

I agree with Ter's summation, but don't think this was his point at all; his post emphasizes that maps should cater to the ideas they are created for within their design. Maps that are "fun to explore and play inside of" can result from good design if the map's design calls for it, but I would not equate a good map to a map that is "fun to explore and play inside of" because not all maps in a given game will require that same atmosphere or purpose.
In response to FKI
If a map isn't fun to play in, then it's not a very good map. Either it's provides some kind of enhancement to the experience in some way or it's not a very good map. I'm well aware what Ter's point was, but the notion of a map needing to be fun certainly reinforces the ideology of map elements with purpose. Entertainment is the root goal and without that, it actually wouldn't matter how purposeful the map was built.
In my opinion, a games maps have to be functional, but being function does not make the map automatically good, it's just one part of what makes a map good. A map that isn't functional is pretty much excluded from being good though.
How about the lost art of game design around here?
Kats said:
If a map isn't fun to play in, then it's not a very good map. Either it's provides some kind of enhancement to the experience in some way or it's not a very good map. [...]

I don't agree with your idea that if a map isn't fun (subjective), it's not good. That would mean a map's purpose is always to be fun, when I don't think that's the case. The experience could be enhancing, or it could be transforming (in negative aspects as well, within purposeful guidelines).






Ter13 said:
This is the town's main market area. This is where the player will mostly spend his time while at this village. Notice how the Inn, the magic shop, the item shop, the weapons and armor shops are all very nearby? Notice how the inn is easily accessible from the village entrance? This is all done deliberately to give the player a quick entry/exit from town when they are working on progressing their character rather than entering into the story.

Would you consider the above to be good map design? I think I would. I don't think "fun" would be an immediate description of mine, though.

The purpose (natural player navigation) that it serves makes it a good map; some good maps can be designed for the purpose of fun, but not all good maps are designed to be fun.
fun isn't what draws people in. Things like curiosity and wonder do.fun isn't really drawn from how well a map is designed, but what systems are actually involved in gameplay mechanics. But I don't need fun to get attracted to a game. Assuming I'm giving it a good shot, and the devs are doing their job by drawing me in with minute 1 through curiosity and mystery. It's like reading a good book. I don't go around saying "books are fun", cuz they're not. But if I'm drawn into it and finish it to the end, that's kudos to the writer. It all goes back to the purpose of each part of the map, a book with a good mystery is written and designed with the intent to draw you in.
In response to Ishuri
Motherfucker, if you make another word bold.. >:(
In response to Ishuri
I think I've got off on the wrong foot by using the wrong word in this context. "Fun" is too specific for the type of enjoyment people get from exploration and having their curiosity both prodded and sated. Unfortunately, we have no specific word for the type of entertainment garnished from good map design so I'm pigeonholed into using words that are obviously confusing for people. That was my mistake. Maybe I should rephrase with the "prospect of fun". There's the chance that there's something cool around that corner and it's our curiosity and our willingness to find out that is, in and of itself, fun.

Or I could simply have a completely different and evidently broader definition of fun. Either way, there's obvious miscommunication.
In response to Ishuri
Way to digress.

Baird wrote:
How about the lost art of game design around here?

Mapping is a facet of game design.

"Game design is the art of applying design and aesthetics to create a game to facilitate interaction between players for entertainment or for medical, educational, or experimental purposes."
In response to Kats
Kats wrote:
I think I've got off on the wrong foot by using the wrong word in this context. "Fun" is too specific for the type of enjoyment people get from exploration and having their curiosity both prodded and sated. Unfortunately, we have no specific word for the type of entertainment garnished from good map design so I'm pigeonholed into using words that are obviously confusing for people. That was my mistake. Maybe I should rephrase with the "prospect of fun". There's the chance that there's something cool around that corner and it's our curiosity and our willingness to find out that is, in and of itself, fun.

Or I could simply have a completely different and evidently broader definition of fun. Either way, there's obvious miscommunication.

I like to label these ambiguous experiences as stimulating, since that's what the root of fun really is. There's also a lot of overlap with other terms, such as curiosity and wonder, since those are stimulating to the brain as well.

Thus, if an experience doesn't stimulate the brain, it is boring. But that's a whole different subject for another time!
Trying to educate the master at his craft, of his craft?
In response to Baird
Baird wrote:
Trying to educate the master at his craft, of his craft?

whatever you say, layman

for someone that doesnt know algebra, how to write, map, draw or program and never looked into game design or game design theories, you sure like to talk. stick to complimenting others
In response to Shatan
Shatan wrote:
Baird wrote:
Trying to educate the master at his craft, of his craft?

whatever you say, layman
Talent requires no professionalism.
for someone that doesnt know algebra, how to write, map, draw or program and never looked into game design or game design theories, you sure like to talk. stick to complimenting others

What does math have to do with creativity?

I do know how to write.

Map? You're a joke for even insiting, if a creative writer can create worlds with mere words he can definitely map it out.

No need to look into something if I threw my life away playing them. You get it? You know math and that crap, but my time spent doing what I was doing isn't completely worthless. Though it may seems to someone who lacks wisdom, someone who thinks paper credits is everything.

Complimenting others because unlike others and yourself around here, I'm not some irrational loser, I'm honest, as I'm honest when I think I'm the best because I see others flaws and strong points. Meanwhile everyone is just calling me a big flaw, or anyone they don't know, which is just a losering, a bias opinion.

You call BYOND useless and still around, say I'll amount to nothing but follow me around and feel the need to question or debate with everything I say or do here. My personality alone is making your jobless, untalented life have some sort of meaning. Think about what you do all day, whatever it is, you add a site and engine you don't care about and me, supposedly someone that'll amount to nothing, have some sort of space.

Buddy, I buy people memberships for the fuck of it, hell how you think you've gotten one? I've been winning for some time now. All you're is someone on the bench hoping I'd quit out of nowhere. But think about all you've done to me. Will I really quit anytime soon considering you've tried everything? To trying to humiliate me to fit into this pathetic community's forum? To constantly being a friend? But I never care, I'm not naive ever, I just don't care nor worried what someone so lifeless has to do or say to stop my progression.

Please continue downgrading my abilities on the forums to get served each, and every single time, all of you who try.
In response to Baird
I do know how to write.

Inarticulate drivel isn't proper writing.

Map? You're a joke for even insiting, if a creative writer can create worlds with mere words he can definitely map it out.

No you seriously can't map. Just look at how you cloned League of Legend's Summoner's Rift into your Pokemon game. It's like you don't even know what corners or dense areas are, or even how to map at angles.

I'm honest, as I'm honest when I think I'm the best because I see others flaws and strong points.

I'm honest. You like many others here, don't have any strong points in game design. That's why BYOND has bad games.

My personality alone is making your jobless, untalented life have some sort of meaning. Think about what you do all day, whatever it is, you add a site and engine you don't care about and me, supposedly someone that'll amount to nothing, have some sort of space.

Lol the fact you think one little reply constitutes as the entire duration I've been awake/my life = you relating me to how lazy you are.

I've been winning for some time now.

Wasting your money is the antithesis to winning.

All you're is someone on the bench hoping I'd quit out of nowhere.

I was just trying to be a good friend. You're too naive to see that. I only wanted what was best for you and you never listened to me.

Please continue downgrading my abilities on the forums to get served each, and every single time, all of you who try.

At best, I get my posts deleted by moderators.
In response to Shatan
Shatan wrote:
I do know how to write.

Inarticulate drivel isn't proper writing.
Lifeless one, whatever you say.
Map? You're a joke for even insiting, if a creative writer can create worlds with mere words he can definitely map it out.

No you seriously can't map. Just look at how you cloned League of Legend's Summoner's Rift into your Pokemon game. It's like you don't even know what corners or dense areas are, or even how to map at angles.
Considering that project wasn't even actually considered to be a thing and I just rushed its core. But you'll take what you can get because your yearly income is based off what Quentin or your Mom gives you.
I'm honest, as I'm honest when I think I'm the best because I see others flaws and strong points.

I'm honest. You like many others here, don't have any strong points in game design. That's why BYOND has bad games.
For someone who sat around for years and continues to do so, you sure know how to judge others. Why learn something if you don't even use it. That's what separates the experienced from the inexperience. That's what makes you weak, stupid, and young. You say a-lot of bullshit, when it comes to design, like a blade in the dark trying to fight a man with night vision. You lack imagination, and spirit, a-lot of spirit. You say BYOND is useless, and it cannot make any money, silk made some money. Enough money where he doesn't have to ask his mommy for it. I love when you try to argue with me because I'll just bring this up every time. BYOND is useless to those who lack imagination and think that graphics and quality is everything. If Silk's design can do it, that means I can bank it. Meanwhile you're gonna stay in some corner, practicing with other engines for years, and sitting on our very forums simply watching, just, because, of me.
My personality alone is making your jobless, untalented life have some sort of meaning. Think about what you do all day, whatever it is, you add a site and engine you don't care about and me, supposedly someone that'll amount to nothing, have some sort of space.
Trust me, I know you do nothing but sit on skype all day interacting with other no names, or playing repetitive fps games.
I've been winning for some time now.

Wasting your money is the antithesis to winning.

All you're is someone on the bench hoping I'd quit out of nowhere.

I was just trying to be a good friend. You're too naive to see that. I only wanted what was best for you and you never listened to me.
For someone who's done so much and continue to try because you have nothing left to throw at the crowd against me I doubt it. Your well is empty. You've already tried everything.
Please continue downgrading my abilities on the forums to get served each, and every single time, all of you who try.

At best, I get my posts deleted by moderators.
No, that's what happens to me whenever I school you or anyone else you hangout with on this crap forum.


If you were ever truly annoying: http://prntscr.com/ad9e7x

But I should be able to tell some kid off. I'm done here, take your L.
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