SCREENSHOT SURVIVAL 20XX

Posts

author=Ciel
author=Corfaisus
Sure is easy to impress when all you do is screenshot a game and throw your charset on it (and a bad overlay). So effort.
thats weird how the game he screenshotted had seiken 3 and star ocean tiles in it



The map is basically just a straight rip from Lunar 2, but with added mapping over the top.



That's how it appears in the game, Lunar 2.

Granted, they mapped over it a bit, but they used the map as a base.


Whatever, though. On to more RTP! I took a break from remapping something to mess with 2k3 converted tiles in Ace.


LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Honestly, getting the building and the path and everything to match the backdrop and look so fluid is pretty impressive. It looks like it's a straight up screenshot but he actually added and changed a lot. It's just not obvious because he did it so well.

Those RM2K3 tiles look fine, though I have never really liked that method of creating borders around the edges of interior maps.
Usually I pick a style for a game (some are flooded roof tiles, some are like this, others are walls on the outside as well...) but for this game I deliberately went with this type to make each map seem separate.

I had to change this map when I realised that it was too big for what I had planned, sadly. Now it's two maps. Welp, that's how mapping goes I guess. >.<;

You are right - they did well to incorporate the other graphics and make them fit in that map. I always like seeing rips (or other graphics) that are oddjobs but all fit together somehow. It makes it fun to guess what came from where (and question reality when you're sure x tile comes from x game... but maybe not???!)

arcan
Having a signature is too mainstream. I'm not part of your system!
1866
The three tile rule is strong here.
Not really. I count a 7 tile and some 4 tile lines. I just map what looks good to me. The trick is to break up using floor tiles and wall tiles - not just decorative ones. If the tracks weren't there, it wouldn't be as noticeable.
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
Max McGee
@ESBY: I really like the looks of that. Tell me more about it. Is that charset a custom style?


It's from the 12 Hours of Christmas or w/e topic on RPG Maker Web. The downloads should still be up if you poke around.
arcan
Having a signature is too mainstream. I'm not part of your system!
1866
Apparently the three tile rule doesn't mean what I thought it meant. My whole life is a lie...
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
It means never having three identical tiles in a row. What did you think it meant?
Corfaisus
"It's frustrating because - as much as Corf is otherwise an irredeemable person - his 2k/3 mapping is on point." ~ psy_wombats
7874
We all know that the three-tile rule is a complete load anyway. It doesn't matter how you make it, as long as it looks good.
I thought it meant only being able to walk three spaces off any path before hitting a wall. Though, not that I've ever paid it much heed.
arcan
Having a signature is too mainstream. I'm not part of your system!
1866
I thought it meant that you shouldn't use more than 3 different floor tiles or what neok said.
The three tile rule is that you should never have the same tile three spaces in a row. Unfortunately this leads to too much detail and not enough white space so it got abandoned as a rule of thumb.

It was initially created because a lot of maps back then were very bland and empty, with large empty expanses of ground with nothing of interest. It became popular when Ara Fell came out and was thought by many to be the most beautiful game (tm) at that time. After a while people realised that too much was just as bad as not enough, so it fell out of popularity.

It still has it's uses, though. When mapping cliffs or natural water tile edges it comes in handy to make them look more natural. Not so good when it comes to decorative tiles, though. ^.^
BizarreMonkey
I'll never change. "Me" is better than your opinion, dummy!
1625
I never heard of that rule and it does sound pretty silly, though I think it certainly had its purpose, but the problem with large empty expanses isn't that the map was in need of more clutter but accurately, was just too damn big.

One of my friends has a habit of making atrociously large maps, to a point that it's become an injoke of its own, I once made an image where planet Earth was being overshadowed by a large empty island map, with the words 'David was here' written with the tree tiles.

Oh the laughs we had.

I'm planning to make this update / complete version of Perseverance a screen by screen game, alike Abe's oddysey or a very old beat 'em up. I'll also be using my MSpaint style entirely, and tilesets will die.

Each map is gonna be a parallax and maybe an overlay. I'm not entering it for a commercial contest this time so I can use some old favourite picture scripts.

For this reason, I'm doing each map and screen draft in advance, and planning out a LOT of the game before I implement anything. The one exception that can sometimes be made is in cutscenes.
Yeah... this is going back to around 2003-4, so it's no surprise that many haven't heard of it. It's known by older peeps and has been mentioned a few times before in passing (and in detail in certain topics) but it's no surprise many newbodies don't know of it.

And yes, the issue most of the time was large maps, but even a decent sized map can be bare and empty with no details added. During the time that this rule was crafted, we were still exploring the limitations of eventing and didn't care so much about mapping and graphics - not as much as it's considered today at least. Any game could be considered good if it was funny or silly or just plain interesting, no matter how it looked. After the Ara Fell era things became more focussed on the graphical quality of a game. Funny for the sake of funny dropped off and more focus was put on effort in all areas instead of just eventing.

It's both a good and bad thing. There used to be a lot of interesting things coming out of the community when the focus was more on creating systems and interesting gameplay elements than graphical competency, but still, eyes are drawn to pretty stuff so...

But yeah, impromptu history lesson. For Homework I want you all to create a map that uses the 3 tile rule, then dissect what is wrong and right with it.
Tbh, I think even BadLuck admitted that (old) Ara Fell was excessively cluttered in some moments. Rise of the Third Power was more streamlined and visually modest in comparison.

But yeah, the phrase was meant to be more of a guideline than a steadfast rule when it was introduced lol.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
It wasn't something that people ever took seriously. Was it? There were like five people on Don Miguel's board who swore by it, and admittedly a fair number of people who were so bad at mapping that it was an upgrade for them, but most everyone tried it for a couple maps or just thought about it for a moment and was like "yeah this is stupid." But it has continued to get brought up all the time, generally as a joke, with people constantly implying that it is holy writ. Pretty much exactly like the claims that makerscore matters, really.
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
we know when happens when you question gamingworld, lockez

i mean, like liberty said, it's a good way to break up natural environments but it's not anything steadfast.

also, rise of the third power is hilarious to me because bl just reused his dungeon maps from his magical girl game as the sewer dungeon for RTP... shame he never finished it though, it probably would have been my favorite 2k3 game if he did. i tested some bits of it beyond the demo for him but alas, he vanished except for like one AIM message a few years ago. sorry bl, leo & leah has beaten out your epic :<

...oh right screenshots. i'm at work so


LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
That very nearly follows the three tile rule, actually, Craze.

But look, if we're cheating on screenshot posts, then I'm totally getting in on that action. I'll just cheat a different way, by posting a screenshot of a game with no visuals. I don't talk enough here about UOSSMUD, considering it's the project I work on every single day.

author=LockeZ
It wasn't something that people ever took seriously. Was it? There were like five people on Don Miguel's board who swore by it, and admittedly a fair number of people who were so bad at mapping that it was an upgrade for them, but most everyone tried it for a couple maps or just thought about it for a moment and was like "yeah this is stupid." But it has continued to get brought up all the time, generally as a joke, with people constantly implying that it is holy writ. Pretty much exactly like the claims that makerscore matters, really.

It was actually something people took seriously.

However (for people not familiar with this rule), unlike implied by Liberty, the three tile rule was mainly focused on cliff tiles and other "nature structures". Ground tiles probably "need" to follow the "not more then one in one line" rule.

It was a weird period though. We all tried to make our games look cool with picture effects and (hand)drawn graphics that probably didn't work at the low resolution. It actually makes me laugh how much we tried to make our games look like a higher resolution, but when XP came out we said we didn't like the higher resolution XD.
Ah, I remember the overlays... the horror. What is subtle again? (Also, some took it more seriously than others. I know a few people took it crazy-serious when it came to decorative tiles, some took it as the general guideline it was best taken as.) But it was totally a thing.
As Trujin said - a very odd time in RM history. We were trying to find a good balance of what looked good and what didn't, so it took us a while to find our way. Thankfully, after much experimentation, artistic sensibility won out. XD It did take a while, though~