TUTORIAL: PLANNING AND BUILDING LEVELS IN RPG MAKER[RMVX ACE]

author=SnowOwl
You could have chosen almost any places but the ones you chose and they would have been more visually pleasing. Why would you choose this map for a tutorial? 2 empty spaces and a corridor.

I was documenting what I was working on at the time. It's a high school gym! I don't remember my high school gym looking too fresh, but maybe that's just me.

Process work is a primary asset that would-be employers look for. In terms of design portfolios, showing something great is equally important as how you made it great.

Here are some more recent screens of the gym and auto area:







Still lots to do with it!

author=zeello
I tried using actual grid paper and it was pretty helpful but it's still kind of a hassle having to bring it with you and having to manually enter it. Not to mention you can't make large maps this way without running out of room on the paper, and when you go to enter the map in the game you have to count all the tiles and even then you might find that you miscounted or something or find you have the edges of the map not be symmetrical.

One thing I don't get is how big to make the map. Lets say if you just need 30x30 do you make the map exactly 30x30 or do you make it bigger and put like trees or water or something around the edge? Do you want the screen to feel boxed in or is this actually desirable some of the time? You'd think RPG maker would have like a feature where you can click and drag the edges to increase the map size in that direction.

Yes, these are all things that are fair downsides to working with 9x11 graph paper. As one of my professors used to put it, as a game designer it's important that you tailor a sort of "BatBelt" for yourself where you have a mix of tools at your disposal to match the difficulties of the scenario at hand.

There are some maps I've made recently that I've made straight in the editor as well--it all depends on what works most efficiently for you in the long run. I find with maps that I build directly in the editor, the aesthetic of the map is more directly linked to its function. This should be the case with any good level/map, however I think the difference is really in your goals for the map.

In this map, I had a list of profciencies and I had to accommodate enough space for the player to navigate the area and a have a fair glance at all of their opportunities. It's also near the start of the game, so I didn't want to bog the player down with anything unnecessary before they get to the juicier sections soon after. Designing it on paper helped me make sure the map functioned the way it needed it to before allowing myself to spend a lot of time decorating it. It's a horrible feeling to make a gorgeous pastoral river and waterfall only to find you had to dismantle the whole thing because of poor design choices earlier on.

Again, this is not always the case! "Touchyfuzzy" Palmer puts it very well in one of the VXA tutorials:

You will most likely find your own methods and
processes the more you practice, and this is a good thing.
My approach generally involves starting with a base and
building on top of it, but you might work better working
on smaller areas at a time.

Both are valid approaches, and there are a million
other approaches as well. Find the approach that works for
you and practice practice practice. Time is the best teacher
of good mapping.

Take the time to find out which method works best for you! Graph paper is too cumbersome? That's fine--use whole blocks in MSPaint, or go right into the engine if that speaks to you in a more effective way. Whatever you need to get the job done. The goal is to be mindful of the advantages and disadvantages of all of the tools at your disposal!

author=Darken
But this is 2016, the rpgmaker map editor IS the paper. You can easily ctrl z your changes you can use place-holders for stuff that isn't in yet and you can change it iteratively as you said much faster than erasing and measuring on graph paper, because what you do in the editor is already in the game (and you can walk around in it instantly). There doesn't seem to be a good reason to prefer this method other than it sounds thoughtful or plan oriented.

I disagree! Like I said above, I think it really depends on the situation. Sure it might be faster to jump in the editor when you're decorating a varied and natural NPC town or World map. It's a completely different story when you're trying to design a pivotal dungeon, or really maximize the use of a particular mechanic or skill. These things are created with both careful planning, and testing/iteration.

author=Darken
Paper is really just better for random notes or planning puzzle designs that are too abstract to code on the fly. You really don't want to spend too much time planning the game though. I think you might be the product of game design courses that insist on a lot of game design documents and other worthless materials that don't actually relate to direct game design. The goal of a lot of tools nowadays is to decrease the time spent between having an idea and being able to interact with that idea right away. A lot of game companies seem to take to prototyping levels that are just blank white spaces and cubes because it's simply the quickest way to see if your space makes sense. Drawing out stuff on graph paper is just a waste of time if it's just going to be changed in the editor anyway.

First of all: "fall back -- you dunno me like that"

To respond, I will pull another quote from one of Touchfuzzy's tutorials where he says that "planning is everything":

I’m sure right now you are ready to jump into the
database and just start creating away, BUT that really isn’t
the best next step. The problem is, making a character in the
database is spread across so many tabs, its not easy to keep
track of everything about one character. Instead its best to
plan out a character before you ever touch the program.

He's talking about characters here, but I really think this applies to design in general! It can never hurt to try and get a more solid idea of what you want to create.

I'm not sure if you've ever worked on a team designing games with other people, but GDDs are absolutely essential to keeping groups of people on track and in understanding of what they are trying to create. When it comes to making something as abstract as games, staying on the same page can be very difficult, and quite frankly, these AAA companies would not be throwing millions of dollars down the drain each year if these things were not proven to work. But, at the end of day you decide how you want to make games your way ;].

The issue with decreasing the time between having an idea and being able to interact with it is that you end up spending a lot more time juggling around bad ideas because the faster processes detract from a focus on refinement. Just because you work off of your ideas quickly doesn't mean that your ideas are all good! I know mine aren't.

author=Craze

kory_toombs
Go to the top of screen to submissions/
Submit Tutorial, though this looks like it could be an article as well.

or we could... not do that.