THE SCREENSHOT TOPIC RETURNS

The canoes look great, tpasmall. Can't find anything to nitpick about those. Keep going in that direction, you have some skill!

@Large: Your screenshot was zoomed out so far I couldn't really see much of it. What I could make out looked very repetitive, pretty blandly laid out, sorely lacking in details, and easily ten times the size it needed to be. Seriously, that map is too big for a video game area. I need a GPS to navigate it. It might be about the right size if it were literally your entire game, but it would be absurdly bland in that case, since it all looks mostly the same and there are tons of huge empty lots.

Well, you did ask for comments. Sorry. I know you can do a lot better! What are you using it for? Just from the size I can tell it's obviously not just a typical RPG city full of several hundred times as much stuff as usual for the player to walk past on his way to the weapon shop, but since all the buildings are identical it's hard to figure out what you're actually trying to do with it.

@Locke and IF: It's actually spread out in 6 maps, this was photoshopped together. The walls in between "districts" mark where each RPG Maker map starts.

It is lacking details because I used an application that does not take the Events graphics; I also haven't started working fully on it, this was more like a "lay it out".

Here's the image again, maybe it's bigger, don't know.

Yes, yes it is. To the upper left, that's where the church (A big factor in the game) will be, and to the upper middle, a castle.

This is a capital. It's meant to be big.

I also have a hard time imagining you telling whoever designed New York City "Just put 2 trees and half a bench, and you can just forget about the ridiculously ginormous Central Park thing".

Made from scratch. :)

In MMORPGs that I've played, towns aren't too much larger than they are in offline games. To the extent that they are larger, it's because they do have to comfortably house several hundred players at a time.

In GTA, the city is huge, but that town is the entire game - 100% of the gameplay takes place in that city. And also, simply driving around is actually part of the game's key gameplay, and is fun in and of itself. And also, you're moving at 60 mph. And also, you actually have a GPS.

For a single city that you have to walk around in an RPG, this is several times bigger than anyone will tolerate, and the extra size serves no purpose. This is RPG Maker mapmaking 101 guys. Map design rule #1 is "make it smaller." You can break the rules if you have a good reason, but I asked what he was doing with it that it could possibly need to be so large, and the only reason given was "because it's a capital city." Not good enough. You can make it seem like a capital city without torturing the player.

I can agree with what you are saying Lockez to an extent. I can only assume that if this is a capital of his world's universe than there will be plenty for the player to do in it. However even if there isn't you need to be aware of a fundamental distinction between rpg maker home-brew games and indie games to triple A titles. The later are made solely for the audience in mind and build revolving around what will make me money? Homebrew rpg games are made not for the masses but I think first and foremost for the creator. It's the creators vision and yes a niche part of the community will enjoy it but it's really all about what the developer dreams of and wants to enjoy for him or herself. Correct me if I'm wrong but that's how I approach my games atleast. It's me making my dream game not me making a dream game of another individual. I don't think in terms of generating revenue with my rpg maker games and what will people enjoy when I make this game. It's what kind of world would I love to live in? And I go from there. But in reflection I know I'm being subjective and so Large may feel the opposite with his game development and you with yours.

Yeah, that definitely puts it in perspective.

If you can't convey 'hey, this city is big', without actually making the area really huge and painful to walk through, then that's a limitation on your ability to create. Vector from FFVI gave the impression of a big city even though it's actual walking space was really small.

@ Itaju - I love that screenshot :D The HUD is clever, all those little puzzle pieces.

Your spritework is very good. The red tree looks really nice :D For the water it seems like you were drawing more of a riverbed, right? It looks pretty, but there are a few pebbles with especially bright colors that stick out a little and make the tiling more noticeable. I love all of the details you put into the river, like the lily pads and tile variations :)

If the water isn't shallow, you may want to give the cliff-face an underwater tile, to add depth to the river. It would work with the cattails too. Your stones' colors look too similar. They look pretty soft!

I made this because I like your style. Maybe you can use it for something!