SHORTSTAR'S PROFILE

Sadly the maps that aren't stock maps packaged with RPG Maker are vacant and empty. Too big and you can tighten them up please. A lot of your maps are 1 tile high instead of 2 like the default maps you took. You can do better.

The Dusty Caverns looks good. 2 tiles high, kinda windy in a good way, but a lot of straight boring hallways. Put some extra rocks in there.

Battles averaged out to be around 90 - 120 seconds. Its good to have the little clock in the menu. Which would be like 50 battles minus town and walking time in that first scenario with the 2 hour dungeon.

The newer first dungeon is only like 10 battles to make it through.

Anyway, done with my end of the project. But I'm still open to hearing everyone's take on what a first dungeon should be. There are plenty of people starting games.

I'm play testing a map I made for someone. It is 180 paces through without any deviation. From the start of the game to getting through the first dungeon its 2 hours long. Battles every 20 paces and the town is very minimal. With the enemies I was given to play with, I had to return to the first town 2x.

So I'm thinking the first dungeon is too long or I need to make encounters happen every 30 paces. I am thinking that I need to make a different brief first dungeon that is maybe 40 paces instead of 180.

While the guy I'm mapping for is uber happy to have a map that big 2 maps 80x80 I don't think it should be what the player first walks in at a 2 hour investment of time right off the bat.

What is the perfect length for the first dungeon?

I was paid to map for a kicksterter RPG. 18 months later.... game isn't out yet.

A fool and his money are soon parted. I'm sure I can bankroll a RPG maker game without kicksterter. If Aveyond can, anyone can.

So looking at your world map. The basis of it is good. Its broad and expansive. However, being so broad and expansive means you need to detail it here and there. Little lakes, little tree clumps outside of giant forests. I much prefer the broad expansive maps vs tinsy little world maps like Final Fantasy Legend. The mountains are rolling and look good. But again little details. If an entire screen is almost completely full of 1 tile (grass, forest), you need to have some flair to it.

Your towns look like they need details too. Telbooze needs more barrels, maybe patches of grass, or darker soil or something, because its just sand. Put some palm trees near houses. Also surround the town with a wall to restrict and focus movement of the player to bottlenecks. Maybe not even a wall, but some sort of line. Tree line, boxes or whatever. You need paths leading to houses. You have a giant path through town, but even a humble broken stone path leading to buildings might be nice. Put up fences, Fences make good neighbors. Some houses need windows. You have wide open spaces, and logically over decades, empty spaces will get filled up with something. Boxes or something. Some 2 floor buildings would be nice. Think of how cool it would be to pop out a stairway to access a special 2nd floor. Maybe even have a bridge going from one building to another. Put something on the next building that you can only access by going out of the 2nd floor of the adjacent building. You would need switches and events to make it so you can go under or over the bridge.

As for the interiors. Make a black border around the interior. DO IT! Do not line a wall up with the edge of a map. Why get it away from the edge? Because the player should always be at the center of the screen, unless you're making an old school Nintendo game. You can adjust the map properties and then map shift to get the wall away from the map border.

Your interiors are good, however, you lack windows my friend. Some interiors are just too big like your Inn and Pub. So much empty space. Tighten it up. Put some rugs in the inn. Also the wall heights are a bit too tall for the curtains that you're using. Find some 3 tile tall curtains or just don't use them. A lot of your interiors fall into the 'too big' category. You either need to shrink the sizes of the room or fill them with stuff. Some things are full of good stuff where it adds to the map. Places like the box maze. But you can't box maze every giant room.

To top it off, you disable dashing... in giant maps.

The bandit 'town' is giant too. Wow too giant. It takes quite a while to walk it.

By shrinking everything, it will result in less work.