ARCAN'S PROFILE

Pretty much what I was thinking. It might be worth it to make a thread to discuss those design choices.

I've been on the "scene" for 4-5 years and I have never finished a game. I blame this mostly on the limitations of rpgmaker and have since moved on to better tools. I am now at least 100+ hours into development and have little to show for it, but at least I feel like I am making something worth while.

@Liberty: Ooh that's pretty.

@bugbar: Liberty has good examples of maps done right but these are the qualities that I generally associate with "good" maps.
1. Little to no unused space- Big empty spaces just make the game feel empty and make the player walk further for no reason. If your game feels empty simply add more stuff or push everything closer together if you don't want to add extra content.
2. Variety of things(3 tile rule to some extent)- Different plants, different tiles, different buildings. This make the scenery feel organic and unplanned.
3. Uniqueness- This is where you have to get creative. You want important areas to feel they weren't just added for the sake of adding stuff.

Creating the first boss in my unnamed game. He is basically just going to fly around and throw fire. Eventually going to post a video of the battle.

XNA and it's a library not an engine.