LOWUA'S PROFILE

author=Bandito

Please review the map, please. On the next page I added how it looks in game, I couldn't show an embed YouTube video at the same time as a picture, so I made another post, but it jumped to the next page.

Not to be rude, but I don't think this is any good. There's a lot of random grass and dirt patches that look odd, plus you have a very linear dirt path which looks forced and doesn't match with the other randomness.

To fix the random grass, I would say make the grass/ dirt patches in structured blobs (don't necessarily need to connect them) and don't make them have random one tiles sticking out (I find it hard to make blobs with tiles sticking out look natural. Small path like blobs are fine but if you have like a 4x3 rectangle with a random one tile sticking out it looks odd/ unnatural, well for me at least). If you're doing these random patches to fill space, I think it's also good to use the 4 clumped trees or cliff edges. They look decent enough on its own, so you don't have to draw these random bunches. The straight dirt path doesn't need to be so linear, you can add curves, shift it one tile, even make an S shape. Then there is a whole other discussion about how you want players to traverse the map, do you want them to follow a specific (doesn't need to be straight) route, or more open to explore. If you want the latter, then do you need to draw a single path? You can draw the paths in bunches to roughly guide where the player should go but don't need to make them hard commit to following a trail, cause you want them to explore other paths etc. If the former, I would say, make the path your focus, try block the routes you don't want them going to with trees/ blocking layers.

Despite my rant the youtube video (which I assume is an older one), doesn't look that bad, probably cause you can't see all the grass in one go. But I still dislike the random grass patches with one tile sticking out

You also a problem with paths going up cliffs. Not sure if you think you're using them correctly, but those cliffs tiles have a 2 layer elevation while the path just goes straight through, it doesn't make sense. You need to use the stairs tiles if you want the path to go up a cliff.

Another suggestion is to add shadows to make elevation more noticeable. The bridge on the bottom left going up, you can't really tell it's on the cliff until you see the right bridge. You did do shift mapping which helps but I think adding the shadow would make it better. Same thing applies to the cliff edges, removing the shadows make me think you think those tiles are on the same level as the grass, and makes sense why your paths go straight through. However, if you aren't using shadows in your project at all, then don't add it for just one map, make it consistent.