SKJO'S PROFILE

Both in playability and ease of mapping, smaller maps are better.

a) Smaller maps are simply easier to map. You can focus on the small area and make it as interesting as possible without the fear of exhausting your ideas or repeating yourself when you make the next screen over. They tend to be better looking also because if someone makes a great looking 50x50 map in 2 hours, he might make a gorgeous 30x30 map in the same time.

b) Smaller maps are easier to navigate. The player can only see so much, so you should limit yourself to the player's POV. It would be useful to turn on the grid in the settings (for XP and later), and use the max view distance values (20x15 for RMXP, 17x13 for VX and later IIRC). This way you wont have long straight passages or empty spaces, since you can clearly see how the player would find that area looking like shit. If you grasp that concept, you should make the grid even smaller. Then map your base, and start progressing from there using one patch at a time (5x5, 8x8, 8x6 etc). Artists use this technique for painting etc, and you should use it too. Make each small patch look so good you could put up a screenshot of it here, with pride. This excludes impassable areas, such as cave walls, house walls, and water areas (though you should still make some interesting for the player to view underwater).

These thoughts don't really apply to man-made interiors (house, castle etc) but the MOVABLE area in those maps should still be as small as possible. Not to restrict the player, but to prevent aimless wandering and long areas without nothing interesting to see/do in.


Example 1: Final Fantasy VI. A lot is in this small area (4 houses, 3 NPC's, and some roads). There is practically zero useless space, save for some grass to not make it too clumped together.


Example 2: Chrono Trigger. You can clearly see a lot from this small part of the map. There is something over to the left, something on the top right and at the top of the screen. The player instantly notices these things, and notes them in his memory. So the player already knows of 3 potential areas in the map, without needing to move an inch. None of the walkable areas in the picture are more than 4 tiles wide, or less than 2 tiles narrow.