Penultimate Daydream

I don't know how to write blogs! Lets just rant. Rant No. 1:

I've been kicking around some ideas for making Penultimate Daydream (I was shocked no one else has taken that title on the site. I know what you're thinking but trust me - it does have some relevance to the game's content), in the wake of the Swap In The Middle With You event. Sedric, our protagonist, came into being at that time and I've been figuring out his backstory, coming up with some of the major locations and characters, and made up a pretty decent item list. It turns out, making items is really fun.

The first area, the village of Nerja, is entirely mapped and peopled, but a few events still need to be tweaked. At the moment I'm working on the first dungeon and trying to make it not suck. I've made one or two decent dungeons before in terms of purpose, mapping, and length, but I'm still inexperienced at ways to give them spice and personality. This game is less a dream project and more a trial run for ideas, flexing my writing chops, and the fun of working on a simple game.

In addition to Nerja, I've also got another area mapped. The River Chapel:


It started as a chapel but then I turned it into a full-sized monastery. Don't you hate it when that happens? XD

Its not quite done. Obviously its missing NPCs, chests, and other events, and I might decide to pepper the ground with more flowers and things. But that brings up a personal niggle I have with traditional mapping. Its a pet peeve of mine when devs sprinkle embellishment all over their map. To most, I'm sure it looks nice but it bothers me. It makes maps feel cluttered and your eye isn't drawn to things that are prominent. A lot of my mapping in the past and in the game so far, tend to leave a lot of green space like above. But that's mostly because I enjoy maps that give you some visual breathing room.

My goal is to try and find some sort of golden mean: Maps that look proper and have some visual flare without having too many rocks or too many weeds. After all, the RTP only gives you so many resources and I want the placement of these things to mean something! However I still admit I'm a bit of a novice to some of the more advanced tricks of mapping. For example, making buildings that look nice. When I drew this one up, I just took the interior bits, aligned them together, and then connected them. So, the inside of the chapel is nearly to scale with the outside! I don't know if that's going to be a consistent feature of the game but I'm certainly going to try. Yet it leaves a little to be desired as far as aesthetics go. I tried plonking some pillars on top of the roof but it looked pretty garish.

Oh! I should probably mention that I'm planning for this chapel to be an optional location. I still don't have a clear idea how linear or non-linear the game will be. It probably will take players along a linear path with possible branching points as you go. I want to create a world where the players discover more of the story by poking around places instead of getting it all on the main road. Figuring all that out is high on the priority list....while on the other hand things like combat are pretty low on it.

I'm currently detouring from P.D with work on a friend's SMBX project. But once that's through, its back to business! I've set the completion date for February, and its totally feasible for me to be done by then. But I've rarely been known to stick to my completion dates.

I'll make another rant when some significant progress is made or I finish a map I think looks nifty. One or the other!