Screenshot Thread

The stairs up look a little weird, sunken in almost.  Other than that it looks pretty good

The stairs up look a little weird, sunken in almost.

I think I understand where that error is coming from... If you look, the steps are only on the wall, making it appear more like a wall decoration than a viable path. If you were to add one more row of stairs above or below the wall lines, it would give it a more three-dimensional shape.

((Also, I would like to say, I am officially done promoting the whole "brutally honest" bit except in extreme circumstances... Mostly because Joy explained a lot of things very nicely in a way that was really helpful... I think that my own past with similar issues left me... Jaded? I think that's the right word... Anyways... I guess there's room for both... if you're careful with the former.))

Like so?

looks good to me, very awesome

Looks good to me too.

Love the lighting, contrast is balanced and it's not too warm or too dark. Love the rugs, too. Very groovy room.

In the first screenshot, the sprites scared me a little, because they didn't really match the map. But then I looked at the second one, and that looks amazing. Great job.

I went back and tried to fix the errors, I also removed and added some stuff. How's this?

Looking very good. The only actual problem with the map is that you have stone blocks that aren't tiling evenly. The most prominent spot is by the wall by the staircase to the upper level. Then all along that back wall there are a few instances of it too.
Some stylistic observations:
You should only use the center tiles for the wood, not the outer-left one. That looks a bit strange, but maybe it's just me.

The table placement is also a bit chaotic; it looks too sparse but kind of cluttered too. You should add more, but don't overdo it, though. Just a few more here and there to create some sort of order and pattern. (A diner should be able to support as many customers as comfortably possible.) The top floor is also nice; I like the tables and candles next to the windows. The lonely bench in front of the fireplace looks a bit out of place, but not necessarily bad.

The candle atop the barrel on the first floor however is kind of stupid placement. I mean, it's there in front of the support beam, and it stands to reason that the candles were placed in the inn before the barrel was, so why isn't in on the support beam like that other beam? I also wouldn't place a flame atop an object in a high-foot traffic area, because it could be bumped, so even though it looks nice it's just not logical in any way.

Thanks I might of made a wall error when I was fixing the walls. Any way I was going to add more tables but it seemed to look weird when I did. I suppose you're right about the candles by the beams, it was definitely not a logical placement.

the light lines through the room are the problem you need to fix, the floor tile is incorrect.

Any way I was going to add more tables but it seemed to look weird when I did.

If you want to get some inspiration in terms of table placement, go find yourself a local pub somewhere (or something with a similar function). You'll notice that there's not often large open spaces like you have unless that space serves a different purpose - though even then it depends on how regular that space is used for said purpose.

For example, my gran used to run a pub and in one area she had what was set up to be a dining area for serving food. There was definitely more space taken up than free space to move around in, but it wasn't so tightly packed together that you a) couldn't sit comfortable to eat, and b) could move around to serve food and clean up after customers were done eating. But this room also served to be a party room and at this point, tables were brought together to form longer serving tables in which food could be placed on and taken from in a buffet style way.

So whilst it may look a little weird, picture yourself actually running the pub yourself whilst you're making the map. Imagine a busy day where you may be rushing around to collect up empty glasses etc (in which case candles on barrels becomes obviously illogical).

Whilst I'm no mapper myself, I'd think that the best way to go about it would be to get some real world experience. Even if that's looking through google images to find out what certain things might look like. You'll get a good feel for item placement that way.

Hope that helps a little.

Thanks that was probably the best advice I could of gotten on the tables (It also gave me an idea for a future game).

The lonely bench in front of the fireplace looks a bit out of place, but not necessarily bad.

I absolutely love that part. I don't know exactly why, though...

Also, I think that there might also be a problem with that window placement... I noticed on the fair left, you have the window hanging off, meaning that it continues straight into the wall... This can be fixed by either placing a left piece of window right before the wall, to make it look like a smaller window, or moving all the windows over, in order to center them on the wall and have four full windows.

However, I DO want to point out an error I found on the second floor that no one else seemed to notice... Your seat... It's on the wall. Or, more accurately, your seat is resting on the window...

At first, I thought I might have been mistaken, thinking the chair might have a back, but then I realized that none of the other chairs did, so it was likely an error...

Other than those small gripes, and what has already been said about trafficking, the floor tile (which, btw, results from the lighter edge originally intended as an outline piece, rather than a part of the middle floor), and the whole "fire hazard" thing...

I love it. Looks good.

Here's some screens of another evented battle system I've made for my VX project. I'm still working out the kinks and removing bugs but there's nothing major:

Spoiler for:

(Ignore the guard)

(This is the battle interface and such. The keys on the top left indicates which character you are using as each character is assigned to the buttons 'Q', 'W', 'S' and 'D'. A face of the character will slide to the top right hand corner once that character is chosen.)

(This is the third character. Each character will have his/her own special abilities so as to add more strategy to the battles.)

(At the bottom left is the health meter, consisting of five hearts. Normal enemies, like this one, will only do a quarter's heart worth of damage. Each character has his/her own health meter so when one character is low on health, you can always switch to another character with higher health.)

(The icons of pouches on the battlefield allow you to access to your inventory for healing items and such.)

(This is the victory message.)

BTW, it's heavily inspired by Reives' evented battle system just that it's in VX.
Oh, and some graphics are subject to changes.

yeah... I noticed that you meant for this to showcase your battle system, but that doesn't really shine through very well, nor is this really the place for it...

What I mean is, while there are several people who posted their battle systems, it was to show how they were arranging their elements and showing off their graphics for criticism. However, since you have already stated that you are going to change the graphics, and any criticims I have revolve around the graphics, you kinda seem to want us to rate your battle system...

That being said, your battle system looks pretty standard, nothing glaringly good or bad about it, but what really falls on it's face are the interface graphics, which clash with your game in ways described the last time you posted a screenshot (on page 116)

This is my first town map, well, ever. It's not part of a grand game design, just learning the editor and throwing together a free-form "make it up as I go along" technical demo game. I'm using RMXP, and the standard RTP tilesets with a few awesome addons I nabbed from Luna's thread (I think it was from this site), and a few minor edits of my own.

I tossed the castle, port, and post town tiles into one huge tile set and went to town (pun intentional) individualizing each building.

It looks really good I should get back to working with Xp

Not bad, but there are a couple of issues I spotted right off the bat. The house on the top left with the red roof cuts off, which is an architectural choice I don't see very often. The bottom left house with the red roof really needs some work. The middle house's awning needs to be moved down a tile or two since it's kind of on the wall. There's also a perspective issue with the bottom right house.

All in all, it's a damn nice map for your first try. Just work on some of the finer points and you should be good. Oh, and perspective. Don't forget perspective.

Not bad, but there are a couple of issues I spotted right off the bat. The house on the top left with the red roof cuts off, which is an architectural choice I don't see very often. The bottom left house with the red roof really needs some work. The middle house's awning needs to be moved down a tile or two since it's kind of on the wall. There's also a perspective issue with the bottom right house.

All in all, it's a damn nice map for your first try. Just work on some of the finer points and you should be good. Oh, and perspective. Don't forget perspective.

Ok I see what you're saying about the awning and the church-y building. (Fixed BTW. Thanks!) But I don't get what you're trying to say about the red roofed houses.

Here are a few screenshots of my battle system that I've been working on:

Spoiler for:

When you have full party.

Then the map I have done so far:

Spoiler for:

Linking full view on map since they are too big:
http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/271/0/6/the_sunglow_weald_sample_map_by_mihli-d4b834a.png
http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/309/f/4/the_sunglow_weald_sample_map_2_by_mihli-d4f8x5m.png

Glow effects are animated so it looks better in motion then in picture. But all pixel art has been done by myself, so all is custom.

I love what you have going here, and don't really see anything that I would describe as an error or that really needs work... With your style of sprites, you wouldn't really want too much little stuff cluttering up your floor, especially considering how you are doing the flowers, but I might suggest simply having some sort of flower other than the large ones you already have... I think it would be something that would benefit your maps as a whole to give them more diversity.

I do have a question about your battle system setup, though, so that we can get a better idea of what is going on there...

I noticed that you have a team, skill and rank switch system... But I ask this: Are those other three spots for other skills (That is, if they learn other abilities than drop kick, would they show up in those empty squares)? or are they for different battle options (such as items, defend and standard attacks)


Other than all that, I would have to say this: I don't think your character and your map sprites really go together... It might be the sharp outlines around the boy character that Mihli is fighting... they don't seem to match the much softer outlines you see on the trees and bushes...


EDIT: Also, Daria, I have to agree, I'm not really sure what the issues are... At least, not the issue with the first one... With the second one, I think I know what he might be referring to as a mistake... It is similar to a style of house I have seen before, but because of your perspective and the length of the roof on the right side, it looks like your building goes like this:

Code: house structure from front [Select]


....___
.../...\
../....|_________
./.....|_________|
..|..............|
..|..............|


which would be kind of strange...

HowlingWinds, that system posses many pants, but graphics are really hard to accuratley represent a battlesystem besides just eyecandy, perhaps you can uplaod a video showcasing the system instead?

ah yes, I suppose a video would be better. I do have one of the tutorial fight:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avAOgHGpeSA

The "team" is used to view skill combos that triggered team attacks. "rank 2" is to view rank 2 skills, which is part of the combo system. Also, yeah, when you learn more skills those blank slots fill up.

As for the character sprites I see what you mean. When I was originally planning out the style I was using the sprite style from FFIV CC as a reference:

Spoiler for:

I'll mess around with the outlines though to make them look softer. Just, without them the characters will look faded into the background. I'll also get started on making different flowers and make the patch less cluttered.

Thats incredible, i like the whole Ep / revive idea

Playing around with indoor maps, and utilizing fog effects for directional lighting.