Town designing tips needed

[TCgamerboy2002]

Heya, people of RMRK!

Anyways, this question is about town designing (obviously). Now, this isn't RPG maker specific.

What's the best way to start building a town? What do you start off with? I wanna read other opinions and methods. They can help give me ideas of some sorts.

[Ryosis]

I usually start with the buildings. Nothing fancy, just so I can get an idea of placement. Roads and clutter are added in later.

[AbsoluteIce]

For me, I pretty much make the map filled with road tracks, stone tiles, etc.
Then I fill the map with empty grass. After that, I pick the spots for houses,
and then, I add the flowers. Finally I add trees. That's how I do Town Designing..
But hey. That's just my way of doing it 

[TCgamerboy2002]

I usually start with the buildings. Nothing fancy, just so I can get an idea of placement. Roads and clutter are added in later.

For me, I pretty much make the map filled with road tracks, stone tiles, etc.
Then I fill the map with empty grass. After that, I pick the spots for houses,
and then, I add the flowers. Finally I add trees. That's how I do Town Designing..
But hey. That's just my way of doing it 

I see... Interesting.

[Aurelia]

Town? I usually start by deciding whether the town is a big ones where the houses are organized with space for big, big roads or a small ones where things are a bit more clustered. Then I fill the map with terrain, of course, and build a common spot for everyone to hang out :3 I just like the idea. It can be a small park, a market or just a well for the town if it's a small one, and start to build houses around, with roads connects them.

[EvilM00s]

Function
Size
Folk
Animation
Color


I start with function in relation to the story. For example, is this a town where the characters have their humble beginnings? Great, make it small and spread out with simple folk, maybe farming or labor happening here. Does this town have a solid history or culture? Compact, not neccisarily big or small, but definitely organized. Depending on the story importance the town has it will take on dimensions and demeanour appropriate.

Fantasy towns by their nature leave a lot to departure from realism, but I think some things are very important to have placed. If the town is a mining town, there needs to be some kind of processing facility, for example, and the folk are mentioning the local industry- but only if it's important to the story! Other things needed are a water source, a food source and places for the folk to live, work and buy things. Out in the wilderness, having salt can mean the difference between life and death... historically, anyway.

The buildings I think ought to be two tiles tall with two tiles tall of roofing on them; just my preference but generally accepted. Some RM stock animations are nice and add life to the town- like smoking chimneys and such. Don't be afraid of some critters running around, or splashing about in the local pond. Movement is the key here, use your imagination as to what might be appropriate for your town.

Color is also useful, but try to avoid monochromia unless it's part of the technique. In my project, which is based off of an existing work, the original artists made each town's buildings and folk share a dichromatic color scheme. It would be boring were it not for the fact that each town is definitely not any other town, and you can tell where you are by the color scheme. That breed familiarity with your world, which lends itself to the player's suspension of disbelief. That's called verisimilitude, and it can be acheived even with RMVX sprites!

The towns are foundational blocks to your game world. They need to be funtional and interesting all at once, and each should contain something memorable and believable, informative folk. Whatever you do, be consistent! If the folk in Southern Attleborogh are afraid of the Land Shark up north, the folk in North Judson should share that fear of the monster down south- assuming the two towns are on either side of the monster and the PC's havent defeated it yet.

Each town should have a place for the PC's to rest, resupply and gain information at the very least. New equipment should be there more often than not, or at least a place to buy things they may have skipped earlier.

[TCgamerboy2002]

Function
Size
Folk
Animation
Color


I start with function in relation to the story. For example, is this a town where the characters have their humble beginnings? Great, make it small and spread out with simple folk, maybe farming or labor happening here. Does this town have a solid history or culture? Compact, not neccisarily big or small, but definitely organized. Depending on the story importance the town has it will take on dimensions and demeanour appropriate.

Fantasy towns by their nature leave a lot to departure from realism, but I think some things are very important to have placed. If the town is a mining town, there needs to be some kind of processing facility, for example, and the folk are mentioning the local industry- but only if it's important to the story! Other things needed are a water source, a food source and places for the folk to live, work and buy things. Out in the wilderness, having salt can mean the difference between life and death... historically, anyway.

The buildings I think ought to be two tiles tall with two tiles tall of roofing on them; just my preference but generally accepted. Some RM stock animations are nice and add life to the town- like smoking chimneys and such. Don't be afraid of some critters running around, or splashing about in the local pond. Movement is the key here, use your imagination as to what might be appropriate for your town.

Color is also useful, but try to avoid monochromia unless it's part of the technique. In my project, which is based off of an existing work, the original artists made each town's buildings and folk share a dichromatic color scheme. It would be boring were it not for the fact that each town is definitely not any other town, and you can tell where you are by the color scheme. That breed familiarity with your world, which lends itself to the player's suspension of disbelief. That's called verisimilitude, and it can be acheived even with RMVX sprites!

The towns are foundational blocks to your game world. They need to be funtional and interesting all at once, and each should contain something memorable and believable, informative folk. Whatever you do, be consistent! If the folk in Southern Attleborogh are afraid of the Land Shark up north, the folk in North Judson should share that fear of the monster down south- assuming the two towns are on either side of the monster and the PC's havent defeated it yet.

Each town should have a place for the PC's to rest, resupply and gain information at the very least. New equipment should be there more often than not, or at least a place to buy things they may have skipped earlier.

That seems like very good advice! I'll keep that in mind.

However, what I meant was how do you personally and usually start building a town. like, do you start of with buildings or a path? Do you put terrain first before the buildings?

Sorry for the late reply. I had a lot of stuff going on. And this message right here is just 30 days before being considered necroposting.

[Esmeralda]

Towns are built on terrain, terrain isn't built after the construction of a town. If you're going for the most authentic, believable look you should start with the nature and surroundings, lay down your bases and infrastructure and finalize it with the buildings.

[crow5derlock]

Take a reference to the type of game your making, is it more futuristic, or does it dwell farther in the past, that's where I start anyway. Try starting with a layout of the land, grass is ussually good, but keep in mind the thoughts they(them peoples above my post) have mentioned, like a mining town may not have as much grass and shrubs as a lumber town would.

Also decide wether you want the characters to react with allot of things in the town or not. (I have personal troubles with trying to make places inaccessable I feel like I need everyplace to be available) if you have that problem then just dupe the interiors of other places for those buildings and alter them slightly.

Big cities are more often well organized and easily accessable, a really bad example, no offence hiromu, is in the tales of lumina(abandoned)one of the cities is really decorative by means of water and stonelike tile objects, but you couldn't walk around in it. A good example(just look at a picture of the city of boston)it will help.

Smaller towns may not always be cluttered but maybe more spread apart by distance, in my current project dancing saria allot of the starting town is spread about the trees around it.  Small towns are also more likely to have more grass and shrubs wether its in a desert or not.