VGMaps
General Boards => Map Gab => Topic started by: ozzy88 on May 08, 2012, 01:45:06 pm
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Hey people!
I've done a sloppy map of Hydra Castle Labyrinth. It's an indie metroidvania game that you can download for free. So google it and try it out if you feel like it. Deceased Crab also made a 100% Let's Play of it, if you'd like to see the game with commentary.
I've been looking around trying to find a place where they would accept maps for this game and so I stumbled upon this site. Seems like you might have higher standards then I can provide for now. I mostly made it so that I may help people that gets stuck and anyone deciding to make speed runs of the game.
Attaching 1/4 of the main area map so you can see what I'm blabbering all about.
I really like what you guys are doing and hopefully I didn't cause any trouble :)
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Here's the second dungeon. It's one of the more well made maps I've done so far.
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So, I've made the Main area map pixel perfect. Only some VERY minor errors with it as far as I can tell. So do you accept maps that have enemies on them?
Please say you do, I'd have to pretty much make it from scratch otherwise :(
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Enemies are optional but otherwise perfectly acceptable in a map if the enemies have a fixed position or at least a fixed number. You can also add bosses to the maps if you want to. What should not be included in a map are random enemies that spawn endlessly. Keep up the good work. ;)
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OK! Thanks!
Now I only need to make a label for it and add a pretty background colour. I was thinking of using the Title screen as label and edit in my + others nicknames there, and I've seen you should also add your name somewhere on the map cept in a gradient that is 1 away from the map colours.
So, I'll be ready to send this in for verification/feedback really soon.:
Edit:
Ok, no background colour needed for the main area *facepalm*. So trying to think of a good way to label it if at all since it's a completely sqare map. hmm.
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very minor? i wouldnt call it that. i would redo it again to make it perfect. i want it to be perfect as possible.
enemies is always okay. i also try to mark down what treasure is there and more info on my maps.
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Well, that previews is not the current maps state. The minor errors I'm speaking of is that I've screwed up a little bit of texture here and there. I am planning to make a version with item locations as well, but that would be after I'm finished with all dungeons.
The files are too big so I can't share them here. We'll see if it gets accepted and what I'd have to improve when I submit it.
In the meanwhile, keep on rocking guys \m/
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If it weren't for some of the sprites breaking the pixelly grid, you could very well shrink all of the maps to 25%. Having every pixel be 4x4 pixels really takes up a lot of space.
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Good news everyone!
I've successfully removed all enemy sprites in column A (I'm using the same system as chess for files and layers names) as well as two other parts. Wasn't as tricky or tedious as I thought, just copy/paste most of the time.
Still no word from the guy taking the submissions so I guess it's not getting up on the site this weekend.
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So I'm "the guy", eh? :P
Sorry, I don't respond to every email. Because I have a full-time job, and other things that take up my time during the week, I typically only reply to submissions if I really need to, assuming I even get to the email before the weekend. (And this past Sunday there was Mother's Day and other matters.)
A quick glance at what you have sent me so far, and I agree with what Peardian said. Each pixel should be a pixel, i.e. 1:1 ratio, not 1:16. You have it blown up by a factor of four in each dimension. Unless the game really looks like that? Because the enemies break the "pixelly grid", as Peardian mentioned?
Nothing wrong with enemies on maps, but if they are represented, it's best to have consistency with how they are placed (i.e. starting position, same phase of animation, etc.) that it's often neatest not to worry about them. As Will said, it doesn't work too well with endless or random enemies but for bosses it is easier.
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Yes! "the guy"! :P
Ok, I guess my map will get rejected for several reasons. I'm not sure if I'm getting what you mean by "breaking the pixel grid" but I think I do, and if so, yes the enemies do that.
And with being a newbie at this I've done some fixes to the map that might not make it suitable for scaling down :/
Like the pictures are all the same amount of canvas sizes, but when I put them in they miss 1 row of pixels, so what I've done is copy paste the row of pixels above or beneath it. This messes up the grid. But at least it looks better then having white lines in it. Maybe I can deal with that some time somehow, but for now it's cleaning duty!
The plan is getting done with removing enemies and correcting some more errors before next weekend. Then I need to go to the help forum and start looking real good for how to add item locations in a nice looking way.
Thank you for your time Jon =)
Edit:
The enemy sprites move...would be hard to capture them all at their starting position. Keep in mind, my intentions when taking the pictures were not to make a map that meets your standards. I just wanted a map that didn't look like the one I found on some blog. It had health bars and character sprites in every screen...
But I'm missing a picture in a dungeon, I need to know what item is in every chest and more or less start from scratch with one dungeon. That dungeon is in the dark so you gotta run around and take lots of pictures to be able to map the whole thing...I didn't do that since...you know.
Got so much to learn about this, and this is prolly a simple map to make compared to most others on the site.
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I didn't say I'd reject these. (Unless you want me to.) I've certainly put up a lot worse.
You can always resend corrected/improved maps later on. It is sometimes a tricky issue if you want to replace someone else's map, but if it's your own, yeah, go ahead. I can think of at least a few people who do that near-regularly, but that's okay, it's always nice to have something in the meantime while striving for perfection (or at least towards it, with something better).
I think most mappers get better over time, so I don't think I need to discourage new ones by rejecting their first works for relatively minor things that more experienced mappers wouldn't do, if they are still useable maps.
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Updates!!!
Done with removing all enemy sprites for the one I submitted. I've also cleaned it up + made dungeon 1 as good as I can get it. Dungeon 2 is almost done as well but after that...it gets a bit annoying. So I think I want to add item locations and such as the next step. Since that might take a while I might as well submit the map for the main area/overworld now.
There are still some very minor errors such as messing up a bit with wall texture and the lava is not consistent. It's apparently animated. Huh, the things you learn by paying more attention.
I am more then happy with it's current state so this may end up being the final result for it.
So you'll get another map in the in box soon Jon, sorry!
And thank you all who have been taking a bit of interest in this project so far :)
Edit:
I'd like to get some feedback on the label I made with credits and the title screen. I think it looks pretty bad but I don't know how I'd make it better. So I'll hold the submission until I get word from you guys.
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Guess I'll submit this now. And the first two dungeons.
Now taking a little break from this project and later on I'll come back and "improve" it as said before.
I really hope that I could have gotten some of you interested in playing the game by now. It's free, it's metroidvania and soon if you want to make it a bit easier for you, there will be a map showing you where to get all items.
Huzzah!
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You are not getting rid of me just yet. ;)
The next step is to add what's in the chests in the main area. I've been thinking about different methods and what I got going right now is what you see in the picture. I think just showing the item inside won't be enough, guess a legend of some sort explaining what the picture is of could help. Not sure how I would make all of this look nice.
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So, the dungeon order is marked by what key you get in what door, should be comprehensive since the first key you can grab in the main area is marked "key1" and the door to the first dungeon is marked with "key2".
And so on...
All items have been placed in the right spots and I've had a speedrunner of the game double check it for me :)
What I've also done is adding more space to the canvas, moved the credits to the upper right and under it I will make a legend that shows the icon and an explainations to the item + it's name.
Then I'll use the same formula on the first two dungeons before I start fixing dungeon 3.
I might try and make the legend in it's own photoshop document so I can post that here at least.
Nobody ever responds but I see that there are people taking a peek into what I'm doing. I would very much appreciate if someone would tell me when I make terrible decisions and tell me what you would have done, that way I can learn how to get better at this and yea, win-win!
Modification:
The way I made the key's show, makes the last dungeon not have a key under it...it's the biggest flaw of the way I made it.
I was thinking of making a "custom" icon from the sprite of the crown, (picking up the crown = win the game) so for that I'd rip the sprite after killing the final boss and put it in an icon "box" like the others and put that under the final dungeons door, that or doing nothing is what I can think of for now. Might actually get around to trying out these things today.
If you have any ideas or just think that this idea is good, please share your thoughts!
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without a pic to show the change i can't tell if its good or not.
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The change as in putting icons under the chests or do you mean how I made place for a legend and credits by making the canvas wider?
For the icons I have an example picture on page 1 in this thread ;)
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I've submitted them with all the stuff I wanted to get on there. Everything on the maps are ripped from the game except some letters in the credits that I made myself, and I used the font Georgia for the index since ripping every description from every item would be a bit more tedious.
There are still some things that I could do to make the Main Area map look better, but those things are pretty minor compared to not having the rest of the dungeons done yet.
To do list:
Dungeon 3 (Golgia's ruins) Enemies needs to get removed and the picture of the boss is ugly for now.
Dungeon 4 (Gyra's bog) Remove enemies, remove 3 health bars.
Dungeon 5 (Lolidra's cavern) Remove enemies from 6 screens, the rest needs to be done from scratch.
Dungeon 6 (Devil's lair) Remove enemies.
Dungeon 7 (Garm's grotto) Remove enemies and ugly boss picture.
Dungeon 8 (Hydra's throne) Realityo made this one and sent a .PNG to me. Editing a .PNG doesn't feel like a good idea to me. I think I'm going to map it myself and kill all enemies before pictures, because the background in this dungeon is not as simple as the rest. But I will try and contact him, see if he wants to do anything with it himself when I get to this point.
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I injured my left hand last week so I won't be working on this until it's healed well enough. I'll make a new post when I'm ready for photoshoping again.
See ya in about 3-4 weeks I hope!
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Now I just need to find the time and will to continue, let's say that next map is going to get done before the 5:th of August and hope I remember it.
Five maps left to do and this next one should not be too much of a problem.
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The map is done and submitted. Next one I have to redo like everything I've done. The whole dungeon is dark so I gotta take a lot of screenshots to edit out all that darkness, so I can see all of the background and the walls. The parts of the dungeon that you can't light up I'll just cover in that purple colour because that's what's supposed to be there.
The first time I did this I just wanted to go for a sloppy map so it looks like crap. It has dark spots all over the place and you can barely tell where the walls are.
If anyone got any good ideas of how to map dark areas that would be sweet. I know one could use emulators for this game and maybe it can just turn off that layer? I would just have to play the game up to that point again if that's how it is.
So unless you guys got some better idea I guess I'll try and find a way to emulate this windows game and turn off the darkness.
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Small-MAP (Pixel-Art)
(http://img831.imageshack.us/img831/3043/hydracastleminimappixel.th.png) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/831/hydracastleminimappixel.png/)
Castle
(http://imageshack.us/a/img402/4987/hydracastlecastlemap.th.png) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/402/hydracastlecastlemap.png/)
Dungeon 1
(http://imageshack.us/a/img228/6353/hydracastledungeon1.th.png) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/228/hydracastledungeon1.png/)
Dungeon 2
(http://imageshack.us/a/img9/5185/hydracastledungeon2.th.png) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/9/hydracastledungeon2.png/)
Dungeon 3
(http://imageshack.us/a/img593/8771/hydracastledungeon3.th.png) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/593/hydracastledungeon3.png/)
Dungeon 4
(http://imageshack.us/a/img600/4381/hydracastledungeon4.th.png) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/600/hydracastledungeon4.png/)
Dungeon 5
(http://imageshack.us/a/img839/328/hydracastledungeon5.th.png) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/839/hydracastledungeon5.png/)
Dungeon 6
(http://imageshack.us/a/img338/4717/hydracastledungeon6.th.png) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/338/hydracastledungeon6.png/)
Dungeon 7
(http://imageshack.us/a/img821/4582/hydracastledungeon7.th.png) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/821/hydracastledungeon7.png/)
Dungeon 8
(http://imageshack.us/a/img13/1245/hydracastledungeon8.th.png) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/13/hydracastledungeon8.png/)
I apologize in advance that ahead of fellow, but it was too I liked the game. Have ideas to improve or change maps?
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Hey!
No hard feelings, all I wanted was this game mapped and now it is and better then I could ever do!
I've only taken a peak at some of them and so far I don't think there's anything I'd change.
Good work :)