Castle Paradox

[Mystic]

Wow... I haven't touched the OHRRPGCE in forever. Ever since I started programming. I thought it'd be neat to start again.

Anyway, has there ever been a game using gigantic maps that serve little story purpose? Like, dungeon A only has 400 tiles dedicated to the simple task you have to do, but then there are 400 more tiles that are there to explore to find items and such. Each map would be like that. You'd never have to go through them, but it would be like infinite little side-quests to embark on everytime you get somewhere new.

Large bonuses would be cool, too, like you get a secret character or whatever. Towns could also be just as large, with more than what seems to be there at first glance. Secret dungeons and rooms leading to shops with better items and stuff would be neat.

I have a bunch of other obscure ideas I could do with this engine, but I'd like to see how this one sounds, first.

[Uncommon]

What it comes down to is how much effort you want to put into map design/building. If you want huge maps and countless side-quests, more power to you. Just know that it's going to be a commendable amount of work.

But that's actually something I've been thinking about lately. The complexity of a game's design is really only limited by how much time the designer wants to spend designing and perfecting it. Your game is really just as big as you make it.

[Iblis]

It was probably just a random example number, but 400 tiles really isn't that much. That's just a square of 20x20 tiles. That'd be a pretty small map.

Heh, you might say Bandit Revolver did this, except that most of the map was just filled with nothing.

Anyway, like Uncy said, if you're willing to put a lot of extra time and effort into your game then it should work (assuming you have the skill to back up your effort). You'll need to keep your maps and side-quests interesting and original. If they're all the same then it's not going to matter how many there are, it's going to be boring.

[Operation Freedom]

I think gigantic maps, with dungeons and wilderness will be a lot easier than gigantic towns. Big towns with a lot of interesting characters and subplots, takes A LOT of time to do.
I am making a huge town right now with my brother, in the game Zander and it takes time.
A nice thing with unlinear games, is that you can start out simple and then expand the game, whenever you got some inspiration.
Best wishes!
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Georgie, am i right to think, that electric chairs now bores you?
Oh show me, the american way of armageddon.

[Tsunamidog]

Thats what I'm doing with the game I'm making, You land on an alien planet (which is the maximum space i could use for a map) and you only stay in on section of it to do all the regular missions. Then after you beat it, you can go on to the rest of the planet with a lot of extra missions. (thus, it wont be out in like, forever.)

I think it would be hard to make a giant city or or town.
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The Following Statement is True.

The Above Statement Is False

[Mystic]

Making the whole game on one map would be quite hard... you only get so many NPCs. And yeah, 400 was just a random number.

[Moogle1]

T-dog, that turns out to not be such a great idea. Play Scary Game 2 for a good example of "huge map slowdown." (I still love that map, though.)
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Slime Salad :: Independent Game Design

[phyrfox]

[RPGrealm5]

It's been a while, but large maps were the whole point of my current game, Fiend Hunter. The map was large and set up for you to explore at your leisure. You could go where you wanted on it, or search the whole thing for things. The towns aren't massive, but they are pretty detailed. Really the main environments were the only areas that were big, and there weren't many NPCs on them, so there wasn't a slowdown.

Currently I've been redesigning the graphics for the game. I've also replaced the protagonist with a new character. Whenever I get around to releasing the next demo, it will be a lot different than the first. Close enough to be a new game entirely, well nearly at least.

Well, I'll climb back into my hole for the next few months again...
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Gyu, Doh!

[Jack]

i had an idea like this for mystics (which is kind of wierd seeing as how your name is mystic and your talking about large maps)

i decided to scrap that idea and instead just stealing the legend of zelda (nes) and just make the giant map into a bunch of smaller so many x so many tiles.

a giant map would look kind of cool, but would be way to long to do and you would run into way too many problems.
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[Fernurion]

I've tried using huge maps and the main problem I faced was being limited to one tileset. For a huge map to work well, you would need basic looking buildings, trees, cliffs ect in order to create several environments and/or an interesting landscape. In such a case, tile animation is out of the question, as it can take a lot of tiles. I've found that a generic space map is the easiest way to make huge maps, as they are largely empty anyway. This would also work for large ocean, desert or dungeon maps

[Mystic]

Aren't there some plotscripting stuff related to tileset switching? That could alleviate one of the problems... somewhat. Maybe, I'll think about it.

[RPGrealm5]

The hardest thing about making large maps is keeping them interesting and diverse. One map I've been working at constantly demonstrates how good large maps can be. Sure, one tileset may make it hard to make it diverse, but you have to just make sure that you have certain tiles that are used on only one area of the map.



Here's a few maps I've been working on. One is a forest and the other are mountains (I am still working on the mountains.). The forest is really big, but there is no slowdown. I'm also working on connecting all of the maps together, so if you were to take a screenshot of each map, you could connect them like a puzzle. I don't know, I guess I just have a thing for big maps.
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Gyu, Doh!

[Shadowiii]

If you want to see big maps, try &And. I want lv. 99.
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But enough talk, have at you!

[Mystic]

Great examples. I think I may enter Terrible Game contest <_<