No because empty space makes some areas feel less claustrophobic and cluttered

No because empty space makes some areas feel less claustrophobic and cluttered.

more space between stuff makes things feel more real

in the context of old style rpgs, yes im using my imagination anyway, no need for bloat

what a dumb post. even worse is that it's shilling some generic shitty hipster indie game

For me it might be the opposite thing, I hate when I'm in an RPG village and all I see on the screen are empty ground tiles around my character, I need at least one NPC or element of interest to not feel like I'm floating in fucking nowhere.

No, I prefer the before in every single one.

>before
>area is small enough for all important points to be close but big enough that it feels believable

>after
>cluttered and claustrophobic, no space for walking npcs, streets are made for one people only.

Dumb edit, there is a healthy medium between "open world with nothing in it" and "MASH EVERYTHING TOGETHER"

>make the map smaller and more efficient because I'm too autistic to enjoy a nice scenic walk from point A to point B

Nah this guy's a retard

That's ridiculous, you need open space in between you and your surroundings in order for a design to feel believable, especially if you are outside

Just make it a menu if you want to cut out any sense of exploration.

Not everything needs to be as close as possible. Sure it seems like it would be convenient for thing to be so close, but sometimes when you're designing a map, you want the house to be actually that far away. Some things are actually spread out, in life.

Considering that's his game, he should be worried. After is way too clumped up. Not everything has to fit on one screen.

>making a church no longer symmetric
Also, the I always thought the Azalea well was spaced out like that because it's supposed to feel a bit distant from the town.

Let me guess, he's the kind of guy whose OCD would flare if he saw anyone build anything other than commie blocks in dwarf fortress or rimworld. I doubt he'd shrink he lawn to make his neighborhood more space efficient. Space between buildings and roads wider than one shoulder width reflect how people actually build. It's a video game, yeah, but if his reasoning for efficiency is "I have problems with it" and "design choice" then we'll just have to disagree. I'd still play an rpg with efficient design, but I wouldn't think of making it that way myself.

It almost looks like the tree blocks the path, it's far too condensed. The easier solution to this is to make the character move faster.

>THIS ISN'T REAL LIFE WE SHOULD USE UR EMEGINEISHION
>Wtf this Videogame is too Videogamey
SJW's: they were a Mistake

i wouldn't notice anything wrong with it either way if I was just playing the damn thing

Yes. Except it's a bad example because this doesn't apply well to RPGs and adventure games where you want to preserve a sense of wonder and space.

Amateur level designers often place things too far away from each other and make buildings/objects larger than they should be so their levels seem bigger and better. In turn it becomes a slog to go through the levels, especially if you have to backtrack or the difficulty is set too high (Kazio shit). Chances are their levels are made out of copy pasted objects and tiles as well, so might as well compress their ideas as much as possible. See Cuphead. Zero fluff even in the platforming sections.

It really depends on what it is. A second tree can add atmosphere. Simetimes empty tiles can make it deserted or far way. Densed maps can save discspace or feel like comfy or hidden.

This after looks better But this before has much more depth

If dead space is such a issue why have a map anymore?
Just make locations a fucking menu, that's more user friendly and efficient.
The guy is retarded.

Man, fuck DQ2, and i played the fucking easy snes version, the level spikes in this game are way too high, and finding those orbs was annoying. I've yet to play dq3 because of it

This. Just played through this game for the first time and if anything some of these towns already feel too cramped.

Im not sure if you guys would be in such disagreement if poison effects were applied out of battle.

The examples he's picked for before/after designs are really bad choices. Me, I'd have used something like Suikoden 5's Sol-Falena, which felt pointlessly huge for how little there was in it.

Wow, it really works!

This looks dumb. Was it to save space on the cartridge or something?

the old ultima towns had an interesting bit of technology that stopped appearing the modern dragon quest/pokemon etc

namely, forest and wall tiles blocked visibility, so you needed to actually look at every part of the town, and sometimes remember when something wasn't completely scouted out

it made these tiny towns appear much more complex than they really were-for example, see the red wizard at the right of the map, he was totally invisible if you didn't actually look around the buildings

i think when you start designing things for expedience in video games you have to be careful you're not making things less fun. like a menu instead of having to walk around a village would eliminate all the travel, but walking around is more fun. and perhaps it's more fun to traverse a more open space which emphasises the significance of the various important locations or whatever. so i think it's a balance and most of his edits look crowded to me.

It depends on the environment. A small town should be spaced out because that's just how towns are. A high pop density area should be more compact. It should also be enjoyable to navigate. You have to consider how the player navigates the map. Empty space isn't a bad thing as long as it doesn't feel tedious to move between areas that should feel close together, and confined areas should make the environment feel busy or confined.

After just straight up looks terrible. The houses are too close and the walkways are too narrow, especially in front of the doors and around the tree.

Didn't multiple towns in the Dragon Quest games have some gimmick that involved you skirting the very edge of the exit zone?

What is this bullshit? He should focus on becoming a better artist instead of coming up with vague reasons why others are worse than him.

This is the only one that was awful imo, others were fine.

Honestly right looks pretty comfy, the arrangement is good and there's still trees and shit so it doesn't feel super claustrophobic.

I agree in theory but none of the examples have too much space in the "before" image making the "after" pointless or even a downgrade. I've seen some pixel based games that had way too much roaming between points if interest.

So this is....the power.......of game deisgn...........whoa........................

right doesnt look that bad. But before has a little bit more isolated charm and more space for npc and exploring.

Somehow after looks more like a maniac mansion thing, while before looks more like a rpg where you encounter random enemies

I can do this too!

as far as i can tell this guy isn't all that experienced of a developer so i don't know why he thinks he can go off acting like this is objectively good game design rather than his own dumbass opinion

Children who used to play those 2d jrpgs don't really care. Big spaces means more to explore and kids love that shit. His theory is maybe only applicable to rpg maker games because maps in those are all the same.

>muddoll does a strange dance
>you lose 90% of your MP

Dont worry only 2 is that brutal in the entire series
You should go play 3 right now

Or they tend to select a big map, because they want to put so much into it. Than realise that they dont have that much to put there or doesnt fit, but still keep the size because they dont want to rearrange it.
I blame it on beginners and that they dont know how big there maps should be.

Sounds like you're autistic. Seek help

The only way it does is to restrict player movements so they find it easier where to go. If you're going with that fine

>somehow cozy towns are better

I disagree with this. I rather believe that these towns shrunk because of space. gotta shrink the maps to make room for text strings.

Whoa, whoa, settle down there, buddy! That's WAY too much dead space! Mucho uncomfy, my dude. I took the liberty of making my own version, which I think you'll find is far superior to the primitive bullshit on the left. Look at it. It's perfect. Homey. THIS is how a town is built: with maximum efficiency. Notice how the first thing you see when you walk into town is the gym. I made this choice deliberately, to emphasize the fact that the gym is an important part of the game. The player should be going there first, because what the hell else would you be doing in a town in a video game if not looking to get out of it as quickly as possible? And then, and this is the real masterstroke, I put the Pokemon Center right next to the exit. Imagine: the player goes into town, he beats the gym leader, he's probably low on health, right? This way he can go right out, head straight to the Pokemon Center, and then leave in no time flat. It's brilliant. Please donate to my Kickstarter.

Top kek

Not compact enough.

I'm gonna make an NES game and this article is why i'm gonna incorperate as much dead space as i can.

You might be on to something here, but do you really NEED the two houses in between?

>A circular pond now just looks cut up
>a bed that is impossible to sleep in
>The church is now unsymmetrical
>this is somehow a better thing

Sure, it's shortens the travel time and most likely makes it easier to withstand all the excess walking around the city but it looks worse.

>a bed that is impossible to sleep in
jej i didn't even notice that. what a fucking idiot

FF1 and 2 do it a few times so most the early DQ games probably do it too

This is a higher level of autism than Sup Forums shortening comics.
How about when the game starts you only need to walk one step to get to the final boss?

>Game dev is stupid on the internet.

Hold the presses.

do you think real estate grows on trees, user?
this guy gets it

>Big enough that it is believable
I prefer the before too but having houses and building that are only ~12 feet wide, and 50% again apart from each is not believable.

This is the ideal make city design. You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like.

there should be a town guide NPC standing infront of the exit preventing you from leaving until you beat the gym

DQ2 does this in spades
e.g. The fire seal location

Pretty sure those old games he uses as examples have a limited amount of colors and tiles that can be displayed at once on screen so they need a bit of a gap in between to clear the screen of the previous area and other such things.

Perfection.

Do you REALLY need that much blank space on a diagram?

they moved the what I assume is treasure, to a way more obvious spot from already easy to find spot

the changes he is talking about making is what makes games feel lifeless and souless

Uuuuuuh THINNER

Are they actually arguing it should be this way, or is it just an "exercise" in practicing reduction?

>RBY Kanto vs GSC Kanto

does it really need to be a png?

... pathetic

What a dumb nigger
As a kid I loved that huge city in pokemon silver I think where most buildings dont even have a door

Too much cliff showing

> It's even using gameboy palette.

I feel like it only semi works for pokemon because of the repeating background sprites. The more detailed the game is, the worse it seems to be, at least that's what I got from his last picture in his album

This reminds me of when people try to apply the CAD rule to every single webcomic and fail spectacularly.

I looked at your picture and I asked myself, wouldn't it be more effective to only have one door?

This is why western indie games are so shit
pic related best place in any pokemon game and its just empty space with nothing on it
These people cant into atmosphere unless its for pushing some agenda

3 fixes virtually every problem 2 has. It's better in every single way.
Play it.

Let's be real here, this is all you REALLY need.

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Combine both into gyke

I present to you, the perfect map.

too much space on either side

It really depends on the tiles used. While I like the somewhat more compact design of , it doesn't really work with walls being as wide as a room's interior. You could have much more space in the small version by slimming down the walls.

Holy shit I want to see the entire game mapped like this
Repeat it 8 times and put lance at the end

Can't go any further than this

I refuse to be your marionette

>That's the joke

now make a map with all 7 gyms in a row
except there's 30 cave tiles between gym 2 and 3, which all have a 100% guaranteed Zubat encounter

Part of an RPG's charm is drawing you into a world that is trying to be a real living and breathing place. If all of Morrowind's/Oblivion's/Skyrim's dungeons were a metre apart then it wouldn't feel like a world at all but rather a series of levels

holy shit user, this is the future. You no longer need to explore to find your way through the map anymore, everything is given to you from the get go

you gotta remove the road between the houses, you don't want the players to take the wrong road no?

Make this game
Its free to play
it has gacha
you get pokemon via gacha
And pokeflutes
pokeflutes have a 0.0000001% chance of dropping
I should work for EA

forgot to add pokeflutes are one time use obviously
Oh and they fail 90% of the time

Left is better.

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