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Description

My second map made on RPG Maker for my fangame Pokemon Sacred Phoenix.
Here is the Lake of Time: the second map that the player will discover by plunging into the realm of Keltios.

Only the lower parts will be accessible during the start of the game, the most remote areas will require Surf, Rock Climb or Waterfall to access them.

Lake of Time lore:

Nestled between the two highest mountains of Everlasting Mounts on Alienor Shire, the Lake of Time is a holy forest and also the refuge of Celebi. At least that's what the rumor says. One thing is certain: the Energy of Nature is very present.

The mountain range forming a natural border with Kalos located to the north, you can only access it from Sylvan Town from the south. Its isolated geographical position contributes to the purity of this place.
Sensing the high vibrations of this lake, the clergy of Celebi erected at the dawn of keltic era a wooden altar, as well as a keltic stone circle further north. Amazed by the beauty of the place, the few who make the pilgrimage to the stone circle see their happiest memories to surface.

Borders:
• North: Kalos border / Everlasting Mounts (Impassable)
• Northeast: Lugh ravines (Kalos) (Impassable)
• East: Vale of Lugh (Breliande Shire) (Impassable)

• South: Sylvan Town

• Southwest: Route 1 - Eagle Path

Experiencing tile-making and advanced mapping:

It is 99x67 map (3x2 chunks with the three tiles borders). With such a level of detail, this is a large map for me. Each trail is unique and will have its uses in gameplay. No two places are the same. You will really have the sensation of strolling in a mountain forest with its steep paths if you move away from the shores of the lake.

One of the funniest challenges was to stay as faithful as possible to my worldmap, especially on its relief curves. As a result, I had to extend the map (initially 2x2 chunks) with an additional column of chunks to the east. The highest mountain in this shire (which borders Kalos to north) is present, which played on the number of "cliffs" that I had to stack. A dozen of double cliffs (which corresponds to 2000 meters in elevation between the highest and lowest point of this map) was enough to give this feeling of relief.
Everything has to be mapped, including the edges, as I foresee a soaring feature which will allow you to fly freely over the entire overworld.

The tileset used in the Phoenix Hill has also evolved. Optimized to have a maximum of elements in first layer, I also multiply the number of custom tiles, whether it be:

• Pre-mapping (combination of tiles on the same layer. The most common case is the foot of a tree with its soil tile.)

• Manual autotiling of shorelines and paths with agancement optimized for the human eye. (48 combinations each time) I reserve automatic autotiles only for animated areas, namely water and waterfalls.

• Sacred elements specific to Keltios (altars, stone circles)
• Body of water whose shore straddles 2 tiles. (No ambiguity on what is navigable or not.)

• Optimization of the space taken by the trees. (Slight line offsets to free up tiles occupied by 1 or 2 pixels from a tree edge.)

• Optimization of tree groupings (removal of ledge tiles which duplicated the tree alone). I gained more than 50% of space in these places of the tileset!

• Custom connection tile for connecting relief elements. (Transition from a double cliff into 2 simple cliffs, sagging cliff, custom rock stairs, vertical and horizontal stone bridge ... )

In the end, the balance of working time is:

• 60 hours of tile-making and re-arrangement of tiles. (Which add up to the 80 hours for Phoenix Hill)

• 35 hours of mapping (against 18 hours for Phoenix Hill, but this map is 50% larger and certainly more wild.)

I hope that in the long term, this tile-making / mapping time ratio will decrease.

I also lost a lot of time when I redeployed tiles elsewhere on the tileset (especially when optimizing tree groupings).
But it is important to start on solid foundations with a complete and ergonomic tileset, because all the other maps will have the same one.

-- Crédits --

Tiles used come from:
• Amras Anárion (myself) (CC BY)

• Magiscarf (Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike)

• Chaoticcherrycake (CC BY-NC)

Description

My second map made on RPG Maker for my fangame Pokemon Sacred Phoenix.
Here is the Lake of Time: the second map that the player will discover by plunging into the realm of Keltios.

Only the lower parts will be accessible during the start of the game, the most remote areas will require Surf, Rock Climb or Waterfall to access them.

Lake of Time lore:

Nestled between the two highest mountains of Everlasting Mounts on Alienor Shire, the Lake of Time is a holy forest and also the refuge of Celebi. At least that's what the rumor says. One thing is certain: the Energy of Nature is very present.

The mountain range forming a natural border with Kalos located to the north, you can only access it from Sylvan Town from the south. Its isolated geographical position contributes to the purity of this place.
Sensing the high vibrations of this lake, the clergy of Celebi erected at the dawn of keltic era a wooden altar, as well as a keltic stone circle further north. Amazed by the beauty of the place, the few who make the pilgrimage to the stone circle see their happiest memories to surface.

Borders:
• North: Kalos border / Everlasting Mounts (Impassable)
• Northeast: Lugh ravines (Kalos) (Impassable)
• East: Vale of Lugh (Breliande Shire) (Impassable)

• South: Sylvan Town

• Southwest: Route 1 - Eagle Path

Experiencing tile-making and advanced mapping:

It is 99x67 map (3x2 chunks with the three tiles borders). With such a level of detail, this is a large map for me. Each trail is unique and will have its uses in gameplay. No two places are the same. You will really have the sensation of strolling in a mountain forest with its steep paths if you move away from the shores of the lake.

One of the funniest challenges was to stay as faithful as possible to my worldmap, especially on its relief curves. As a result, I had to extend the map (initially 2x2 chunks) with an additional column of chunks to the east. The highest mountain in this shire (which borders Kalos to north) is present, which played on the number of "cliffs" that I had to stack. A dozen of double cliffs (which corresponds to 2000 meters in elevation between the highest and lowest point of this map) was enough to give this feeling of relief.
Everything has to be mapped, including the edges, as I foresee a soaring feature which will allow you to fly freely over the entire overworld.

The tileset used in the Phoenix Hill has also evolved. Optimized to have a maximum of elements in first layer, I also multiply the number of custom tiles, whether it be:

• Pre-mapping (combination of tiles on the same layer. The most common case is the foot of a tree with its soil tile.)

• Manual autotiling of shorelines and paths with agancement optimized for the human eye. (48 combinations each time) I reserve automatic autotiles only for animated areas, namely water and waterfalls.

• Sacred elements specific to Keltios (altars, stone circles)
• Body of water whose shore straddles 2 tiles. (No ambiguity on what is navigable or not.)

• Optimization of the space taken by the trees. (Slight line offsets to free up tiles occupied by 1 or 2 pixels from a tree edge.)

• Optimization of tree groupings (removal of ledge tiles which duplicated the tree alone). I gained more than 50% of space in these places of the tileset!

• Custom connection tile for connecting relief elements. (Transition from a double cliff into 2 simple cliffs, sagging cliff, custom rock stairs, vertical and horizontal stone bridge ... )

In the end, the balance of working time is:

• 60 hours of tile-making and re-arrangement of tiles. (Which add up to the 80 hours for Phoenix Hill)

• 35 hours of mapping (against 18 hours for Phoenix Hill, but this map is 50% larger and certainly more wild.)

I hope that in the long term, this tile-making / mapping time ratio will decrease.

I also lost a lot of time when I redeployed tiles elsewhere on the tileset (especially when optimizing tree groupings).
But it is important to start on solid foundations with a complete and ergonomic tileset, because all the other maps will have the same one.

-- Crédits --

Tiles used come from:
• Amras Anárion (myself) (CC BY)

• Magiscarf (Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike)

• Chaoticcherrycake (CC BY-NC)