Yo.
Lead and only designer of Mark of the Dragon here. You may have seen my project (but probably not) here on FEU. I don’t get a chance to update it often as I would like to, but yet I carry on.
In any case I am currently slightly stuck in the design of my chapter 7. Now, I’ve been looking forward to getting to this chapter for a while as it is supposed to be a bit of a mid story climax or whatever. My game isn’t supposed to be that long in comparison to many hacks/games, mind you. However, I’ve done a first draft of my map and am placing enemies and so on, testing and planning for events… but I’m not feeling it, and I’m wondering if I need to rethink my design a fair bit. But I’m really feeling stuck so I am turning to you for a fresh perspective.
Here is the first proper draft of my map.
First off, yes I know it is a bit big. I want it to be a bit big, but I also know that big maps come with their own big design challenges. More so than small maps.
But let me explain what I have got so far. Storywise this chapter represents our party finally having arrived at the capital while their country is being invaded all over. While waiting to speak to some high ranking noble, or perhaps even the Queen, a three pronged offense against the city starts, from the south west, the south and the south east. The main force in the south is led by Estevan. A handsome cavalier with a very mean streak. East and west are both led by enemies the player has seen before, if they are still alive. So potentially there are three bosses. Estevan means to torch the surrounding villages, and we can’t have that. So essentially we need to get to Estevan and defeat him before he does so. Defeat boss within turn limit is the goal here.
My thinking is fairly dense enemy placement, mostly varied infantry including armors, occasional magic and a fair amount of bows. Several cavalry units around the main boss and the odd ballista or otherwise long range enemy. Every couple of turns some wyverns will spawn in bottom right and pursue across the map. The recurring boss in the south west can be convinced to switch sides with a special event if he is still alive. And lastly I’m thinking several events spawning reinforcements depending on the routes the player takes. All in all a fairly interactive map is the plan. Also worth noting is that the player is bringing a big party of almost 20 units.
But I think the actual map is off. The flow is off, and I think it needs more routes, as well as needing to just be less open in general. Perhaps several cascading cliffs cutting areas off from one another entirely, forcing more dramatic and clear party splits, perhaps into many small groups. I could cut it down, but I found with one of my earlier maps that when large map is sectioned off it can become quite interesting.
All in all this is a truckload of text, but I am very thankful for any and all suggestions here.
Cheers,
Zebbmann
EDIT: Also looking at it it just doesn’t look that good.