Apparently, this mapping kick just doesn’t want to subside!
Like the Path of Radiance Chapter 6 map, this one will potentially take some work to actually be usable as it uses an edit of Zoramine’s Temporary Port Village tileset - the most notable change is that the wall tiles from Wave’s FF Town tileset have been added (back) in and some tiles were removed to shuffle things around. The palette should be the exact same as the base tileset, but I have no idea if the tileset’s resulting object image will actually work or not. (If not, maybe when the tileset is no longer temporary, some of what I added can be included into the final tileset in order to have one that actually works.)
This map continues the theme from the Valkyria Chronicles map from December, this time being a reimagining/interpretation of Chapter 2 of Valkyria Chronicles, Escape from Bruhl Part 2: Retreat from Bruhl. The town has been abandoned/evacuated of civilians and the remnants of part of a wall litter the road, as do barrels and rope in places. Again, I had to take some liberties since VC’s maps aren’t square and I also had a specific gameplay element in mind to incorporate for the map, necessitating some other deviations from the source - while the concept is very heavily used in FE, I don’t know if it’s been done in the way I chose to do it: “traversable houses”.
Using the tiles I added (back) in from Wave’s initial version of the FF town tileset, the map features tile changes that allow the interiors of most of the houses to be moved through. One house does not have this capability and another house intentionally trolls the player by being barricaded from inside once opened, but all of the other houses can be revealed and moved through (some only lead to places for hidden items or chests while others offer full paths or potential recruitment/reinforcement zones), allowing enemies to be hidden inside or items left behind to be looted/pilfered (and I left plenty of things to indicate hidden items in addition to chests).
(Hidden Chest by waiting next to the obviously different spot on the wall)
There’s also plenty of room for other events to trigger than just around the barrels, rope, and walls in the houses - the tower near the gate could have a ballista on it, used to attack further away in defense of the structure. Maybe an NPC reinforcement could appear from the staircase in the center house once it’s opened and they could be convinced to join you. Maybe you could find some money that was left in the fountain by standing next to it or by “mining” the lone rock along the path to the side of the road. Maybe there’s an ally (or promoted/boss enemy) hiding in the cellar of the house on the far right. But, having the houses be able to be opened allows for different paths through the level, which was the main goal I wanted to focus on ever since I saw the sample map that Zora posted as the tileset was being worked on. (FF’s town buildings aren’t quite suited to making larger houses, which made creating paths inside rather challenging with limited space as did working with the roof tile options to try and make larger houses…)
While the source conflict in Valkyria Chronicles was a split Defend/Destroy map (hold out and wait for help to arrive while protecting the gate, and then destroy the attacking tank once help arrives), the layout of the map could be used for anything (Destroy the gate, Defend the gate, rout the enemy, defeat boss, escape, find a certain item that was hidden and steal it, etc.) and there really isn’t a set starting point though I stuck with keeping the starting area from VC mostly in tact in the southwestern corner.
>> Download here: TMX <<
I am thinking that I’m going to do one more VC-inspired map and make this a “trilogy” of sorts and will probably end up using this edit of the tileset (or a completed one, if someone takes the work here and makes it actually usable) for that map as well since the brick walls and such will complement it nicely… But, that is for a future post!