Map Design and You - A Guide on Map Designing

When and why did you guys appear.

Sorry? I wasn’t part of this community in 2015 so you may be mistaking me for somebody else.

Apparently I suck at counting, 2016.
You posted at FE Map Creator thread “As someone who sucks at art, this thing is amazing. I don’t think I’d be able to just sit down and produce a good looking map by myself tile by tile, but this thing allows for all those small details to be done for me.”

people change over time

I still suck at aesthetics but once again that’s not really the purpose of this thread

4 Likes

Hey, this was a great starting point, would be curious to know if you’ve learned more since '18!

I just recently got into FE and have built a game to play as a tabletop with my friends based on it. and right now I’m stealing maps from FE titles but I know soon enough that won’t cut the cake. I’d be very interested in learning more.

Haven’t been here a while so I’m not sure what the rules are on necro posts.

The only thing I’d add to what’s already said is “what is the emotional pull or story goal in this map?” Things like pathing and unit density matter regardless of the map, but other factors change with what you want to accomplish. Is this map “baby’s first battle” or “the main characters kill everyone” or “the prince is on the run from enemy forces” whatever the emotional tone of the map is changes how you lay out paths, use reinforcements and how easily attainable the objective is.

When working on a romhack or a real FE game you want maps to be clear in objective, simple, but not so restrictive there’s no replay value. I’ve played far too many romhacks with convoluted, bloated, or restrictive maps with no replayability. These things bespeak an inexperience in game design. A very simple metric is to look at maps you like in fe and replicate what those maps do well.

Because you’re working in a tabletop environment you don’t have to worry so much about replayability. If you want your players to go down a path, you can design the map to lead them down that path and don’t have to face backlash of not being fun on a second playthough. Still give your players some agency and clear strategic decisions, but know that in a role playing environment it’s those key story beats that make or break the experience. You could have an average map, but if the main character’s archnemesis spawns halfway into the map you’ve bumped the experience for your players up to an 11. Create a map where it can played the “easy way” but people die or you can play it the hard way (risking everything) but at the chance of saving innocents. Those are the sorts of things FE type games thrive on.

2 Likes

They’re frowned upon.

@ValeVioletMote Don’t bump years-old threads.