13 replies to this topic

[Hergiswi]

I'm working on a GBC quest (snapshot in sig), and one of my towns is almost complete. Unfortunatly, the town looks rather dull. What tiles/people/decorations should I add to this town to make it look more full of life?

[link3505]

it's hard to tell without seeing the entire town. maybe you could post a map?

[Hergiswi]

Sure thing. It's not 100% complete yet...

The picture is really big, so click here to see it.

[Neppy]

Well, it looks good to me. Perhaps adding some more trees, and maybe some bushes would help out a little. I think it looks good though.

[ChaoticGood1]

Try placeing more trees around the houses, you could make the houses bigger (add a side section), plants, bushes, etc. Try not to have so much empty room, everyscreen should have something on it that attracts the players attention, or try and make the town have some gimmick. In example its a prosperous town in spring and summer with lots of waterways, ect.

[ShadowTiger]

1) Cliffs - Add height to your town. This is probably the most major change.

2) Rivers - People like to live near streams. Perhaps add a few around some houses, put in a lot of bridges, (The more bridges there are, the more 'homely' it feels.)

3) Clumps of Trees are always nice. Place them where the player will more than likely never walk.

4) Then put flowers and slashables around those trees.

5) Avoid having large, open spaces like that. I know that this tip is about as general as you can get, but having large open spaces is the prime bane of any city. If you must do something with those empty spaces, and can't fill them, then perhaps you could place building foundations in the form of roads or weeds there, if you don't want to do anything else.

6) While people are nice, an overabundance of them can make it seem like you just tried to slap a town down. I think that the strategy with people, is to place them where they'll seem the most likely. Heck, if you can even get a dialogue with one or two of the NPC's out there, (Oh, .. yes, effectively turning a person sprite into an actual person.) then that would be great! Make the world seem alive.

7) Animals. Animals are always nice to have. Again, make that town of yours seem alive!

8) Add a lot of houses that are locked. You don't have to be able to go into EACH AND EVERY SINGLE HOUSE, but as long as the player knows that it's a real town, with a striving population, that'll make it feel much more lively.

[lord_jamitossi]

BH4 pretty much sums it up.

Try to add more... stuff.
Just anything that you might expect to see in a town. A wagon with a few crates around it, a tree with a tire-swing, a couple more houses, a mansion that's always locked...

Just go crazy. Fill it all in.

And, I see the snow, so add a couple snowmen or a snow fort or something...

[Hergiswi]

Well, I'll add snowmen/forts as soon as a draw up some custom tiles.

Thanks everyone.

[ChaoticGood1]

also try using some snow tiles that dont have the grass on it. It will give your city ALOT more dynamic and shape just by doing that. As it is now, it looks like a checkerboard.

[Hergiswi]

also try using some snow tiles that dont have the grass on it. It will give your city ALOT more dynamic and shape just by doing that. As it is now, it looks like a checkerboard.

Yeah, that's sort of bugging me too, but I'm trying to keep the GB feel of it in most ways.

[ShadowTiger]

Remember Hergiswi, you're only limited by your imagination. You can do so much in ZC, it's amazing. Can you make an ice-skating rink in there somewhere? I'll bet you could. Often, it's the little things that count the most.

[FireStorm]

I am encountering much the same problem with a new town I have been dreading to start lately (my arrow moves to the screen in that area, then I see the blank screens of death and go to some other developed part of the overworld and revel in what I have done so far.) Actually, it is a bit of a problem in general. Maybe it is just a fear of blank screens, but I find it very hard to START something like a dungeon. If I happen to think up some good idea for a screen, I may put it and develop it from there. Days will go by where I don't do anything major because I'm too afraid to start something. Or sometimes I start it and redo the same screen 3 times before I get it right.
The fear of blank screens. I have it. Ahh!

Edited by FireStorm, 05 December 2004 - 10:28 PM.

[Lemon]

Slightly adjust the grass, put rocks here and there, mabye small toys in the grass. Even if you have big areas of the same type of ground, grass per say, it can still look good if its all not the same. I use this a lot. More trees are always good to.

[Dark Lord Magus]

in a snowy town like that, may i suggest kids throwing a ball together? or mabey seeing how its cold, them haveing a snowball fight? i dont think its too hard to throw together a ice wall grab the children from most of the gb zelda games who are throwing the ball to eachother, and slightly mod it to make it look like they are throwing it AT eachother? id then suggest speeding up the frames on the ball a bit ^_^, to make it look like a fierce snowball fight, and mabey a small critter in the middle of it all awww, im evil