Phml
Forum Staple
Posts: 2539
Registered: 06-09 |
FDA for Royale Arena v1. Few deaths, eventually gets an exit.
It was alright overall, but I feel there is one overarching issue here: visuals.
Your texturing is a bit all over the place, with so many different colors everything blends together. Adding to that effect, some of the textures used (thinking of those marble ones) are fairly noisy. There's also torches at projectile height, midtextures... None of these things are intrinsically bad, but due to the varied and extensive usage of all that stuff here, monsters and projectiles end up blurring with the environment, and routes are harder to see and plan.
Having a more uniform environment is much more conductive to interesting gameplay, IMHO. With a dull background, enemies have better contrast and hence stick out more, making the situation easier to read, and it's also easier for you as the mapper to draw attention to particular highlights (be it powerups, switches, keys or routes) through lighting or texture change. With clearly defined architectural conventions (i.e. using a particular texture for a wall, a particular flat for a floor, another particular flat for a floor height change), navigating through the level becomes second nature to the player allowing greater emphasis on fighting itself and a generally smoother experience.
Aesthetically, it often looks better to stick to a few colors as well; and something that looks better is also something that sticks better. If I try to remember Ribbiks' map, which I played yesterday, it's easy: jungle stuff, with brown metal stuff, beige wood, green vines, blue water. I can see it in my mind as if I were actually ingame. If I try to remember yours, which I played one hour ago, memories are already starting to vanish. There was beige marble and black marble, and some lava, and some red pillars, and some green floor (I think?), and some brown waist-high walls with torches. I can think of it in terms of layout, but visually I literally have no idea how certain areas looked like.
On the plus side, Royale Arena makes a good argument for why barons are useful even in a game with hell knights. The map feels positively crowded with monsters despite a "low" 700ish monster count, and it's due in large part to those barons hordes tanking a fair amount of damage. Neat stuff. :)
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10-29-12 23:44 
