Have you ever had those days where you feel super positive and relaxed before you're bombarded with a bunch of images on Imgur on Monday and you suddenly grit your teeth and remember
-Well, in an attempt to move on with the map pack, I'm currently producing a bunch of small sprites for use in the glazgow style mile. The next map will be styled like a mall and use the same kind of aesthetics previously seen in Glazty's version of the mall map. The map will also be partially based on the mall in my hometown since it has a pretty cool ice rink that I've never had the money/ice skating skills to use ): The layout is still being thought of, so don't expect any map screenshots until Wednesday at the earliest. In the meantime, I need you guys to give me ideas for shop names based on Cutstuff members. If you want to be immortalized with a cheeky shop name, just post in this topic. Here's some of the sprites I've come up with so far:
Based on Victoria's Secret
Based on Kay Jewelers
Based on Orange Julius
Based on GameStop
Based on Ross
Expect a picture/rant for Tuesday's update, and then I'll start making the map on Wednesday.
March 22 UpdateSo for everyone who was on Skype giving me ideas yesterday (especially Jax, FGG, and Raveman), I'd like to thank you guys a ton because I honestly would not have thought of most of these on my own and now the map will look several times more interesting than I had previously imagined.
If you wanna see all the shopnames made so far, just check out this link. I've got 18 shopnames added so far, and I'll likely add a few more before finally importing them into the map and producing the layout. Speaking of producing maps though, someone recently asked me a good question on why I'm suddenly getting back into mapping and I'd figure I'd give an explanation.
[3/20/2016 6:49:06 PM] Rozark Kyouko: what made you reach the conclusion that things were getting stale?
[3/20/2016 6:49:19 PM] Rozark Kyouko: I've known that myself for awhile but I'm just curious
When you're coming out of a breakup, you see things with much more cynical eyes, so when I tried to get back into the game, I found myself only playing for five minutes and then leaving out of boredom. I guess it was when I started asking myself why I couldn't play for more than 5 minutes at a time, I started looking more critically at the maps that I was playing on. Honestly, the maps didn't feel stale. They felt static. Like, you see the map once and you already know what it's gonna look like the next time you play it. Nothing moves, nothing flashes, nothing changes, nothing catches my eyes, it's all nothing but a collection of rooms and corridors to me. Nothing changes except the mode you play it on, which means the only way you can keep a game fresh is by adding new toys to play with. The toyroom you play in never changes though. And the toyroom doesn't amplify your fun, it just houses it. So I really started asking myself "How do we
make maps great again?" Well, the best idea I came up with was to make moving around the map as fun as it could be. I think one of the most recent examples I can come up with would have to be SHA15, and in particular a single room where the player feels challenged to time their jumps properly. You all likely know the room I'm talking about, but in case you forget:
And so this is where I take a good moment to realize that this is one of the VERY FEW times in recent memory where a map has challenged the player to make a jump. But it's not even a hard jump either, and there's no major consequences for falling. Better yet, this jump is treated as part of the layout because it connects two areas together. It's one of those moments where I realize the reason that maps have felt static is because they've felt too safe and played it too careful because they fear the player would hate to be challenged by the map unless the challenge was a bunch of stairs. Screw that, I've climbed enough stairs in my life to know that's no fun. But SHA15 is fun. It's fun because I'm constantly kept on my toes by the jumps required to traverse the map. It's fun because those jumps are complimented by the silky flow of the layout. It's fun because this is the first time I could sense a custom map asking me "are you good enough to play on me?" and I smiled as I replied "Damn right I am". We've honestly forgotten that Megaman 8-bit deathmatch is supposed to be a marriage of shooting and platforming and that the platforming is what distinguishes us from 90% of other shooters. I'm hoping the next expansion gives me more of the creative platforming that's made it fun for me to play on the maps themselves and less of the baby toyrooms I get shoved down my throat on a near-endless basis. Experiment, change, evolve, adapt, remodel, innovate, do what you have to do. As long as you don't give me more of the same, I'll be happy. And we'll all be better for it.
March 23 UpdateI got about 1/4 of the layout drawn out, and it's probably the most complex part of the layout since it involves the use of 3d floors on top of regular floors. The map is looking to be about 3500x3500, which is really stretching the limits of map size, but my plan is to use line teleporters/fast escalators/the ice rink to make travelling convenient. Expect more of the layout to be drawn tomorrow.
Fun fact: The bottom portion is based on GBT's piece for the PB jam and the western portion is based on Smashbro's piece for the same jam. I think I gave an earlier version of this layout to Freeman before deciding that I wasn't gonna be able to finish the map on time, so technically what I'm making is a jam map.
Can't really sleep so I'm just drawing whatever parts of the layout I feel certain about. Finally got the ice rink drawn which is nice. Gonna get some sleep and then start adding some stores and thinking of little games to put into Rave & Busters south of the ice rink.
March 24 Update (10 P.M.)Still drawing the basic parts of the layout I'm feeling certain about, but honestly there's this biiiig empty space in the eastern half of the map that I might just cut down on so we'll see how it goes.
Here's another important lesson for all aspiring mappers out there: Give every space a purpose. I think it's easy to cover up meaningless space with complex routes and cover, but when you're playing on other maps next time, take a good look at where people go and how often you use certain rooms or routes. If the map is at least above decent, you'll see people using a route or room more than once. Sometimes though, I see there's spots that get avoided altogether because they have nothing to offer or feel too hard to reach. I could cover up the empty space with kiosks and plants, but honestly I'd prefer to have cover only if it benefits the people on the first floor. Now that I think about it, the second floor barely has any cover. Ugh, I really should just replace the second floor with a movie theater or something. Or maybe give the second floor some more plants and cool paths. Or maybe get rid of the department store in the north end and put it in the east end, make some connections to paths on the second floor, put a cool jewelry store somewhere, and then add plants and kiosks to the second and first floor. Don't expect this layout to look the same tomorrow, I'm gonna cut a lot of empty space tonight and hopefully have the layout done by tomorrow.
March 25 Update
YO REAL TALK, i HEAR ALL ABOUT "COMMUNITY DYING" AND "Y'ALL A BUNCH OF ASSHOLES" BUT Y'ALL SEEM TO FORGET THE ONE WHO WAS HERE BEFORE 95% OF YOU MOTHERFUCKERS EVER EVEN HEARD OF THIS GAME. YOU REMEMBER WHEN THERE WERE ONLY 2 MAPS AND ONLY 1 SERVER TO PLAY THEM ON. DIDN'T THINK SO. NOW YOU WANNA BE THE VOICE OF THE COMMUNITY WHEN I AIN'T EVEN SEEN YOU IN A SERVER FOR MORE THAN 10 MINUTES? haaaaah?! YOU GUYS FEELIN' ALRIGHT? Y'ALL FEELING OKAY? BECAUSE I WON'T LET IT BE THAT WAY, CHECK IT.
IF I HAD A NICKEL FOR ALL THE GOONS
WHO SAID FOR SURE WE'RE ALL DOOMED
THEN I'D FLASH MY DIAMOND RING
AND SAY "Y'ALL DON'T KNOW A THING"
CUZ THIS OG CUTSTUFFER
WITH DIGITS FROM ALL YOUR MOTHERS
IS LIGHTING UP EVERY CHAT
WITH FIRE BARS AND ALL THAT
Back to our regularly scheduled program, the layout for the map is now 99% done. I managed to fit every shop into the map and locate them according to similarities and assumed preferrences, so basically everyone has shops that are right next to their friends or peers and all that jazz. If you want me to move your shop closer to someone else's, just let me know. Here's the proper version of the image you saw just above you.
Still keeping it
fam
Now I think the biggest question on your mind would be what all those lines and sectors translates to. Well, here's a series of images to explain how the layout will look.
Eastern half of the map, facing Glazty theatres
Second floor of the fashion store
The first floor of the fashion store
Ice rink, with northern end to the left.
Food court, with kiosk up front
Elevator room in the southwest corner of the map
Another angle of the food court
Inside Rave And Busters, with minigames in the center and to the right. To the left is a little prize counter
One final view of the mall
Tomorrow will be focused on making all the map gimmicks functional, and then comes the SUUUUUUUPER tedious task of texturing everything so that it all looks
March 29 UpdateSo there's three reasons I've been unable to update for the past few days, and 2 of them have to do with the map itself while the last reason is related to
failing to take over the 8bdm dev team college classes starting again. So, remember when I said that I would make the map gimmicks functional? I've kinda pushed that to the side because I realize that would be more tedious than texturing the whole map. I decided to use some tilesets given to me by the 8bdm dev team for King 1 (The texture set should be posted in the 3rd post) and tried applying them to the mall so I can have a bright friendly look. This is the result so far:
So it looks nice imo, and it may look a bit too plain now, but the plan is to make each shop as colorful and distinct as possible to add more variety and life to the map. The reasoning behind using King 1's tileset is because I needed a bright but simple palette that didn't draw attention to itself, similar to how most of a mall's walls are painted a plain color so that the shops can stand out even better. Obviously, though, I didn't want to spam a single color across every part of the map so I'm using a mixture of Tengu and Wily Tower 2 textures to add a bit of diversity. We'll see how decorating the shops goes later, but for now my main focus is just getting everything but the shops looking spiffy.
March 31 UpdateAfter a super exhausting day of classes and exercise and home cooking, I'm back to work on texturing the map to my liking. The process is a bit slow because right now I'm working on the flagship stores (Ivo, Jax, Rave&Busters, Glazty Theatres) and it's hard thinking of a distinct palette for each one. For Jax/YDMaxx, I went with the same palette seen in AMP01 with Wily Tower 2 textures mixed with light grey and light blue.
Rave & Busters is also done, which leaves Ivo and Glazty Theatres. The plan for Ivo is to use museum textures along with pictures of some of Ivory's maps scrolling along. For Glazty theatres, it'll mostly have a red carpet and darker textures and a golden concession stand, along with whatever comes to mind as I continue working. The gimmicks are still not functional except for the escalators, but that's fine by me as long as the map looks nice before the programming is started. The biggest concern is how... plain the food court looks to the rest of the map, but I guess I just haven't added any detail to the restaurants there which causes me to worry about the aesthetics more than I should. More updates and work is expected for tomorrow since I don't have lectures.
April 1 UpdateIt looks like I'm on track to have the map ready by Sunday afternoon, seeing as how decorating the shops isn't as tedious as I previously thought. I've got about 3 of the 18 side shops done: Blaze M.C. Pizza, Smashburger, and Forever 28. I'm not sure if I should change the colors of the signs to match with the textures, but who knows. Each shop will use a certain stage's tileset, so obviously Stardust's will use Time Man's green and brown tiles. Mike will go with a wily tileset, Shadidas will get Darkman, etc. Here's the progress done so far:
Expect me to finally get to programming the gimmicks tomorrow, and (hopefully) we can all test it on Sunday or Monday at the latest.
April 1 Update (Part 2)Got another batch of shops done, I'm happy with how they're turning out although it's pretty tricky for me to add much detail when I have only about 192-384 pixels of free space to work with, so the most I can do for each shop is a few pillars, something overhead, and doors.
What's keeping me motivated though is a really cool song that I've had looping for the past hour, I hope you guys like it. In the meantime, here's a screenshot of the batch of shops I finished detailing.
I know the crocs sign looks a bit off, but I already removed the white pixels scattered around the border and plan to replace it before testing begins.
I spent last night fighting a rough cold, but it's mostly gone now so I'm decorating the last 6 shops before finishing off the decorations for Ivo and Glazty Theatres. After that comes the programming for the two minigames in Rave & Busters and the elevator in the southwest corner. I told a friend that I'd hang out with him today though so just enjoy this screenshot.
I may or may not remove that pool, but I know I wanted to add something there so we'll see what happens.
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In any case, I'm gonna start using those kinds of teleporters more often now because they offer less chances of telefrags and let the player keep moving after teleporting. For these new teleporters to work, however, the teleportation lines must parallel to each other. Otherwise, you gotta check some flags to ensure the player keeps their direction, and that causes the player to stop moving for a small second which practically negates the purpose for making these teleporters in the first place. I'll upload a map to the third post that shows the teleporter in action so you can see it and copy it (which I assume Rozark did when you notice the updated version of his past/future map 
