I have made two maps plots for my game in a bird’s eye view. At the beginning of the game, the player starts off in the streets next to market stalls and their home is in an alleyway. When they meet character A, they will be brought to the main map, the circus tent. Here, they will be spending most of their time. However, to me, these maps felt small and spaced apart, which leads me to my next steps.
Feedback
I had a discussion with one of my classmates about these ideas and how I felt about the initial concepts. I summarised their main points:
“It doesn’t need to be big” I told them about my main concerns about the map plots and felt like the player wouldn’t be satisfied with their experienced as all the “goals” are so close within reach from each other. Even so, when I thought and said these feelings, they reminded me that this does not have to be a big game at all.
“The tent feels a bit disconnected from the others” This statement encouraged me to redesign the main map plot again as it does feel a bit further away from the rest of the tents.
Conclusion
I will take their advice with me and remember what they have said. I think it was an insightful conversation and interesting to see what another person would say about these concepts. But deep down, although this is a “smaller” project, I want to stretch this out more and be more ambitious with what I want as an end goal. So, for my next steps, I want to redesign the map plots and play with the setting and how close everything should be in relation to each other and I also want to make another (or perhaps few) map plot(s). This way, it encourages the player to explore more and have more fun, interact with the environment and try find easter eggs in the game.
Extra take aways:
- Don’t space out the important story event locations too far apart
- Don’t be OVERLY ambitious to the point where you can’t deliver it
- Play with the main area! As the player will be spending most of their time inside of the tent, explore what could be inside