Moutainside Temple, Adept & Expert (Patreon)

Hey folks, I'm back a little bit later than normal for a rare weekend map but hopefully, it was worth it! Your Adept version of the map this time is set at sunset, which should make for a very dramatic fight (what happens at sunset??) Anyway, let's talk about the map!

1. While I don't have them posted, I actually had quite a few rough drafts of this map. The trouble for me was making sure the Mountainside Temple was actually built onto a mountain side and also making sure the temple was vague enough that it could be used for any god in a pinch. I had a really cool version of the map with a temple set at the top of a mountain and a waterfall pouring out of the front all the way down the mountain, but it was a little too complicated I think and the perspective was messing with my eyes (also that temple couldn't exactly be used to worship Kossuth the Lord of Flames, right?). 

I think I'll avoid mountainous terrain for the next couple maps, I'm getting tired of rocks. 

2. So this map was a little different in that I haven't mixed indoor and outdoor areas before. Sadly, I don't think they interact particularly well. The problem for this map in particular is that the rock walls give the illusion of a side-on perspective rather than from above, which makes the temple look like it was just plopped on top of the map, it seems out of place. I think a different environment would have worked better for this effect though, so I'll keep trying. 

Drawing the temple was interesting as well. I didn't want to draw the walls because I'm lazy, so I tried to imply interesting walls and decoration with small details in the outline. Hopefully these little details inspire someone to climb the temple walls, find a skylight, and drop down into the middle of a group of cultists or something ;)

3. The color palette this time was inspired by the Alpine Skyline level of A Hat in Time, which had some pretty fun colors (and platforming). I shied away from brown rocks because I wanted this to feel more like stone than dirt, giving the map a cooler impression rather than warmer. 

As time went on I kept feeling like the map was way too washed out, but whenever I altered the saturation and contrast I never like the alternative. I found a middle ground with just slightly boosted greens and blues, it made me want to return to this someday and give it a more volcanic feel with brown rocks and embers falling from the sky.