Rickety Docks, Adept (Patreon)

This week I made the Rickety Docks (25x30), a somewhat spacious city map with plenty of cover and interesting paths to take, so I expect it will allow for some interesting fights with the right setup. 

Your alternate version of this one is what I'm calling 'Ominous', but know that I made it with some kind of eldritch encounter in mind, with giant tentacles reaching out of the water and half man/half fish abominations walking the docks. You know, Lovecraftian stuff! It felt right for this kind of map to have that sort of recoloring available, I think.

1. The idea for this map was that it would be a dock that protrudes more into the water, a little peninsula or pier with lots of derelict docks ringing it. The little detail which I thought would add some interesting movement and cover possibilities is the second level, which has only one staircase (not that that ever stops anyone from scaling the wall elsewhere). I think part of what makes a good map is plenty of changes in height, which make a map feel really dynamic, but oftentimes I don't think to design a city map with more levels than streets sand rooftops. That little ledge is a solid addition, I think, and maybe I'll try to build in more staircases and street levels like this in a couple of the city maps I'm working on next. 

Also, you'll notice that the sketch above features a mid-sized boat which didn't make it into the final version. I had one less day this week to develop this map due to Labor Day, which is the day my friends and I usually have a cookout and play some board games, so I found myself pretty short on time and staring down a boat that didn't necessarily need to be in this map. I'm tempted to get in touch with Limithron again and see if he could remedy that though, he draws all the best boats ;)

2. I'm starting to feel like every week I jump into a map and decide that it's the perfect time to remake some old prop that I was originally planning on using. This time around I redrew my roadside stalls, docks, and barrels/crates, finding that my library of these props were either a touch outdated or not quite fitting for this particular map. Also, I finally cut out my old cobblestone texture, which I've used heavily in city maps for a good long while! I never was a huge fan of it (just way too over-detailed), but my little attempts at alternatives were never too satisfying. Last week I tried out this patchy cobblestone texture on top of the Village Gates' walls and decided that it would likely be the new direction to go, though I'm feeling that I'll endeavor to detail add a bit more detail to future iterations.

On top of that, I'm unfortunately starting to feel like it's time to draw some fresh roofs- that is to say, more tile-able patches of various roof textures. Why is that unfortunate? Well, because it's boring, difficult, and time-consuming work to make textures that tile well without easily-identifiable patterns and don't appear over-detailed at a glance, and I haven't done it in a pretty damn long time. We'll see how up to the task I'm feeling come Monday, I suppose.

3. Colors! Last week's map was the Village Gates, which (for whatever reason) was a Village map instead of City map, meaning it had dirt roads and a more verdant palette. While I would have loved for this map to feel thematically similar to that one, I really wanted it to be a proper City map, with proper cobblestone streets that would work well with the multi-level layout I had planned. It's not that big of a deal, just a small shame. Instead, I went back to the City Boulevard map I made a few months back and started with its palette. I felt it was more washed-out than I prefer these days, but overall the base colors feel right for a city. We'll see though, it feels like I'm never satisfied with my previous palettes, changing color direction ever week despite doing this for a handful of years now. And you know what, I'd bet that most people don't even notice the minor changes I made week-by-week, but they always feel major to me.