Riverside Camp, Adept (Patreon)

Hello there, Adepts! This week's map is the Riverside Camp (25x25), another map which apparently I made back in October. This is my 2nd to last completed map, then I'll have to do some touchups on one more I had set aside, but one way or another I'll be done with my paternity leave and back to mapmaking fully in March! 

Anyway, let's chat about this map.

1. I feel like I very very rarely make maps with rivers, and I'm not really sure why. Perhaps it's because they cut the map into pieces without adding much to the flow of combat? The only effect I can imagine them having on the battle is that they could reduce player movement speed while wading across, or maybe there's something in the water that makes it dangerous? Either way the impact is relatively low, and I'd usually prefer swapping one out with a rocky ledge, which at least blocks line of sight, or maybe with a winding dirt road, which offers a solid battleground with clear lines of sight for all sides. That's just my tactical take on this kind of terrain however, and I admit I overthink it a little because it's my job. 

2. As I recall, when I made this map I was on a mad streak of making several maps in quick succession, and for whatever reason I decided that this concept would be a fast and simple one to keep that streak going. Breaking it down, I think it probably was a particularly fast one- the rock walls look like they probably came from the 'Green Dragon Lair' map, the camp looks like it's assembled from pieces of 'Bandit Camp 3', and I'll bet that all the trees and rocks came from 'Jungle Ledge', since that has been my #1 place to go for quick palm trees ever since I made it. 

Preparing for this leave of absence was an interesting exercise in quick mapmaking, I've found. It's felt like a test of my memory of past maps and the parts that make them up, as well as a test of my memory of concepts I haven't developed before. As interesting as it was, I'll be happy to make new props again, honestly. After a while, it somehow starts to feel like cheating when a map is made up of 75% reused outlines. 

3. I can see what mood I was in when I colored this one. It looks to me like I felt that my previous map was much too subdued and the shadows were too mild, so I went hard in the other direction. Right now, I feel like the extra vibrant colors aren't bad, fairly on par with a lot of my other work, but the shadows here are bonkers, almost bonkers enough for me to retouch them and repackage the map altogether. Almost. I feel like it's fairly extreme, but not a deal breaker, but maybe you'll disagree. And, as always, if there's an outcry from my Patrons I'll be happy to take another pass at it and patch things up.