I have just completed my first ever Map using homemade tiles!
It is a very simple map that includes basic river tiles, forest tiles and mountain tiles. Also my first bridge! I think it looks pretty good! My greatest fear is that people mistake my tiles/maps for something out of Fire Emblem… To differentiate, I use the NES color palette exclusively and try to limit the number of colors I use for every tile to NES limitations whenever possible (3-5 colors). Also, I tend towards using a more simplistic art style than the very detailed GBA Fire Emblem games and Tear Ring Saga. I’m crossing my fingers that this is instantly recognizable as my own, or at least something different!
Anyhow, I already had issues when made this map yesterday. Some of the tiles do not tesselate, or stack, properly. In the mountain tiles specifically, some lines go one direction in one tile, then abruptly switch direction on the tile below… Some colors switch too abruptly… There is at least on tile in the mountain set that looks too wonky and round to me… I think that I can solve this by creating more tiles and more “test cases” for different tile pairs.
The plain tiles look pretty good in my opinion, but I want to add some variant tiles that add a bit more random-looking grass. Same for mountain tiles and river tiles. The river tile set looks pretty good to me otherwise, maybe a tiny bit too shiny…
There is something missing in the forest tiles, but I’m not sure what it is. Maybe the trees should be closer together, there are many gaps…
I also have some sea/lake tiles ready, and I am working on some buildings and castle tile sets. Any and all comments, criticism are appreciated!
Average Bear's GameDev 