--Introduction--

Hello, everyone!
I will be doing weekly development log updates for a few weeks leading up to the release of  Corrupted Oath. Follow me on itch.io to not miss out on information you may find value in (https://cracked-walnut.itch.io/corrupted-oath), especially if you're planning on a long-term project, such as myself.

This week, we're going to be discussing planning that went into designing maps.

This devlog will be quick and dirty since I'm already a day late on it. My apologies! Excuse any grammatical errors, please!

This week will be pretty short, so let's get right into it.

--Map Development and Design--

I believe every map has a theme. It's not always the designer's choice to outright tell the player "hey! This is what you should be feeling when you play through this map". Some maps are only meant to serve as transitions to sell the impact of the next big landscape the player is thrust into.

So when I'm first starting off with designing a map, I ask myself a few key questions:

1) What should the theme of the map entail?

2) How should this map look in comparison to the map that came before it?

3) What type of items should I place for the player?
3.5) What kind of enemies?

4) Is this a transition(designed to build the hype to a larger area) or a sandbox map (an area which the player will explore)? You could even have a transition fused into a sandbox, as well.

After answering those questions, I make the layout. Is the area going to be small? Large? Then I start picking out the graphics. Let's take a forest environment as an example. I pick out grass, dirt, rocks, water for rivers or streams, trees, bushes, logs, sticks and twigs, etc. You could even throw in some bugs or animals using RPG Maker's eventing system. Picking out the layout and graphics is the easy part. The challenge starts with figuring out how to outline the map itself. I usually play out a scenario in my head, something like this:

"Okay, so I'll put some trees here. This'll guide the player toward this potion. They'll pick up the potion, turn around, see this sign on the right, read it, and start heading in another direction. Then they'll encounter this enemy...",

etc, etc. It's all a play. Play it out in your head and you'll start to entertain yourself with a plethora of ideas! It can get quite exhausting, though, especially if you spend an entire day doing nothing but mapping.

--To Wrap Up...--
Next Tuesday, September 17th, I'll be discussing the marketing side of things in Weekly Devlog #6: Marketing Corrupted Oath.

Check out the Corrupted Oath demo here: https://cracked-walnut.itch.io/corrupted-oath (download link is at the bottom of the page)
The FULL game is also out now... for FREE! Yes you read that right folks. Same link.

Leave your feedback on the Corrupted Oath Discord server: https://discord.gg/eAssA8y

Thank you for reading Weekly Devlog #5!

- Cracked_Walnut