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[Bumber]

Oh gosh I expected to get downvoted to hell, haha

I agree that the new mountains look better! Glad I could help. It's already looking a lot more cohesive!

You're in luck! we don't have voting on the forums!

-1

[Meph]

Yeah, good/evil isn't done yet.

[Mike Mayday]

I really like this approach to mountains. Thanks for the feedback!
The current sprites were just placeholders as I was planning to work on the sprites a lot more (I really love mountains) but this will help a lot!

Wait a moment. I'm the mountaineer!

Well, while I really love mountains, you REALIEST love mountains!

[QDDeerGirl]

some purely aesthetic suggestions that run the risk of pissing off the artists:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Clouds and some fantasy stylings, like a compass.

Clouds would look great, though they'd need to be toggle-able, so its doubtful whether they'd be worth the effort of implementing. But stuff like that lends a great amount of depth and visual appeal to a map, makes it feel just that tiny bit more real. Randomly placed sea serpents, birds, and crashed ships accomplish something similar.


They should probably fade completely or become just a shadow on zooming in, i guess


Also a compass would be cool, unfortunately im not very good at drawing compasses haha. But it would do wonders to get the player in the mood to plot a great adventure or a colony in the mountains!

Once again sorry if I am interfering/annoying!

[Meph]

We already talked about clouds internally.

Compass rose... Not if you use clouds. Clouds = real world. A compass rose = Drawn map. We can't have both, that sends a mixed message.

[neobit]

I agree with Meph. Do not mix these worlds.
Also serpents and crashed ships would look cool but they should not be at the map if they do not exist in the world.

The clouds are charming.

[Wokko]

Some animated clouds and other terrain-related animations would be nice to have, even as post-steam launch update.

[PatrikLundell]

Like neobit, I wouldn't want the map to display features that aren't actually there (I don't require clouds to be tied to the actual weather, and they're sufficiently transient that they won't fool anyone in trying to seek them out, so I don't have a problem with them as such [although the world map is actually frozen in time...]. However, it might interfere with depicting evil weather, should that be contemplated).

[Meph]

Evil clouds could be useful though

[voliol]

Clouds already appear on the mid-level adventurer mode fast-travel maps (whew, what a noun cluster!), so they need to be supported there at least. Well, currently they don't move unless you are, animated features on fixed maps are tricky.

[Nelia Hawk]

Yeah, good/evil isn't done yet.

not sure if ya can do particles... but maybe add some particles going up from the ground at them areas on the worldmap or such...some colorfull ones for good (white, yellow, green, blue) and maybe darker evil ones (red/black/purple?) or maybe ravens or bats flying over the evil area or such... colorfull parrots flying over good areas? like such worldmap deco stuff.
(one thing that comes to my mind is the particles the game "rise to ruins" does with their corruption areas) (that game does pretty good pixel rain too, with puddles and dripping down roofs and such)
https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/256721713/movie480.webm?t=1588368685
at 0.40 in the video.

[Cruxador]

Those clouds are really pretty, and even if they represent nothing at all, I think they would be worth having on the embark and worldgen maps purely for the pleasant aesthetic. Since it's not functional, not a high priority obviously but... It shouldn't be that hard to implement, right? It contributes a lot to the first impression that the game will make on new players picking it up on Steam, if nothing else. I suppose also, moving clouds on worldgen can be a good indicator that time is progressing and nothing has crashed although that's not usually an issue.

I don't think the compass rose is necessary; besides the issue Meph mentioned, it obscures part of the map (clouds with transparency don't) and since the map can't be rotated anyway, it doesn't carry any meaning.

We already talked about clouds internally.

Compass rose... Not if you use clouds. Clouds = real world. A compass rose = Drawn map. We can't have both, that sends a mixed message.

Although this applies to a rose, what she drew can also represent an ornamental compass, and something like that does exist in reality so can be incorporated into the UI. Putting it directly on the map might be awkward but having it at all isn't strictly ruled out if there's blank space to fill with something ornamental, and currently both worldgen and embark screens do have something like that. As far as I'm aware, UI design isn't underway yet, but things like that with muted color choice (to avoid distraction) but more to them than just a tiling background texture would be a value-added contribution to the overall appearance of the game. Since it's not functional, it need not be a priority, but after all the game is already functional before adding any graphics. Not sure whether it's a task that plays to the strengths of either you or Mike though; I haven't seen either of you do something along those lines before.

[Starver]

(If Toady wants, he can reject North, South, East and West and have other directions (pseudorandomly?) applied to the world. In fact, any four distinct letters would do[1] and use them only in Initial form. Or Runic-esque ones, definitely with smadt avoidance of like-looking kinds.)

(Only half serious. As flavour alone.)

[1] If using C, avoid G; if Q, don't use O; if H, N might be too close.

[PatrikLundell]

Yeah, good/evil isn't done yet.

not sure if ya can do particles... but maybe add some particles going up from the ground at them areas on the worldmap or such...some colorfull ones for good (white, yellow, green, blue) and maybe darker evil ones (red/black/purple?) or maybe ravens or bats flying over the evil area or such... colorfull parrots flying over good areas? like such worldmap deco stuff.
(one thing that comes to my mind is the particles the game "rise to ruins" does with their corruption areas) (that game does pretty good pixel rain too, with puddles and dripping down roofs and such)
https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/256721713/movie480.webm?t=1588368685
at 0.40 in the video.

It would be very hard to draw recognizable parrots/raven/bats on top of a 16*16 pixel background without completely dominating the tile: The artists don't have much wriggling room. Particle effects might be possible, though, using the time domain to help indicate good/evil/savage, and possibly even the general flavor(s) of evil (death/reanimation/blood rain/syndrome rain/husking clouds).

[bloop_bleep]

If you add purple evil clouds, you should add animated bright cyan lightning inside the clouds. Not necessarily coming out of the cloud, but maybe inside.