Can anyone guess what I'm trying to do with this board, and what kinds of monsters I'll be using on each side?
I could believe that this is either snowy patches on frozen water (snowy trees too, maybe?), or clouds way up in the air. The first would be fun for teleports, and the second for flying enemies.
Yeah, clouds or bubbles. Kind of looks like the underwater salmon egg adventure. It kind of looks cool to me when doodads hang off the map slightly, by the way.
I was afraid of that. Morvin the Malodorous Takes a Bath! Oh well. I did some playtesting last night and the monsters worked really badly, so I think I'll just shelve this idea.
This was in that other topic.. I'm not sure what it is that you actually need but I do know that there is a vertical black line, or more like a smudge, in Melvin decal. You can use that to produce a makeshift vertical black line, unless the line has to be thin.
Next idea involves perspective: The thing about this map is that you're not allowed to touch the grass tiles (or road); you'll spend all your time on the roof, in trees, or on top of that outer wall. I really wish I had a decal of a vertical black line. Would it look better if I used two tiles for the vertical portions? I might be able to show part of the tree trunk then. You probably shouldn't be able to see that grass between the building and the wall, but I'm not sure how handle it so it looks right and still is clear that the gap exists.
All I see there is the line I'm using on the outer edge of the grey tiles. What I need is a true vertical line that goes corner to corner through the center of a tile.
Ah, ok. That kind of vertical line. I look at things in a way that what you described is a diagonal line, since diagonal line is what connects the corners of a square What you need doesn't exist as far as I know and I haven't found any good workarounds for it. Different kinds of basic shape decals is something BM should definitely add to the custom scenario builder.
Nice work! Half grass/half brick tiles would help immensely for the house. Diagonals would go a long way for isometric perspective.
I'm going to start training myself to use the cardinal direction system that the map editor uses to describe directions, rather than using words like "bottom" or "vertical". The south side of that building could probably just have the roof extended most of the way acrross it. It would look like you're looking at it from the front of the building and not the corner. This might eliminate your need for that line you're looking for. It's shadows and the wall's shadows aren't that long, so right now everything looks like it must be about the same height. For a rooftop battle, I think the hardest thing I'd have with this image is making it clear that it's possible to get from the tree to the center house. Extending the roof about half a square would fudge the barrier lines a little bit to make it appear more like it's just a short step from tree to roof. I'm glad I'm not the only person who saw that doodad and immediately thought "shingles"! As far as the Southeast corner of the building is concerned, if that corner really bugs you, you can always obfuscate half of the block you don't want being visible with a lovely shrubbery or two. I've used that to create more flat looking corners before and it worked just fine, you'd just not be left with quite as open looking of a yard on that side of the house.
I think I'm going to forget trying to show perspective and just not show the sides of anything; I'll still have some shadows to hint at height.
