Sunday, July 6, 2008

Dungeon Tiles (3)

The first thing i did with the Dungeon tiles, was ignore any notions of research or preparation and just went ahead and made some. "Madness!". Not so, my reasoning was that a good place to start would be to see how they're used, as that's they're primary purpose (looking nice is secondary). I didn't go as far as to use them in a game, at the moment I'm just thinking of the process of printing the tiles and setting them up.
So these are my very first stab at the set. I wasn't going to post them, as strictly they're a 'tool' and not a finish or even a sketch (I suppose you could call them a 'sketch of use' or something), but I thought it would be fun to put up what I would do with no research just so I can compare it with the end result when i finish. I decided on a straight section of corridor and a 'T' junction, even ignoring my plan of the tiles I wanted to produce, and came up with this...


There's not much to say about the actual design of them. From my experience with the maps for D&D, I knew that I wanted to include shadows to create depth, and 'clutter' (little bits of stone and cracks on the floor) to create a bit of noise and interest. More importantly though is what I learned from printing them up, cutting them free, and placing them. Well I didn't learn very much to be honest, nothing ground breaking anyway, but it's all important -
-need to be printed onto thick card, or mounted on foam board (or similar)
-need cutting guides at either end (and at corners) to match up the tiles (not a big concern but would be nice)
- the ones I've made for this are very dull, not much better than a grid, there's not a lot of story in them.
-because they're line drawings they'll photocopy nicely (I only realised this when i had a printed piece of paper in my hand. Printer ink is expensive, so this is great news)
-the line work I've used is very timid, and therefor confusing, I should think about being bolder.

I'm sure I've probably learned a lot more without realising it, but that will only come about as I start to design more tiles. It's a good start though. here's the version that are ready for print, if you want to make a very boring dungeon (remember not to scale them on the printer, like I did first go...)