Hello! I’m VincentJSyndicate, otherwise known as SourcedInfinity, Inventize, Xuanital, and a bunch of other names. You may have seen me around the forums before as a UI designer and/or builder, along with being a contributor to some threads.
Here’s the thing.
I’m making a county game similar to other ro-state games. However, I’m having trouble with the map.
When I speak to my testers and show them images of my map, they all call it “bland” and “repetitive.”
I don’t have any filler buildings made yet other than the few already placed down, but here’s my current image.
I don’t think your buildings are repetitive but maybe the trees are. Maybe work something with the lighting to make it look more lively. Add some bridges, roundabouts and make the road layouts more unique.
I really like the size of the map. Perfect for a Roblox game. Building cities can be hard work, which I know from experience. I think we have all seen games like Mad City and Jailbreak, which are fun games, but have dull filler buildings. I would place the important stuff first, and then the filler buildings.
For example, if the player interacts or uses a building in any way, make those first. It will come along naturally one you get into it. Making little easter eggs and secret locations can hype up the map a little bit and make it more interesting to build. Remember to make sure you have fun and put in effort. If this isn’t rushed I’m sure you could be the owner of a very popular game.
When you start building more of the building I’d recommend not copying and pasting/re colouring buildings. This will help to make it look less repetitive.
In the beginning process of constructing a city, it will look bland. I’d continue on finishing the other roads for the different regions. For this part, I create a blueprint from my notebook to outline how the road may look. Inspiration for building cities comes from games that have accomplished this and example of images on websites. After this part, just add different buildings (interactive/non-interactive), sites, and trees. Each region should be of its own environment or of similar.
Uniform trees are a big no-no. Add variation such as color, size and leaf placement. Make the blocks bigger. Remember, city blocks are usually longer than town blocks. Add alleyways off of some of the roads. Don’t forget to randomly scatter around details such as benches, trees, dumpsters, etc.
