The Amazon Isles RPG Map - EARLY Work In Progress

 Hi everyone!

I thought I'd share with you all a glimpse into the madness that is my brain and the insanity of my work process.

I currently spend most of my day editing videos for Steve Noir's Amazon Arrow movie projects and doing freelance work to keep a roof over my head. In the evenings, I try to create at least two new posts every day for Patreon, so that I am both on time with my release commitments while also working ahead. After that (when sane people are sleeping), my mind wanders and starts to think about other projects that I'd like to do!

Not long ago, I posted about a Blackjack-based combat system that I had devised for an Amazon Arrow Visual Novel video game that I am working on in my "off hours" (whatever that means for a freelancer). While I think this will prove to be effective for the Visual Novel format, it also got me to think about what I would really want from an Amazon Arrow combat system... which is, of course, THE ABILITY TO SHOOT ARROWS! This isn't possible in a Visual Novel (at my programming skill level), but it is possible in RPG-style games. On the same day that I purchased my Visual Novel software, I also picked up a program called RPG Maker, which is software designed to create 2D open-world games in the style of the early Final Fantasy series. I was a little disappointed with it out of the box, but my investigation into combat systems revealed tutorials for how to implement a classic Legends of Zelda-style battle system inside of RPG Maker, complete with the ability to acquire and use new weapons throughout the game... like magical bows! The opportunities that this system offered ignited my imagination. I immediately began to envision a hybrid Zelda/Final Fantasy video game set during the first Amazon Arrow Tournament of Champions in which Chryseis, Pyrrah and Aella compete against each other while cooperating to survive the rigorous Tournament environments and mythical monsters. After a bit of research, I realized that this is actually something that I could pull off! Perhaps not on a massive scale, but I could at least make an "overworld" map of the Amazon Isles that would lead into a series of modular Zelda dungeons where Chryseis could acquire keys to unlock doors and make her way through a maze while picking up gold, new arrows, new bows and magical items. I've always wanted to tell the story of the first Archery Tournament of Champions in a format that would be truly special. I've flirted with the idea of writing it up as a novel, or doing it as an interactive Visual Novel, but wouldn't it be so cool if I could turn it into an actual video game and let you EXPERIENCE IT FOR YOURSELF!

The problem is that the out-of-the-box RPG Maker templates are horrible, dated and visually disappointing. It would be a lot of work and, in the end, wouldn't look very engaging and certainly wouldn't inspire someone to want to go and check out my other art projects. If I'm going to do all of this work, I want the environments to look organic! I want trees to look like trees, rather than stacks of little green blocks. This led me to find yet another tutorial series with instructions on how to design a CUSTOM RPG Maker map in Photoshop and import it into the game!

Ahhhh... now we're talking. Photoshop is my jam. 

So, I started to imagine what an overworld map of the Amazon Isles might look like. It would be the functionality of the game that would define the locations that I would need on my map. I wanted huge, epic-scale structures, so maybe I wouldn't be able to do ALL of the Amazon Isles on one map. Perhaps I could just focus on one corner of it... Chryseis's "neighborhood". I'd need the house where she lives with Pyrrah. Across the bridge there could be another house shared by Aella and Lykopis, which could be surrounded by Aella's sculptures. I'd need a store where Chryseis could buy items. Maybe a temple where Chryseis could acquire revives and health potions. Perhaps a market area where Chryseis could reliably encounter NPCs to acquire clues. I'd also need lots of nooks and crannies where I could hide treasures so that players could make new discoveries throughout the game. I started to think about locations for a few simple puzzles that could lead Chryseis into the dungeon levels. I imagined a massive underwater temple that would serve as the final dungeon, home of the Big Bad, where Chryseis would get her hands on the Soul Rings for the very first time! It would need to be an ominous structure that you could see, that you would hear about throughout the game, but that you couldn't actually get to until the time was right. 

This became too complex to keep straight in my head, so I started to make a little sketch... but the sketch was useless without knowing what the scale of the buildings might be. So I made a functional character "sprite" of Chryseis in the scale that she would be in the actual game, and then I made a few doors that were big enough for her to walk through, and then I sketched in the rough shape of the buildings around those doors and placed the buildings on the map. Once I had the rough map, I replaced the mockup buildings with more detailed structures and trees from an RPG Maker expansion pack and tied them all together with a bit of custom illustration and Photoshop magic. Slowly but surely, The Amazon Isles began to come alive!

After almost two weeks of late night tinkering, we arrive at the image that you see above.

As the title says, this is still a very EARLY work in progress and this image is basically a thumbnail. (The actual map is six times larger than what I've posted above, because I don't want some other Google-searching game designer to steal my functionally-scaled map!). There is no part of this map that is complete and lots will change before I arrive at the final map. There are lots of missing details and the final landscape will be much more colorful. I've barely begun to add details to the entire right side, though the major structures are there, including the home of Aella and Lykopis in the upper right. Probably the most "complete" area of the map is the upper left corner, which is the home of Chryseis and Pyrrah. If you look closely, there is a small circle of grass in the upper left corner that looks out into the sea. This is the starting point of the game and Chryseis is standing in the middle of that circle. That might give you some sense of exactly how big this overworld map will be as compared to your player character.

At any rate, I thought it might be fun to share this with you all in stages as I begin this journey. I've never done anything like this before, but I've done enough research at this point to know that my existing skill set is applicable and I'm confident that this is something that I can actually do.... I think... so far... :)

I may never post any completed game assets, but WIPs are fun and can inspire the imagination. I hope you enjoy them.

Peace,
Chryseis