*** August 2009 Challenge Voting - Create a city map for Kaidan ***

[Jykke]

There were very good maps posted on the challenge this month. GamePrinter must be very satisfied with the overall quality.

On my part, the voting was somewhat a duel between armoredgear7 and MysticMagellan. Both have very good looking maps, with different kind of strong & weak points (well, I shoudn't call them weak points, but you get the picture..).

armoredgear7's map:
+Layout of the city
+base ground texture
+natural shapes
+heightfield
-use of space (forest on the left) and cropping of the area
-washed out color palette (especially the buildings look too pale to my taste, ground could have used darker tones)
-scaling of the roof models, scaling of textures

MysticMagellan's map:
+Layout of the city
+Vivid color palette
+Use of space and perfect cropping of the map
+Small details
+/-textures (there were very good textures on this map (damn, I just loved those roof textures), but also some that fell in the "needs some work" -category)
-Unnatural shapes (the fields for example)
-scaling of the roof models, scaling of textures

So as you might have noticed, most of the strong points I listed here were actually the weak points of the other map and vice versa. However, there were also some shared excellence as well as shared issues. But in the end, it a good example how two participants could learn from eachothers maps.

I would have liked to vote for both, but as that is not possible, my vote goes for MysticMagellan with a very very VERY small margin.
(note: MysticMagellan, I coudn't give rep as I have to spread it around first.. but I'll try to remember give some later on for this map)

[Ghostman]

Oh I was torn, so torn between the maps of Coyotemax and MysticMagellan. Since I was given only a single vote (curses!) I checked what others had voted so far, and seeing that of the two MM was ahead by one vote, I bumped CM up so that they'd be even.

When in doubt, support the underdog

[Lucas_Adorn]

COyoteMax fo me too. That one just captures the very feeling of the oriental style and the map leaves room for imagination.

The others are very nice also but almost too detailed. I think sometimes city maps can be like that when every house is painted, but I very much admire the patience and hard work put into it.

Good job all.

[Valarian]

A very hard choice between ArmoredGear and CoyoteMax there.

[Steel General]

Ascensions, Steels and Immolates maps all looked great but I thought that it was just too uniform in places.

There are a lot of "faults" with my map, the uniformity is probably the most obvious. I was so pressed for time just trying to get it done that I had to let a lot of things slide that I may normally have done.

Some things I wish I'd have had time to go back and 'tweak':

1. The roof texture(s) - They only really shows in the castle and some of the larger buildings
2. The river - the color is to bright and needed some more texture work it looks shallow.
3. House shapes - wanted them less square, but I tried to vary the sizes
4. The Castle - Should be larger overall

Honestly I'm surprised I got even one vote so far (which I do appreciate), but I was fully expecting to get none.

[Karro]

Well, I went with Mystic Magellan. I liked Armored Gears in appearance and style, but it gave me the impression of being the "Town" of Oten-Jo instead of the "City" of Oten-jo, if you know what I mean - it just seemed a little small in size compared to the impression I got from the original description of the city. MM's looked good, and also captured that sense of being a crowded city, to me.

Overall, a lot of great entries!

[Avulsion]

Armoredgear7 won my vote (his rooftops are better than MysticMagellan's, and tipped the scale). I almost voted for Coyotemax's because I love the oblique aerial angle.

Ascension used the best color scheme, in my opinion.

Overall, I think everyone did really well. I feel inspired now!

[MysticMagellan]

When I heard about this month's challenge I knew right away that I wanted to participate. I immediately pulled down a bunch of old Dungeon magazines and other modules containing city maps, browsed many sites and looked at many photographs, and did as much research as I could into the style of Japanese cities. Shortly after starting the design of my map I noticed that I wasn't the only one. I think everyone did their homework on this challenge, and I know I was inspired by different aspects from the various different entries over the last month.

This made my voting decision very hard. I think every map here is good enough to publish. Ascension's belongs printed on canvas and hung on a wall. Coyotemax and Rovingjack's feel like illustrations to me rather than usable maps, and I hope one or both can grace the intro pages to the city of Oten-Jo. When it comes down to gaming maps though, I prefer certain elements, and though Immolate and Steel General have good layouts that experiment boldy, they seem less polished then Armoredgear7's entry.

To Armoredgear7 - you said I set the bar, but I think I was only trying to stay ahead of you after seeing our similar styles near the beginning, and I think I've learned the most from watching our two maps evolve.

[Blaidd Drwg]

I'm voting for Coyotemax' map. The landscape-like rendering gives it a very old-fashioned look, which I think fits the subject best.

[NeonKnight]

My vote went to Coyotemax. That map is:

1. AWESOME

2. Stylistic and so representative of the theme

3. AWESOME