This is a preview of a mod replacing the tile districts selection screen by a map. For now, this is not a proper mod but just a standalone executable.

Preview

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Download

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• PC/Linux : https://mega.nz/file/uk0yjSrZ#nqCdKI06Ab5sJ4wSrs5O1IAX1R7DlZ0cKNzphM22ciQ
• Mac : https://mega.nz/file/2wsHkJjD#cNAnZogTaFRbavLnfTp3gRTsJTkDzaQaQUKMNO-q8oQ

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Do note :

• I had this mod idea for a while. I'm somewhat experience with python but an absolute noob with renpy (I started this week). So the script is probably a wild mess.
• The map was made with this website.
  
• This might not be the definitive map because it might not match the in game city layout description (for instance I remember there is such description in chapter two or three when the MC go to visit the princess). Do you have a city layout in mind ?
  
• The images have not be properly resize. Those are just "placeholder" for the sake of the preview. Plus I believe the game do resize the image ?
  
• The district might be hard to click on because of all the transparent area (space between the buildings). The fix is rather straightforward but I kept it simple for the sake of the demo.
• Only one district have a "sub level" (the slums)
• On the main map, the name of the district appears on the top left side when hovered while on the slums map the name is always visible. Which version do you prefers ?
  

Please give me some feedback.

Nice work! Reminds me of Slavemaker.
I'd probably prefer it if the names were overlayed on top of the districts themselves, like a regular map. Or at least closer to where you're looking (top or bottom centered)

I also really wonder if the individual locations shouldn't be directly accessible if the map would be reworked like this. I think I'd prefer that, with icons of shops/NPCs that you can directly navigate to.

Then again, completely getting rid of the district subdivisions would make it a really big map. Perhaps the first 3 districts could get their own "city outskirts" map & the last 3 could get their own "city centre" map.

edit: I forgot to look at the deeper layer in the slums; that already gets rid of my issue with the names being in the corner. It's making me wonder what the gameplay implications would be if districts remained seperate maps, but travelling in between maps costs action points - and naturally, the slums would be branched off very far from the city centre. Obviously that'd require having more action points by default, but an overhaul like that might help to make Zan & your place within it feel like a bigger deal.
Anyways; even as just a visual mod without any further modifications to the game I think this city map is a great idea.

Thank you very much, it looks really nice! It's slightly different from what I had in mind, but you couldn't know that from what's currently in the game.

The royal palace is built atop a high cliff with its back overlooking the sea, the Arios 'Cathedra' is directly in front of it, and the city is best conceptualized as a giant staircase leading to the palace. The higher districts are also literally the 'upper' districts, all the way down to the inner walls, then the lower districts down to the outer walls and then the slums in the plains beyond. You can conceptualize each 'rank' of districts as circles radiating from the palace quarter, only broken by the sea.

I hope it's clear, but let me know if you have more specific questions.

Thanks for your king words and feedback !

Quote from: neronero on Apr 01, 2024, 09:13 AMI'd probably prefer it if the names were overlayed on top of the districts themselves, like a regular map. Or at least closer to where you're looking (top or bottom centered)

I also really wonder if the individual locations shouldn't be directly accessible if the map would be reworked like this. I think I'd prefer that, with icons of shops/NPCs that you can directly navigate to.

I agree. Displaying the name of district directly on the main map make the selection clearer. I never thought about getting rid of the subdivision selection (district then location). I think this is a good idea but the map is probably going to be completely covered of icons, making it harder to navigate. So I suggest a compromise: only the names of the districts on the map but the locations name/icon appears when the district is hovered. (I'm not sure if this is technically possible though)

Quote from: neronero on Apr 01, 2024, 09:13 AMedit: I forgot to look at the deeper layer in the slums; that already gets rid of my issue with the names being in the corner. It's making me wonder what the gameplay implications would be if districts remained seperate maps, but travelling in between maps costs action points - and naturally, the slums would be branched off very far from the city centre. Obviously that'd require having more action points by default, but an overhaul like that might help to make Zan & your place within it feel like a bigger deal.

Sure, visualizing the map make the distance obvious and thus lead to questioning the "travel cost". But I never thought and do not intend to deal with the action point system.

Quote from: Goldo on Apr 01, 2024, 08:53 PMThe royal palace is built atop a high cliff with its back overlooking the sea, the Arios 'Cathedra' is directly in front of it, and the city is best conceptualized as a giant staircase leading to the palace. The higher districts are also literally the 'upper' districts, all the way down to the inner walls, then the lower districts down to the outer walls and then the slums in the plains beyond. You can conceptualize each 'rank' of districts as circles radiating from the palace quarter, only broken by the sea.

I hope it's clear, but let me know if you have more specific questions.

Thanks a lot! That exactly what I wanted by asking if anyone had a city layout in mind. I'm probably going to draw a mock-up first and check if we are on the same page.

Ok so here is a very shitty map I threw together just to give you a general feel of the place. Feel free to make changes as needed and fill in the details.



Yellow is the main road. Districts are split left and right of the main road, except the slums that are sprawling everywhere outside the walls.

The lake is up in the mountain, taking its source deep within the ancient parts of the city. It supplies some waterfalls as well as many smaller streams that flow down to the sea or to the main river.

Here's a slightly rotated version where north is up.



Height differences & waterfalls are probably going to be difficult to communicate clearly in a top-down map. Let me know if you get stuck somewhere in bringing it to life, I'd be happy to help.

Quote from: Goldo on Apr 01, 2024, 11:32 PMOk so here is a very shitty map I threw together just to give you a general feel of the place. Feel free to make changes as needed and fill in the details.

Oh look at that, the mook-up I wanted to draw 

Exactly like @neronero said : top down map are rather bad to convey depth. An isometric map would be better in order to showcase the relief and I think I could manage for the landscape but good god ... I do not want to deal with isometric buildings ! So I'm going to try to do a top down topographic map, I'll see what I can do.

I have few questions/comments about the landscape of zan :

• How many "level" for the city ? I assume that the docks are at sea level and so does the wharehouse and slums. But are the King's Hold, Cathedra and Gardens all at the same level (so 2 levels: top and down) or the Kings Hold is alone on top and the Cathedra/Gardens one rank below (so 3 levels: top, middle and down) ?
• Should the waterfall be on one of the stream instead of the sea ? So the the in game waterfall location would be around the stream with the waterfall. Or there is 3 levels and a 2 steps waterfall : the water fall from the top level to the middle and then fall again from the middle to the sea ?
• Are you uncompromising about the "landscape" (the castle on top of the peninsula toward north and the districts on the land behind) ? With your previous description I was thinking about a city around some kind of inlet, like this, because it offers more access to the sea to put the docks locations (harbor, shipyard, beach, seafront).

Quote from: Huitznahua on Apr 02, 2024, 09:09 PM

Quote from: Goldo on Apr 01, 2024, 11:32 PMOk so here is a very shitty map I threw together just to give you a general feel of the place. Feel free to make changes as needed and fill in the details.

Oh look at that, the mook-up I wanted to draw 

Exactly like @neronero said : top down map are rather bad to convey depth. An isometric map would be better in order to showcase the relief and I think I could manage for the landscape but good god ... I do not want to deal with isometric buildings ! So I'm going to try to do a top down topographic map, I'll see what I can do.

I have few questions/comments about the landscape of zan :

• How many "level" for the city ? I assume that the docks are at sea level and so does the wharehouse and slums. But are the King's Hold, Cathedra and Gardens all at the same level (so 2 levels: top and down) or the Kings Hold is alone on top and the Cathedra/Gardens one rank below (so 3 levels: top, middle and down) ?
• Should the waterfall be on one of the stream instead of the sea ? So the the in game waterfall location would be around the stream with the waterfall. Or there is 3 levels and a 2 steps waterfall : the water fall from the top level to the middle and then fall again from the middle to the sea ?
• Are you uncompromising about the "landscape" (the castle on top of the peninsula toward north and the districts on the land behind) ? With your previous description I was thinking about a city around some kind of inlet, like this, because it offers more access to the sea to put the docks locations (harbor, shipyard, beach, seafront).

Just to pipe in because I spent oh-so-many-hours devising ways to produce images of randomly generated Unity maps, but one of the best representations I saw was alternating shading each X feet of height difference. For example:



Another way which would probably work even better in this case is to have either shadows or brightness proportional to the steepness in opposite directions. For example:

Quote from: Huitznahua on Apr 02, 2024, 09:09 PMI have few questions/comments about the landscape of zan :

• How many "level" for the city ? I assume that the docks are at sea level and so does the wharehouse and slums. But are the King's Hold, Cathedra and Gardens all at the same level (so 2 levels: top and down) or the Kings Hold is alone on top and the Cathedra/Gardens one rank below (so 3 levels: top, middle and down) ?

Yes, the slums are all the way down in insalubrious, easily flooded plains, then the docks and warehouse districts are somewhat at the same level but better shielded from elements. The upper districts including the Cathedra are above that, and finally the King's hold is overlooking everything. For simplicity it's better to assume every district/location of the same rank sits at the same level.

Quote

• Should the waterfall be on one of the stream instead of the sea ? So the the in game waterfall location would be around the stream with the waterfall. Or there is 3 levels and a 2 steps waterfall : the water fall from the top level to the middle and then fall again from the middle to the sea ?

I must confess to a logical inconsistency. In events referencing the waterfall, the characters are usually standing at its feet, but since it sits at the highest level of the city it's more logical to assume it flows down, either to the beach/sea or to one of the streams running through the city (I don't really care which). For flexibility my choice would be that the waterfall area encompasses both the top and the bottom of the fall and its surroundings, so that we can choose to have events happen at the top or at the bottom depending on what fits best.

Quote

• Are you uncompromising about the "landscape" (the castle on top of the peninsula toward north and the districts on the land behind) ? With your previous description I was thinking about a city around some kind of inlet, like this, because it offers more access to the sea to put the docks locations (harbor, shipyard, beach, seafront).

Actually I like your inlet idea more! Feel free to make changes. All I ask is that it remains true to the one established map: https://henthighschool.net/index.php?msg=103

Quote from: dcsobral on Apr 02, 2024, 10:56 PMJust to pipe in because I spent oh-so-many-hours devising ways to produce images of randomly generated Unity maps, but one of the best representations I saw was alternating shading each X feet of height difference. For example:

Nice, thanks. I think I will do that if I make many height levels.

@Goldo : I didn't know about the lore post. That's cool, thanks.

Anyway, I made 2 or 3 attempt at drawing the zan landscape map and here's the one that I dislike the least :

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The delta south east would take too much space in is entirety so I only draw a small part but I'm not sure if it is really clear that it is just a part.
The slums will be next to the delta. The warehouse and docks will be further west on the same plain. The gardens and cathedra will be on the south west "plateau". And the king's hold will be on the highest part, at the top of the peninsula.

I wasn't happy with my attempt of inlets topographic map so I settle for a peninsula (you might a recognize north scotland). I'm not sure how the walls are going to circle the city, I might need to redraw the landscape again.

New proposal : solitude from skyrim.

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Obviously it's way better than my attempt but I do not know how we feel about using an another game asset.

Here is where I think the locations could go :

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1 - the slums next to the delta and link to the city by one bridge
2 - the docs and warehouse cram together at the bottom of the moutain
3 - the gardens and cathedra on a big plateau
4 - the king's Hold on the samller and highest plateau
5 - remove this peak to make space for the Hold or only reducing the width of the peak so it could be the source of the stream leading to the waterfall
6 - remove this arch or keeping just because the beach locations images show this kind of arch

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I think we can take inspiration from the solutide map (or even retrace lots of it) without copying it exactly.

I like the idea of the Slums being on the opposite side of the delta. In the previous map it seemed strange to me that the docks would be positioned on the seashore instead of being constructed along the river. But on the other hand, the sewers location is out of place if all of the slums are on the other side of the river. So maybe the slums should be extended further to the left of 1/2, spanning both sides of the river.

I'm in favor of changing the map enough so that it is not the same as Skyrim, even though it can draw inspiration from it.

There's this idea that the slums are outside the walls and the docks and warehouse inside. It is an important distinction for an event idea I have for later.
The docks are actually at the end of the delta, although you couldn't tell very well from my shitty map.

I have been looking at the tools and functionality of inkscape that could help me draw this map and I finally found out a process that I'm satisfied with.

So Here's what I've been doing this last days.

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There is only 3 layers of the mountain coming from the skyrim map, the rest have been generate by interpolation + fractals. Which, IMO, gives this "guided randomness" of the topological layers.

The peak on the highest plateau could be the source of the stream leading to the waterfall. But it looks kind of weird and I'm not sure if it would remains here.

There were no apparent need for the arc (expect maybe to match with some in game images) so I removed it.

I want to change the western part of the map.

• Either by enlarging the plateau to the bottom of the map and then building a mountain range on top. So it would make a natural border for the upper districts + it could be the source of a another stream that could merge with the one of peak.
• Or shortening the western part to make the plateau a mesa. So the natural border would be a cliff.

I like the skyrim delta because it looked like what, as I understand, an actual delta is : sediment not flown away by the river and stockpiling on top of each others up to the point of forming small island. But it was too recognizable so I looked for an another one.

Like @neronero said, the sewers of the slums risked to be separate from the rest of the city by the river, so I got ride of it. Instead I improvised a large plain with a small inlet but it looks weird (I'm not sure how to fix that for now).

I planed to put the docks on the top part of the inlet. So close to the delta but not exactly on it. I was thinking the closest thing to delta would only be the slums, to match this idea of easily floodable.

New progress:

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In the end I chose to shrink the mesa's left side AND build a peak on top.

I've followed the mook-up and put several streams within the city. I probably should have though at how to place them while I was making the topographic layers because it does not looks that good. I have a "solution" in mind but I'm not sure if this will yield a better result.
There is a stream coming from each peaks and going to the lake, plus one stream coming from the lake and going down to the lower districts. The Hold's stream come from the steep side of the peak suggesting (enough ?) that is a waterfall.
Is there any noteworthy bridge among the game's events ?

In the mook-up the road separate the districts but here it's not really the case : the southern stream will separate the docks and warehouse ; for the cathedra and garden on the mesa ... no clear separator because the road need to reach the Hold to the east.

The walls ... looks weird. I just hope they will less visible with all the buildings around. On the lowest layer the border are clear : mountain to sea. However I'm a bit reluctant to build walls all around the mesa. Maybe I can add some on the western part but I don't feel the need to build them on the northern part since it's a cliff. Same for the Hold, northern part is a cliff.