The comparisons lately to the map images on other sites lately left me feeling a bit self-conscious about my work, so I wanted to try and make something that looks a little better. In doing so, I did have to make some compromises. The map ends up being not too far from being a circle map, but with some subtle transparencies to blur the lines of the circles outside their borders. I considered using icons for boats or fish or castle towers and other items, but none of them gave the clean look I wanted, so  I stuck with circles. I tried for a while to do a more true fill-style map, but couldn't get anything I was happy with. I guess that'll be a project for another day.

The colors and Fresco painting theme were loosely inspired by the children's book, The Cloud Spinner, which I had recently read. I liked the fresh, not-quite-whimsical look. The color palette was outside my usual darker preference, and I'd been meaning to expand my horizons, so it all came together to make this.

The setting of the map is the Mediterranean Sea, along with the Black Sea, with a lot of artistic liberty. After drawing that out, I noticed it looked an awful lot like an upside down world map (minus Africa), so I decided I'd try setting up a version like that to see which I preferred. I ended up not being able to choose between the two, so instead used the scenarios to offer up both. I'll be very curious to see if certain people end up doing better on one vs the other.

As for game play, I've spent a lot of time lately working on very complicated maps that either push or break the limits of the game engine's capabilities. And then because the games are complicated, they aren't played very much. The effort to enjoyment ratio wasn't working out, so I wanted to make something that more people might play regularly. In that regard, I tried not to stray too far from the tried and true original, but I wanted to reward more critical thinking so I backed down the number of choke points to hide behind and kept the map small to keep the action fast.

There weren't a lot of challenges to overcome on making this, and so not a whole lot of lessons learned to share. I did spend some time trying to learn Adobe Illustrator, which was a major frustration in and of itself, but found a workflow going back and forth between that and Paint.Net to create kind of a hybrid vector/filtered look. Ultimately, I didn't figure out enough of Illustrator to be able to give any pointers in its use.

>loosely inspired by the children's book, The Cloud Spinner

And your map inspired me to get this book from our inter-library loan.

Thanks for the Dev Journal - I always enjoy reading these.

It's pretty good, as far as children's books go. Ideal for the 4-8 crowd, I think. The lesson is one we could all stand to follow.