Realistic Towns, What makes a town believable? Options

[MEands]

So I was going to just request a town, but from what I've checked, there are no places for requesting specific maps, only for people to join teams.
So I might as well learn, what exactly makes a town map look believable.

Stuff like this


Like, I guess I could take stuff from this picture, but do you guys have any specific details that would help in making a good looking town?

This post has been edited by MEands: Apr 11 2012, 04:00 PM

[Oceans Dream]

Yeah as said, you want to have some ideas about the town before going into the map. You don't need to have straight line streets and rows of copy/pasted square houses in a field that is entirely too big.

Geography affects the town a lot. Is it by a river? Is it in the jungles? Is it a big port town? Is it up in the mountains? How do people get around? Is it a big town? a small town? What kind of districts might it have? how many floors/levels? What kind of technology are they working with? Building material? Is it a rich town? poor? Can you get around on the rooftops? Architectural style? Your own twists on it (For example, the city is built with cathedral style motifs all around)?

There's so much you could ask yourself, plus you can look at later SNES and early PS1 (possibly GBA RPGs too) for inspiration too. Even if they're not CROWDED WITH STUFF, you can still learn things about the layout design and object placement and all. Pictures/drawings/photos too.

Even real towns can have varying floors, small roads/alleys, government buildings, temples, nice architecture and all (Particularly early mediterranean ones) so I'm not just suggesting these things to build some crazy fantastical town (nothing wrong with those either, I love them).

This post has been edited by Oceans Dream: Apr 14 2012, 11:16 PM

[thatbennyguy]

Yeah I'm thinking about this, too, because I'm making a game set in a living, breathing city, where you go about making small changes to people's lives to make them better. It's heavily inspired by the movie "Amelie".

So I'm wondering how to balance the difference between a "large" city (in size), and a city that is full of activity. Because obviously a smaller city can have more activity, but will you lose that feeling of exploration when exploring lots of houses. I want the player to be free to explore the city how they wish, with tons of little secrets inside the city, meet new people, find new hobbies/activities/interests, that kind of thing.

Yeah, I'm ambitious. #dealwithit

EDIT:

Even real towns can have varying floors, small roads/alleys, government buildings, temples, nice architecture and all (Particularly early mediterranean ones) so I'm not just suggesting these things to build some crazy fantastical town (nothing wrong with those either, I love them).

Basically, *this*. Oceans Dream you set my imagination on fire

This post has been edited by thatbennyguy: Apr 30 2012, 01:00 PM