Ok ive been doing rooms in XP and VX for years, I always used to just do the inside of the room without any outter lining, but ive seen alot of good games that do the black tile outlines around the rooms, now i think this gives the room a look of depth, but is this also functional? Is doing a room without the borders wrong?

There's no right or wrong with making maps. That's called personal style. Sometimes people make things look crappy on purpose just to give it a charm that you can't help but love. Not to say no border style is crappy, but just giving an example.

But yeah I do borders. I'm just that artistic type. Whenever I play Castlevania Lament of Innocence I can't help but masturbate uncontrollably at the level design.

I need to see samples side by side to really be able to make that decision.

Yes, true. Samples would be highly beneficial to this discussion.

However, based off the info provided, I would say black tiles are one of many things you can do to make a game look a little more polished and pleasing. Aesthetically it will help you. However like Lurvid said, you can add many quirks to your game that may eliminate certain aesthetic needs.

I cant really decide, ive used both but now I feel kinda bad using one or the other, I agree there is a more pro look to black outline but id like there to also be a good reason to not use it besides personal pref. And what about over doing it, like a bedroom I have done and always see heavy black outline like a 3rd of the map, now I think this still looks good but maybe overkill? Im making a pub map now, would a small black outline around it seem better, maybe 1 or 2 squars deep instead of 3-5, the bigger the map I think the smaller outline would be better if any, but what since would it make to use a outline on some maps and not other in the same game, I dont have enough experince in maps to make me decide, I was always simple minded about it whatever maps I made was good enough but I want to know from ppl that know better.

Lament of Innocence's secret boss was quite sloppy. I loved that game.. Curse of Darkness wasn't nearly as good, in my opinion. The 3D castlevanias, though...they lack the charm of the 2D variety. I'd still prefer to play Order of Ecclesia, or Harmony of Dissonance over any of the 3D ones. Juste and Shanoa are baddasses. Period.

But, I digress. Back to the topic.. I like to do borders on indoor maps, but if you wanted to something else with it, you don't necessarily -need- a border. It just makes it look neater, and more well put-together, if you ask me. I had coded a little something extra once, the whole room had a border, yes...but the room also had walls coming down from those borders. Whenever you walked behind the wall, it made the entire wall transparent, so you could see your character behind there. Just an idea.

Hmm well its always good to try new things but I dont like changing styles, maybe thats why this thing drives me crazy, I guss im just gonna have to keep making maps no matter if i hate that certain style or not just to decide on one, its not a easy question though cause dif maps do take a differnt take on things, like what about a airship map, youd have to have black borders on that right cause your inside it right in the air? wait can you even go to a airship map when your riding one???

Anything is possible. You could do that, if you wanted to...but by no means does it need to be black, while you're up in the sky inside a ship. You could maybe make it a clouded sky backdrop instead.

Well, i know pokemon pulls they're inside rooms off pretty well.


here's an example of hwo it looks;



pretty much the only example i could find... XD