So the opening of my game takes place in a desert. I stuck pretty much nothing in it because that's what you'd find in a desert. Problem is that between the desert and the consequently poor town in it the first portion of the game look worse than ugly. Ugly implies there's something there to actually be criticised.
Anyways I tried to find some screens of other game's deserts and failed, looked at pictures of real deserts and wasn't surprised at what I saw.

While my mapping may be accurate its boring. Is there some way of creating the effect of emptiness through (paradoxically) putting in tiles?

This is a desert in Legend of Mana. As you can see, it's far from empty and yet, you can still recognize it as a desert. More than for the eye-candy-ness, if your map is completely empty, the player will have a hard time navigate it and most likely will be lost.
This is why it is important to put markers in your map, such as cactii, rocks or just anything which doesn't break the Willing Suspension of Disbelief completely.
I don't know which tileset you are using, but you must have some options available.

Yeah, sorry I forgot to mention. I'm using VX. Which to its credit does feature a cactus
Fortunately its pretty linear and each map has a 'landmark' just in case. Its just that I'm no expert mapper anyways and the beginning was an unfortunate place to stick whats turning out to be the most challenging map.
I get what your saying about the suspension of belief, though since I read something by Oceans Dream I've been trying to make the maps as consistent to the theme as possible.

If you manage to find a tileset which has sand "mountains" and big rocks you could fill the desert.

VX RTP is pretty dire when it comes to desert tiles :<

Desert doesn't necessarily have to be empty. Have a huge jpg'd Sword of Mana map because it's too big to be shown at the full res:
http://i.imgur.com/l466s.jpg

Anyway, just take a look at the paths the player might take through that map, starting from top left. There's not much in the way. A lot of the detail is left outside of the main paths. A lot of the bigger rocks, plants, palm trees, and everything are used to either block your way or put on top of the cliffs where you can never go. Granted the tiles here look nice too, but it's not something you couldn't learn from. Detailing in the cliffs, multi-layered cliffs, oasis', all these can be used, though you may stay away from the Oasis and not have much plants for a more barren look.

Then I guess don't make the paths too narrow and have a bit more open rooms and all. I guess what you're looking for is an intentional empty rather than a "my first map" empty so I think it'd be a good idea if you show what you have and then we go from there.


I'm sure anyone who has used the RTP more than like twice can do something better (I never really use RTP so) but I figured I'd give it a try here. I'd actually go a little less random with the cliffs maybe, because the blockiness is not all that suited to it. Plus... why aren't there sand cliffs? There might be but didn't really care to check.

There aren't sand cliffs in the RTP. You have however, a brownstone cliff which is typically used for desert, short of anything else.

Look at forever's end for something like this. They managed to make a desert look expansive, and yet it's been filled with a bunch of stuff (including sand puzzles).

Usually, parallaxing works well, way better than just adding tiles. Also, there's a trick to creating emptiness. Look at this forest (not mine).



This looks pretty full. But you can make it look extremely "empty" simply by scooting all the mushrooms and such away from the centers and towards the edge.

Alright here's a few screens (by no means my finest work);







Anyways, I've already picked up a few ideas that I can play around with, so thanks for all the wordses (and picses)

You could find scripts to add graphics effects, this would enhance the feeling of being in a desert, therefore the visuals themselves are less of a problem as the effect engages the player.

Rei's Explosion blur should help.

Subliminal messages would work too.

Depends on what mood you want.

VX does not have very good desert tiles, and the sample maps VX has doesn't even include anything desert related (aside from a desert town, which doesn't help). As a result, you're sort of left on your own. This is probably why most desert fields are left to a world map and only things like caves and pyramids are used as dungeons.

That said, I agree with OD's picture portrayal. The cliffs may not be realistic in an open desert, but it wouldn't bother me that much because I could play a map like that with all them gray cliffs and still know it was portraying a desert.

Likewise, your last map you have, Kaust, isn't too bad. The cliffs on the right side portray an exit of sorts, so maybe use the cliffs around the other maps as well, and use narrow paths through them to denote entrances/exits, versus the white blocks you have. It may not be realistic, but would probably work a lot better.

Here's an example of how the brown cliffs would work throughout the desert. This is not mine.



From this you get the sense of a desert that is somewhat open and uninhabitable, save for a few things, and still doesn't look like too open.

Yep, that's what I mean. Clutter is near the edges with the exception of sparse tiles.

I hate having to admit defeat. It really does look a lot better with cliffs.
Thanks for the help guys

Not bad, it actually looks pretty enjoyable. I'm still not sure about white blocks of tile to show entrances and exits, but it does seem a lot more easier to navigate and know where to go.

Ah I kept those in because they looked really nice on some of the other ones just wanted to be consistent.
Besides the deserts still not completely closed off so they provide a marker for the player.

I love the flat "Ow."



I wouldn't even blink at that. I have a desert town in the middle of a large snowfield.

Its followed by
Click to view attachment

I realize I'm a bit late to the party, but one thing that could really add effect to your desert map is using a 'fog' effect that is a light or even a heavy sandstorm. Now, obviously you don't want to make it too heavy and blur out too much of your map, people always assume that is bad mapping, but if there is a random chance to step into a tile and have either light, medium or heavy sand blowing around it really adds depth. I'd also add the option to not have any sand blowing around, gives you four different effects and even if the map itself is lacking in details you still get the feel that something is going on.

If you are using cliffs, which is highly recommended, then I'd have maps with heavy cliffs have lighter sand as you would think the cliffs would block off a bit of the wind causing the storm. Just a few suggestions to give more life to a dead desert.

Actually that is a great idea! I may just have to steal it
Seems like it'll compliment my map well since I kept the desert silent bar a wind BGS.
I'm not a big fan of using any other tiles with the brown cliff other than the intended one. They flatness/squareness of the tiles really stick out because of the ' } ' effect of the walls, but I'll experiment a bit more nonetheless.

Thanks for the suggestions.