Welcome to the Shining Cartography series. In this series I will be mapping out selected games in the Shining series: Shining in the Darkness, Shining Force, Shining Force 2, Shining Force CD and Shining Force Gaiden: Final Conflict. I've decided to include SitD because of its first-person dungeon crawler design, which makes good practice to improve and standardized my mapping aptitude. Also, its story is closely tied to the Shining Force games and finishing these games are on my bucket list.
I'm a huge Shining Force fan and these games are the reason why I'm obsessed with strategy RPGs. Mapping out video games is an interesting and enjoyable hobby of mine and I genuinely look forward to drawing and playing these wonderful games. This is a huge project to embark on, which will essentially take me quite a bit of time to finish, especially with my limited free time. The plan is to work on this project a couple of hours one day per week and update this blog along with it. Of course, this is subject to change, but I feel this is very reasonable and drawing is a wonderful way for me to relax.
The plan is to map these games using pencils as a practice run. Once I have a standard design and completed all the maps with pencils, I will draw these maps again with pens with updated designs. For SitD, I will first map out all the dungeons, then will map out the town and castle.
Without further ado, here are my first maps!
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This is the very first floor as you enter the Labyrinth. As I make progress through the game, I found out that this floor serves as some sort of hub that connects all the trial caves together. Because of that, this map will definitely receive updates to it as I make progress and will keep its old map design choices to stay consistent.
This design is very straightforward and some marked points I have scrapped on later maps because they were not necessary. There were unique enemy appearances that I thought were worth marking down, but as I made progress through the game, I realized that the engagements were rather random and appeared in many different places. There were also puddles of water which I marked at first, but again, the random appearances of the water enemy were random and the puddles would move a few spaces when returning to the spot. These RNG enemies can be a little confusing to mark down and could cause the map to look more convoluted, so I decided to scrap that on later maps. Minimalism is a trait I shoot for with these maps.
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This is the first trial, the Cave of Strength. As you can already tell, the origin of the map was not placed correctly, so as I continued to play and map the floor, the map extended more to the left and I had no choice but to add another sheet of graph paper. Doesn't look very elegant, but hey, that's what practice runs are for. I decided afterwards to consult a guide before I plot the origin point for the next map so I don't make the same mistake.
I highly recommend visiting Shining Force Central for more information about the Shining series. It's a dedicated website encompassing all things Shining, from translation patches, game guides, fan art, message boards, etc. It's at this site where I found a good guide to help me plot my maps origin points.
It's also at this point where I wanted to create a more robust notation system for the markings. At this current state, description of these markings didn't look detailed enough and looked a little difficult to distinguish what they were. For example, it would be difficult to see what treasure was worth getting because the current markings would not tell you which treasure belongs on the map. I decided to rework this system on the next map.
This map also consisted of another floor, so another graph paper had to be used entirely of that floor. It seemed kind of silly with its small area and I may draw this floor on the same graph paper with floor 1 on the final revision.
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I'm a huge Shining Force fan and these games are the reason why I'm obsessed with strategy RPGs. Mapping out video games is an interesting and enjoyable hobby of mine and I genuinely look forward to drawing and playing these wonderful games. This is a huge project to embark on, which will essentially take me quite a bit of time to finish, especially with my limited free time. The plan is to work on this project a couple of hours one day per week and update this blog along with it. Of course, this is subject to change, but I feel this is very reasonable and drawing is a wonderful way for me to relax.
The plan is to map these games using pencils as a practice run. Once I have a standard design and completed all the maps with pencils, I will draw these maps again with pens with updated designs. For SitD, I will first map out all the dungeons, then will map out the town and castle.
Without further ado, here are my first maps!
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| Floor 1 |
This is the very first floor as you enter the Labyrinth. As I make progress through the game, I found out that this floor serves as some sort of hub that connects all the trial caves together. Because of that, this map will definitely receive updates to it as I make progress and will keep its old map design choices to stay consistent.
This design is very straightforward and some marked points I have scrapped on later maps because they were not necessary. There were unique enemy appearances that I thought were worth marking down, but as I made progress through the game, I realized that the engagements were rather random and appeared in many different places. There were also puddles of water which I marked at first, but again, the random appearances of the water enemy were random and the puddles would move a few spaces when returning to the spot. These RNG enemies can be a little confusing to mark down and could cause the map to look more convoluted, so I decided to scrap that on later maps. Minimalism is a trait I shoot for with these maps.
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 |
| Cave of Strength - Floor 1 |
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| Cave of Strength - Floor 2 |
This is the first trial, the Cave of Strength. As you can already tell, the origin of the map was not placed correctly, so as I continued to play and map the floor, the map extended more to the left and I had no choice but to add another sheet of graph paper. Doesn't look very elegant, but hey, that's what practice runs are for. I decided afterwards to consult a guide before I plot the origin point for the next map so I don't make the same mistake.
I highly recommend visiting Shining Force Central for more information about the Shining series. It's a dedicated website encompassing all things Shining, from translation patches, game guides, fan art, message boards, etc. It's at this site where I found a good guide to help me plot my maps origin points.
It's also at this point where I wanted to create a more robust notation system for the markings. At this current state, description of these markings didn't look detailed enough and looked a little difficult to distinguish what they were. For example, it would be difficult to see what treasure was worth getting because the current markings would not tell you which treasure belongs on the map. I decided to rework this system on the next map.
This map also consisted of another floor, so another graph paper had to be used entirely of that floor. It seemed kind of silly with its small area and I may draw this floor on the same graph paper with floor 1 on the final revision.
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| Cave of Courage - Floor 1 |
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| Cave of Courage - Floor 2 |
For the notation system this time around, I decided to give most markings with icons and a little art of what they are. I decided to go this route because the Shining series has an icon based menu system (which is one of the unique design choices I liked about this series) and it felt fitting to also implement that design into my maps. I also decided to put the notation description to the right of the maps, but I will probably move it to a separate graph paper due to its high volume. It would also look more organized and easier to read. I will also consult a guide to see if I can graph both floors on a single graph paper on the next one.
I was also introduced to slime floors and it took me a bit of thinking to decide how I was going to mark those. At the end, I liked how it turned out and it really gives it that slimy look.
All in all, not too many changes made this time. I really like how the maps are turning out, and chances are, the next map will be very close to a final revision. What I really want to do now is to tweak and touch up the art style to give these maps a more personal look to it. I've already started with the name tags by giving them a 3D look and a little more contrast. I would like to draw unique bosses and enemies that appear only on that floor. The idea is to create a map that will be both useful and a pleasure to look at.
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And that's it. On my next session I will be heading down to the next dungeon for the first time and will start mapping that out. It will take me more time to finish because I have less time to work on these, but I'll do my best to keep this series updated at least weekly. Until then, see you on the next one.
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