This week, I wanted to a look at the core of the game – the map. Since I wanted the end result of the game to look like a map from a theme park, I overlaid hexes onto a real theme park to see what happened. You can see the results of that experiment below:
Based on this “map” of hexes, I noticed several very interesting things.
- Nearly all attractions are placed around the edges of the map.
- Those that are in the center are meant to be looked at from all angles, like a carousel or similar spinning ride.
- Lands are separated mostly by buildings housing attractions, shops, or restaurants.
- A lot of these buildings have features on two sides, with each side being differently themed
- Free-standing rides are big and exaggerated
- Rides housed in shared buildings, as well as shops and restaurants, are usually not noticeable on the map
I’m reconsidering the map I’d designed earlier:
I’ve realized that every theme park I’ve seen doesn’t fit in a strict shape – they grow almost organically, so it wouldn’t make sense to force players to follow a set shape.
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