Custom Map #1450: The Lost Planet. By: MIBNL

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This topic is for discussion of map #1450: The Lost Planet


Author: MIBNL
Size: 320x200

[CS Z]

It's nice to see someone manipulating the creeper travel speed on a map and not just leaving it at the default setting.

Also, thank you for using the fractal map generator.  Your map building skills are improving.  It's nice to see balanced ERN usage too for a change.  Although self-activating 80 totems at the start from a box of 1 million Liftic is completely overkill.

I haven't played a map in a while that pushed energy into 50+ deficit for most of the map.  I was constantly building more and more units just to hold the line.  Again, nicely done.

The weakest part of the map is the story.  You need to work on story building.  The spelling and grammatical errors in your maps are only part of the problem.  Lore is a tough thing to create and requires an actual roadmap and writing skill to piece together.  Good stories have a destination that only the author knows and which the reader discovers.  If you just give away the ending at the beginning or don't have an ending or even a sense of direction or it doesn't integrate well with what the player will experience, it spoils the adventure.

If I were writing the lore for this, it would start out something along the lines of:

Long ago, a race known as the Mej became powerful and technologically advanced.  They created many colonies on many worlds but their ancestors had a peculiar habit of retreating underground whenever they came under attack.  For the behavior was ingrained into their minds from birth.  Their instincts drove them into their own corners.

So when the creeper arrived, the Mej did what came naturally.  They retreated into their technological safe-havens.  But the creeper was relentless.

This is the last world.  The creeper have slowed their advance.  Maybe it senses the end is near.  The once-powerful Mej are now nearly lost and almost forgotten.  You decide to lead the charge and forge a new Mej and sound a battle cry never heard before nor heard since:

We, the Mej, shall retake this world!

That intro took me 5 minutes to write.  It's lacking a conclusion and I'm sure there are better approaches to take.  I'm not exactly the best story teller but the story and the map go hand in hand:  It explains why the creeper is moving more slowly, why the player is playing the map, why all of the advanced technology is available, etc.  You want the reader/player to have a chill go up their spine and get excited to play an interactive adventure.  Not everyone will read a story, but if it is done well enough, people will read it because they want to see what comes next.

[Dismissdan]

Fun map.

Not sure if anyone else had this problem but spent twenty min at the end looking for 6 creeper that was stuck in a divot. I had to just put anticreeper everywhere till it found it. Ended up being at the base of a mountain that plenty of morters should have been able to get but didn't.

Still fun though.