Tael's Guide to good map making

Last edited by AtlasVBot on 2025-09-13 18:54:50

Before we begin

Good map design is a topic that is subjective to what people find appealing, and with that in mind, take this guide as a suggestion to what you can improve or use in your map making, but not as a driving force for what you should do.

What is good map design (to me)

A good map has many aspects that go unnoticed by many players, however to those who also make maps or appreciate game design these aspects become more apparent as you learn about them:

• Map Planning; Must match whatever reference your area in terms of how they're designed. Be it Rural, Urban or Natural references.
• Shading; Very much an optional design aspect but improves your maps aesthetically for anything involved.
• Paths and Roads; Must line up and resemble those of either Map Planning or what's considered a Desired Path(more on this later)
• Detailed but not too detailed; A lesson from Minecraft builders, going overboard can create "noise" and noise is only good when dealing with open empty spaces.
• Makes sense; You and your desired audience(be it yourself or more people) must acknowledge things in the map subconsciously to make it natural and enjoyable.
• Nature finds a way; Too modern is bland, too natural is too quiet, find a mix of both and you good a harmonious map design for all kinds of people.

Understanding Map Planning

A good start is Real Life references, be it YouTube videos, images, maps or something else like straight up learning city development in college. But for those who just wanna make a cool little map, a few key notes can be summarized.

• Find the center point; Humanity has been doing this for thousands of years, find the campfire and a city goes around it, For Pelican Town the center point seems to be the saloon, it's what brings people together, Pierre goes behind it, every other house goes around it, and things like JoJa and the community center form around those, essentially creating a big circle called Pelican Town.
• Roads go where people go; Realistically, Pelican town should only have dirt roads, but compromises must be made for the Balance between acceptable fiction and real life. Put roads where people walk the most, put dirt roads where people walk but not much, such is the reality of cities in real life, and It's a good suggestion for map design.
• Light the Way; Optional for most people, but if you're dealing with a city map or town of sorts, Light the main roads, don't bother with side roads or dead ends, a compromise can be made if you think that area is too dark, but there's more alternatives like lamps on a table to the side, don't use lamp posts tho. Lights have been made and will always be made for Safety be it from wild predators at night or other bad people. People don't go into those roads at night if they have common sense and as such you shouldn't bother lighting it unless you absolutely have to.

Shading at work

Notice how the darker grass under trees give the impression of shadows.

This can be done in two ways (the only two I know):

• Using the vanilla grass colors as an illusion tool.
• Using Custom Tilesheet with transparent dark tiles for variety

The Second option requires the knowledge of an image editing software like Aseprite, and spriting knowledge if dealing with custom shapes.

Road Design Reference (Explained more below)

Boulevards first, then Through Streets to connect them, and Local Streets for branching

An overview of how this applies to my Revised Town's Pelican Town

Desire Paths and why you should desire them

An overview of how Desired Path concept is applied to my Revised Town Map

Desired Paths is something studied by Urban Planners to apply roads where they're needed the most, including sidewalks in more natural environments.

In short, where people walk the most Dirt roads are created, everywhere else nature finds a way.

In vanilla, this area is mostly dirt, as if people play in this area often, However, we do not see that in-game at all, Alex hangs out in front of his house, the kids hang out in the park to the north west and when Alex hangs out with the others it's not in this yard, so it logically makes sense that grass is growing around the paths Pam, Penny and others go around, this is still very much a natural area of town, that does not see much activity besides the desired path.

Compromises must be made

Like stated earlier in this page, realistically, Pelican Town should only have dirt roads, my basis to this is that I live in the south of Brazil, a region filled with valleys and town like in Stardew Valley, however, these towns are very much isolated from society due to difficulty of reaching them and the dangers of driving in mountainous areas with minimal safety concerns, usually to access these towns there are no paved roads, and paving is only seem is medium sized towns with around the thousands of inhabitants, however, in Pelican Town, Towns with 100 or less inhabitants have no paving whatsoever with exception of businesses like Pierre's and possibly the saloon.

With that in mind, If you were to make a realistic Pelican Town, everywhere would have that extremely saturated yellow dirt, However that creates repetition and blandness, Remember the 6th aspect of what makes a good map design "Too modern is bland, too natural is too quiet" this applies both ways, and as such, Pelican Town has paved roads and external paved roads leading to it, both in Vanilla and in my map mod, as it's both aesthetically pleasing and keeps the overall feel of the town nice and balanced.

This should also apply if you're planning on making your own town map or city map, however if you make a major city map (that does not have it's own unique artstyle and culture), I recommend going full bland and modern. The reason why this contradicts what I consider good map design is because as Stardew is a farming game that questions the way of modern life, it is good to have a city be represented in a modern, copy pasted patterned landscape that feels bland and empty, this keeps the player reminded that "Yes, Stardew Valley is great".

Tips and Tricks for Tiled usage and Map Making

• Spin to win; Use X and Z to rotate tiles often, I use this a lot when doing custom shaped paths and grounds, and the vanilla tiles are extremely modular, however Concerned Ape did not utilize them this way, which gives you free ground to explore and experiment but no references on what potential those tiles have, my Revised Town Map has many examples but there are too many to list, feel free to open it's TMX file and mess around with checking how the ground is done, the Tree Variants also use vanilla tree tiles but rotated to oblivion to make nice, round and wacky at times trees
• Canvas first; Put some big square of green using the "Shape Fill Tool"(if making a path for example) first, and then start making the shape of a road or whatever first, do the sides of that first too, after you're satisfied with how it's shaped, fill in the middle and then smoother the outside green canvas that might overlap with something else.
• Asymmetry Assimilation; Some people prefer symmetrical things, some don't, however Asymmetry creates attention nonetheless, it gets you or your player interested in the map or that particular reason, even if they dislike it, and as such I find this as a good advice in general.
• It isn't there if you can't see it; This applies to background roads that the player cannot see, Use either weeds, or a yellow road at the edge of either hidden paths or alternative routes that get blocked by the front layer somehow, Ignore this if you're making a super secret path to something you want players to be surprised when they find it.
• Locked Alternative Paths [Optional]; could be used to reward players for exploration or progress, my simple way of doing it is just adding weeds to the alternative paths as it just gets the player to interact with it and it gets it in their mind that "I cleared this" which creates a more vivid memory of the are for the player to use it more often.
• People have things; Even in small towns with 100 people, every house has loads of things outside, even if it's a rake for piling up leaves, do your best to add flavor to outdoor areas it creates an illusion of more lived in spaces that is very much pleasing to the eyes and makes sense.
• It's ok to hide things; And by this I mean blocking off the extreme corners of the map the player will never get to, this only applies to festivals, or maps that are big, if you have a properly sized map with no extra corner space, you will not need to do this.
• Put your heart into it; Now this is a generic motivational line, however, when applied to map making it's gonna make you spend 30 minutes into spinning tiles to make a mountain side that does not look odd, and that's good, for you,because the player will probably just walk through it and not notice it if it's not that bad.

In conclusion

Good map design is subjective, use this as a reference if you like my maps, if you wanna learn more research some urban planning in general as it applies to Stardew Valley maps. Other good recommendations is trying out City Building games, these are map makers but on a lesser scale, some youtubers for Cities Skylines for example have some extreme knowledge of how traffic works and workflow. But overall gaming can be used as learning tool for many things, in my case, my interest in City Builders with extra knowledge from watching city planning videos helped me make my map in general and I hope y'all enjoy my maps as much as I do.