作者：Junxue Li

最近经常有游戏开发公司联系我们让我们帮助他们的手机游戏创造saga地图。首先我将写下有关地图创造规格的文件，将其发送给客户让他们了解其中的内容，随后我们的设计团队才可以开始工作。

map(from gamasutra)

而为了让自己从这乏味的日常程序中解放出来，我决定写下一篇包含所有这些规格的综合性文章。这样的话当下一次工作到来时我只需要将这一链接发给客户便可。如果你也是从事这样的工作或者需要将这样的地图创造任务分配给团队成员，我便希望本文能够真正帮到你们。

本文中所提到的规格只适用于从整体上定义一个项目。如今的saga地图是由一些区域所组成（游戏邦注：或者说是世界，主题，领域等）。为了设计每一个区域，团队便需要区分区域描述文件。关于这一内容我会另外写篇文章进行说明。

注：本文中的所有地图图像都是来自手机游戏的截图，当然我并不是在说这些图像都是由我们团队所创造。

图像方面：

1.故事/主题

这一故事是否和武术，甜点或假日有关？

story(from gamasutra)

2.图像风格

图像看起来是矢量图像，手绘，3D渲染还是实时3D图像？

3.精细度

优化程度—-基于你在此投入的预算。

对于上述三点内容，你最好能够提供给设计师团队来自其它游戏的参考图像以及文本描述。

制作方面：

1.地图格式

有许多可选地图格式：垂直，水平，漫游地图等等。该使用什么地图格式需要考虑许多元素：游戏平台的屏幕，你所选择的游戏玩法和故事叙述方式，是否能够轻松添加全新地图区域等等。现在在手机游戏中最受欢迎的格式便是垂直地图。

2.图像分辨率和修改区域

图像分辨率是取决于游戏平台。对于手机游戏来说，1080 x 1920的分辨率是最常见的。但许多开发者也希望游戏能够适应iPad pro的屏幕，所以他们会选择2048 x 2732分辨率。

手机屏幕通常都比平板电脑窄，所以同样的地图图像如果要同时出现在两种屏幕上就需要进行一些修改：

map(from gamasutra)

对于iPhone/iPad地图，建议修改区域宽度是在110至140之间的像素。

3.道路宽度和关卡节点规格

road width(from gamasutra)

道路宽度是以像素进行衡量。

通常情况下道路的宽度也决定着关卡节点的规格。

4.关卡节点密度

因为你可以在屏幕上看到许多关卡节点，所以这一指标较好理解。

5.每个区域的关卡节点数量

因为saga地图是由区域所构成，所以一个区域中将存在一定数量的关卡。基于关卡节点的规格以及既定的节点密度，我们可以轻松获得一个区域的长度。这通常是由屏幕高度进行衡量，例如x1.5和x2。毫无疑问一个区域的长度也会影响到预算。一般看来一个基于x1.5屏幕长度的地图区域将包含15至25个关卡。

6.一般元素规格

scale of elements(from gamasutra)

7.元素混乱程度

degree of elements clutter(from gamasutra)

8.相机角度

camera angle(from gamasutra)

9.过渡区域

相邻的多个区域之间存在许多过渡形式，例如：

过渡方式的使用会影响到地图规划。

10.让地图支持放大功能

让地图支持放大功能，就像《Cookie Jam!》那样。你必须基于最大的放大规格明确上述规格：关卡节点规格，元素规模，整个地图的分辨率等等。

11.额外要求

通常情况下还存在一些额外要求，例如：

additional requirements(from gamasutra)

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转发，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

All the Saga Map Specifications You Should Know

by Junxue Li

We’re often contacted by game development companies lately, asking our team to create saga maps for their mobile games. The routine is that I would write a document of the map creation specs, send to the client to let them know what they should specify, that our designer team could start working.

To free me from this tedious routine, I decide to write a comprehensive article, to include all the specs. And here it is. Next time, I only need to send this link to my client. And I hope it would be helpful to you too, if you are also working for a client, or need assign such a map creation task to your team.

The specs in this article are only useful for defining a project in general. And nowadays saga map are made up by zones (or worlds, themes, areas, they are the same concept). To design each zone, the team would need separate zone description document. I will come up with another article to cover this topic.

Please note: all the map art in this articles are screenshots of mobile games, for illustration of the points; I don’t thus implicitly claim these artworks are created by our team.

Art Aspect:

Story/theme

Is the story about witchcraft, desserts or holidays?

Art Style

Should the artwork look like vector art, hand painting, 3D render or realtime 3D image?

Degree of finish

The degree of polish-up –depends on how much budget you decide to pour into it.

For the above three points, it’s best to give the designer team reference pictures from other games, alongside with text descriptions.

Production Aspect

Map format

There are many formats to choose from: vertical, horizontal, roaming, etc. What format to use depends on many factors: the screen of the gaming platform, the way of gameplay and storytelling you prefer, and if it’s easy to add new map zones. And now for mobile games, the most popular format is vertical.

Image resolution and cropping area

Image resolution depends on the game platform/s. For mobile games, 1080 x 1920 px becomes a popular size; And many developers want their games to work on ipad pro too, it’s 2048 x 2732 px.

While the screen of phones are generally narrower than tablets, the same piece of map art would use some cropping on both side off the screen, to fit better:

For iphone/ipad map, suggested cropping area width is 110~140 pixels.

Road width & Level node size

The width of the road is measured by pixels.

Generally, the width of the road also determines the size of the level node.

Level node density

This index is usually understood as how many level nodes you can see on a screen.

Number of level nodes per zone

As saga map are made up by zones, there would be a rough number of levels in a zone. With the size of level nodes, and node density decided, it could easily work out the length of a zone. It’s usually measured by screen height, for example, x1.5 and x2. Of no doubt the length of a zone affects budget very much. Generally, a map zone of x1.5 screen length carries 15~25 levels.

General scale of elements

Degree of elements clutter

Camera angle

Zone transition

There are many forms of transition between adjacent zones, for example:

The way of transition to use affects map planning very much.

10. For maps support Zoom-in

For maps support zoom-in/out, such as that in Cookie Jam! You must specify the above specs, under the max zoom-in: Level node size, elements scale, whole map resolution,etc.

11. Additional requirements

Usually there would be some additional requirements, for example:

I understand this article is most useful for vertical format maps. For there are too many different map formats, if I include all the specifications here, the organization of the article would be quite chaotic. I think you can work out the specs of other map formats based on my points.(source:gamasutra)