Verticality in Battle Maps

Verticality in battle maps - the pros and cons of perspective

Hi everyone!

Today I am posting one of the variations I have available for my Portal Room Battle Map - this particular variation I am just calling Ballroom. It has a tree relief on the floor instead of the portal that the base map does - I normally do variations like that to hopefully allow for a greater amount of scenarios that this map can accommodate.

When I started this map, I knew I wanted to use a lot of verticality. And while it is usually quite welcome, it also tends to be quite a challenge to create a map with lots of layers, great focal point, and good usability. Some sacrifices sometimes need to be made in order to achieve all three as much as possible. I’ve gotten complaints about this map before - the columns block the playing area, and the second floor blocks a part of the staircase that leads up to it. While not ideal, sometimes I take the route of sacrificing some visibility in order to add interesting elements to the setting and the gameplay. A lot of map makers stay away from the perspective due to this, but I think it adds an important element of mood and storytelling. You can tell how tall the walls are, you can tell the shape of the windows, and the color of the walls - all things hard to achieve with a strictly top-down view of the location.

You can download the above map either from here for free, but I also have an additional free variations available on my Patreon, you can get it here.

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