A Guide to Making and Releasing an Adventure/Puzzle Map
Hey there! My name is Tristan, and today I’m going to be teaching you some simple things that you can keep in mind to help you create and distribute your custom map
Part 1: Preproduction (excuse the Film terms…. I’m a Cinematic Arts major xD)
Very few great things are made by “winging it.” You must sit down and think, “What type of map do I want to make? What themes?” Below I have created a short list of things that, if you answer them, will help you create a good map.
1. What kind of map do I want to create (Adventure, survival, puzzle, etc.)
2. What will be the theme of the map? (Dark/evil, nice/happy, etc.)
3. Will this map have a story, or simply an array of challenges to complete?
4. Will I use other characters in this story, by way of notes or ingame signs? (A two-fold question, asking A) Will you use characters, and
How will said invisible characters talk)
5. How will players gauge their map score? (gold ingots, amount of deaths, etc)
6. How will I go about creating this? (Is the map small, taking place in a compound or town, or does it stretch to the far reaches of minecraftia? This will help you decide what mods or programs you can use.)
7. What major builds will this project require? (Example: mega-pyramid, replica of Abraham Lincoln’s hat, etc)
8. Can this story be told with the default texture pack, or will I suggest that people use a different one? (This question can also be used to decide whether you want to make a custom texture pack for your map)
9. Do I have the redstone/building ability to make this a reality? (No? Then go recruit some IRL friends. Projects started by recruiting here on the forums RARELY succeed. Just look through all the dead threads here :/
10. Does the story make sense?
11. Will this be fun to play?
2. What will be the theme of the map? (Dark/evil, nice/happy, etc.)
3. Will this map have a story, or simply an array of challenges to complete?
4. Will I use other characters in this story, by way of notes or ingame signs? (A two-fold question, asking A) Will you use characters, and
How will said invisible characters talk)5. How will players gauge their map score? (gold ingots, amount of deaths, etc)
6. How will I go about creating this? (Is the map small, taking place in a compound or town, or does it stretch to the far reaches of minecraftia? This will help you decide what mods or programs you can use.)
7. What major builds will this project require? (Example: mega-pyramid, replica of Abraham Lincoln’s hat, etc)
8. Can this story be told with the default texture pack, or will I suggest that people use a different one? (This question can also be used to decide whether you want to make a custom texture pack for your map)
9. Do I have the redstone/building ability to make this a reality? (No? Then go recruit some IRL friends. Projects started by recruiting here on the forums RARELY succeed. Just look through all the dead threads here :/
10. Does the story make sense?
11. Will this be fun to play?
After you have answered those questions, you have the entire situation in summary, and you can look on it all easily. It always helps me to put things down on paper, getting them out of my head.
Now, is this map idea still possible? If not, then don’t give up hope yet. Set that aside and save it for another day. Who knows? Boredom may one day set in and allow you to do what needs to be done.
Next question: is this map idea original? I hate to say it, but these forums are home to about 9001 maps that involve the player in some sort of facility battling an evil robot. It has been done many times before. Now, does that mean that you can’t do it? No. It simply means that you have to do it very, very well.
Good, you’ve now passed the Pre-productions stage. This is when the fun begins.
Part 2: Production of the Map
Ah, good, you’re still here! Glad to see this! What’s that? You’ve finished planning out your map? Splendid! Follow me and I’ll help you through MAKING the map
Again, a question to ask yourself: Does this map need flat terrain, or should I instead use natural minecraft terrain? Think about this: Vechs said, in a txt file released as part of his “CTM Toolkit”,
After you have a good idea of what you want, then:
1) Start Minecraft, and make a world. Name the world what you want your map name to be.
2) Exit Minecraft, open up the world in MCedit.
3) Select an area of about 1000x1000 blocks, and use the Create function to create chunks.
4) Then, delete EVERYTHING. Select everything, select chunk, press Delete.
Starting with a clean void of nothing is the best way to have absolute control over what goes into your map. If you do use terrain made by Minecraft, then you need to be sure you get rid of anything you don't intend to be in your map, and sometimes this can be very time consuming. It can be faster to simply make the terrain you want form scratch.
Now, that doesn’t sound like much fun, does it? Sadly, as we can all tell from Vech’s great success, it is what must be done for certain maps. So, for you guys that can’t use minecraft-generated terrain: Get outta here! Go make a world first, this guide isn’t going anywhere.
Great. You guys are the lucky ones. Take if from my personal experience that making a map from scratch is hell. Good MCedit practice though….
So, where do you want the player to spawn? A small shack, representing their home? A cave? Regardless, just make sure you make that in a logical place. Use a mod to help you relocate the spawn, otherwise death will spawn people randomly… and no one likes that…
BEAR HANDS
From there, create the rest of your map. Obviously, there isn’t much I can say here, seeing that every map (should) be different. Do what you need to do. Refine it. What? You finished a building. Bull. Make it prettier. Naow.
Need some professional help? Well, here's an amazing link to a 48 part series. It was designed for Halo's forge system, but can be used in any different form of level design. Credit to BadCompany Brik for the link: http://www.reachingp...mpressions.html
Another extremely vital part of any sort of map or even non-minecraft game is lighting and mood. This can control the way your player's eye traverses your map, and can very well influence how well, or poorly in some cases, people will do on your map. Please welcome Vechs, here to tell you a bit more about this, seeing as he has much more experience on this matter than I: (For those that do not know, Vechs is the creator of the SuperHostileSeries, an extremely successful series of survival/adventure maps, played even by the YogsCast)
You might want to add a section about visual design and giving cues to the player.
These things are subtle and the player usually doesn't even realize that they are noticing them. Basically, manipulate the environment to guide and steer the player. One of my favorites is visual lighting cues, lighting up an area to draw the players attention to it. I will frequently use indirect glowstone to illuminate a chest in a dungeon. You can put the glowstone block into the wall of the area, and the farther back you move it, the dimmer the light gets outside, which is one simple method to pick how much ambient light you want.
Some examples:
This underground mine area uses indirect ambient lighting -- notice how in this picture you can't actually see any light sources -- the glowstone is hidden away in nooks and alcoves.
I like to think that this creates an even creepier environment than if this area was completely in the dark. But it also is useful for people making LP's of your maps, because their viewers can see what is going on, and at the same time it is still dark enough to spawn monsters and present a challenge to the player:
[img]http://i.imgur.com/3cJ99.png[/img]
Here is a desert area from one of my maps-- I used water, which is rare and out-of-place in the desert, to attract the players attention. Compared to the tans and yellows, that small water fall stands out like a brilliant blue pillar:
[img]http://i.imgur.com/Sb75Y.jpg[/img]
This example is from Black Desert -- it's not very subtle, but it gets the job done. Nothing says "HEY! Come loot me!" like a chest sitting in a pool of sunlight. Of course, it's quite ominous too, because the player knows that the darkness nearby will hold many dangers:
[img]http://i.imgur.com/amxHw.jpg[/img]
Here is Swamp of Despair from Super Hostile #07: Legendary. This is a cut-away view. I was intentionally being dickish in my design of this area, but if I remade the area to be more... friendly and "mainstream" then this is what I would do:
You will notice that the wool chest has it's own container room, and I have been using these rooms consistently on my new maps, so that when the player sees that very unique cube made of brick, glass, and glowstone, they know that it is a wool chest, and to take appropriate actions (such as NOT letting creepers blow it up.)
Now that you have the “set” created, you’ll want to put in all of the signs/storyline (should your map need that sort of thing [most should have at least a simple story])
There are two main ways of doing this:
1: Signs that say everything.
2. Signs that say something like “Read Note 2”, which directs the user to some txt files distributed with the map. Do whichever you like. They both have their advantages and disadvantages.
Alright, we’ve got the world made, the story laid out and implanted, now what? Well, now is the refining stage. Go to everything that you’ve made in the entire world and make it look nicer. Is their any grammar errors? Fix them. For the love of Notch, fix them. I can’t tell you how many maps I’ve played with grammar errors. Major turn off.
Okay, so you’re absolutely certain that everything has been built and the world is complete? I don’t believe you. Go check any redstone or other contraptions. Those are the most likely to fail. Make SURE that they work.
Alright, now. You’ve finished everything? EVERYTHING? Nothing can be improved? You’re certain? Alright, fine, onward!
Mods to use while building your map:
Not necessary, but mods like
Single Player Commands (http://www.minecraft...ommands-v210-2/) Click Spoiler for useful SPC commands and basic usage knowledge.
Using Single Player Commands
Alright, time to discuss how to use SPC in the terms of creating an adventure map. There are WAY too many commands to go over all of them, so I’m just going to discuss the ones that I deem will be the most useful. I encourage you to go the SPC forum post and read-up on all of the commands.
Fly- Holy hell, I shouldn’t even have to explain this one. To use, type in /fly [speed] . If no speed is given, you will travel and regular walking speed.
Noclip- Walk through walls. ‘Nuff said. To use, type in /noclip . To the best of my knowledge, you can not change your noclip speed.
Time- Oh hello Father time. To use, type /time day to make it day time, and /time night to make it night time. I really hope you understand that
Weather- Screw rain. To use, type /weather sun to make it sunny, and type /weather rain to make it rain.
Item Drops- Turn those annoying things off. To use, type /drops. It toggles
Infinite Items- Make everything you have infinite. To use, type /infiniteitems . Note, make sure to turn off drops before you do this.
Super Pick- Mine through anything instantly. To use, type // . Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
Damage- Disable all damage. To use, type /damage. It toggles.
Fire Damage- Turn off those pesky flames from falling in lava. To use, type /firedamage. It toggles.
Item- Spawn any items or blocks. To use, type /item or /i , then the item you want to spawn, then the amount. Typing -1 as the amount gives you an infinite stack.
Kill them all Johnny- Kill all nearby mobs. To use, type /killall. No spaces, or you’ll kill youself. You can also target specific mobs by typing /killall Sheep, for example.
World Backup- Backup your worlds!!!! Naow!!!! Type /world backup. This will be saved in a new “backup” folder, located in the same directory as the saves file.
World Exit- Promptly quits the world without saving. This is useful if, say, a creeper blew up all your redstone… FML. To use, type /world exit.
That covers all of the useful map-making SPC commands. In the future, I may add World Edit commands here too, as SPC comes equipped with WE…
TooManyItems (http://www.minecraft...invedit-july-1/)Alright, time to discuss how to use SPC in the terms of creating an adventure map. There are WAY too many commands to go over all of them, so I’m just going to discuss the ones that I deem will be the most useful. I encourage you to go the SPC forum post and read-up on all of the commands.
Fly- Holy hell, I shouldn’t even have to explain this one. To use, type in /fly [speed] . If no speed is given, you will travel and regular walking speed.
Noclip- Walk through walls. ‘Nuff said. To use, type in /noclip . To the best of my knowledge, you can not change your noclip speed.
Time- Oh hello Father time. To use, type /time day to make it day time, and /time night to make it night time. I really hope you understand that
Weather- Screw rain. To use, type /weather sun to make it sunny, and type /weather rain to make it rain.
Item Drops- Turn those annoying things off. To use, type /drops. It toggles
Infinite Items- Make everything you have infinite. To use, type /infiniteitems . Note, make sure to turn off drops before you do this.
Super Pick- Mine through anything instantly. To use, type // . Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
Damage- Disable all damage. To use, type /damage. It toggles.
Fire Damage- Turn off those pesky flames from falling in lava. To use, type /firedamage. It toggles.
Item- Spawn any items or blocks. To use, type /item or /i , then the item you want to spawn, then the amount. Typing -1 as the amount gives you an infinite stack.
Kill them all Johnny- Kill all nearby mobs. To use, type /killall. No spaces, or you’ll kill youself. You can also target specific mobs by typing /killall Sheep, for example.
World Backup- Backup your worlds!!!! Naow!!!! Type /world backup. This will be saved in a new “backup” folder, located in the same directory as the saves file.
World Exit- Promptly quits the world without saving. This is useful if, say, a creeper blew up all your redstone… FML. To use, type /world exit.
That covers all of the useful map-making SPC commands. In the future, I may add World Edit commands here too, as SPC comes equipped with WE…
Very simple. Download and install. Run minecraft. Press O to toggle it on and off. Left click to get a full stack. Right click to get a single. Hold Shift and left click to get an infinite stack (so long as you return to your inventory before the number reaches 64)
And the external program MCedit (http://www.minecraft...th-mc-beta-173/) Unfortunately, MCedit training is far beyond the scope of anything I can write in a reasonable amount of time. I am in the process of creating a video tutorial covering MCedit basics. Once that video is completed, I will link it here. Thanks for waiting :3
Can help you out a lot. I’ve also heard that World Painter is rather nice, though I’ve yet to use it. (http://www.minecraft...rk-in-progress/)If you need a tutorial for installing mods, I made one a few months back… it’s been super successful, with over 120,000 views! Here it is:
Also, feel free to subscribe to me on Youtube, as I make tones of minecraft tutorials, let’s plays, map playthroughs, etc.
Part 3: Testing
HA! You thought you’d get to distribute now xD Nope! Time to test, and test you shall!
Alright, now, MOST people release a post for their map now and ask for beta testers. Please don’t do this. It’s spam. C’mon, haven’t you made any minecraft friends from the forum or servers? Give THEM, and only THEM the download link. Why? Because, the less everyone knows about an incomplete project, the better. They can’t hold you to anything that way
Ok, so, let’s say that you have no minecraft friends.. or regular friends. Okay, understandable. You’ll still need testers. Now you can make a forum post. Make sure that it is well written, or I’ll be annoyed
For the title, make sure that people know that this is just a call for beta testers, not the map.
“Beta Testers needed for Adventure Map” would be a good title, replacing Adventure Map with whatever needs to be put there. Once you get replies, PM them the download link and make sure that they get back to you on any problems they had with the map.
Now for a play test! You’ve got others testing your map, now you get to! Do it! No cheating!
Hey, go through this checklist here before releasing your maps. It will help. (I even contributed
)http://www.minecraft..._1#entry6871073
Also, again from Vechs:
I would also recommend telling them to delete the following files (if they exist) from the map directory before zipping it for upload:
level.dat_old
session.lock
spc.settings
spc.settings is one of the most important (should also do /reset in SPC out of habit whenever you exit your map). I have heard session.lock can also cause issues for some people.
level.dat_old
session.lock
spc.settings
spc.settings is one of the most important (should also do /reset in SPC out of habit whenever you exit your map). I have heard session.lock can also cause issues for some people.
Part 4: The Release
Ah! You’ve made it! Now, let’s get to it.
To release your map, you’ll obviously make a post here on the Maps subsection of the forum. There are a few good things your post will need:
1. A proper title. Now, I know that it’s hard to tell by some poster’s titles, but there’s a proper way to do this! First off, you’ll have to give it a “tag”. Ex: [Adv] for adventure map, [Puz] for puzzle maps, etc. There’s a sticky thread here: http://www.minecraft...tant-message/�� You should have already read this 
2. Proper grammar. Personally, I won’t even play your map if there is a poor description or bad grammar. It makes me want to cry. Now, I understand that some of you out there are younger players (and there isn’t anything terribly wrong with that), but you still have to make yourself LOOK well educated. That’s the point: I don’t care if you live in a trailer park in Alabama. If you seem well-reasoned and your map seems interesting enough, you and I will get along just fine.
3. Pictures. Welcome to the internet. We’re all ADHD prone, so you’ll need some sexy screenshots to grab and hold our attention. What makes your map different? What are the epic builds there? Post them and make us NEED to play your map. Stay tuned to learn how to post screenshots.
4. A mind. Now, that made absolutely no sense, but hear me out. In your post, ask people if they would kindly take a few minutes after playing the game to give you feedback. If your map is amazing enough, they’ll do it anyways, but it still couldn’t hurt to ask, now could it?
5. Working Download Links: Now, I can’t tell you how many times a post had been missing download links or had only broken ones. Stay tuned to learn how to upload your map to a file sharing site.
6. A brief description of your map. Make it sexy, short, and epic. If you’re not a very good writer, ask people if they would kindly post a small description. You never know who may answer.
2. Proper grammar. Personally, I won’t even play your map if there is a poor description or bad grammar. It makes me want to cry. Now, I understand that some of you out there are younger players (and there isn’t anything terribly wrong with that), but you still have to make yourself LOOK well educated. That’s the point: I don’t care if you live in a trailer park in Alabama. If you seem well-reasoned and your map seems interesting enough, you and I will get along just fine.
3. Pictures. Welcome to the internet. We’re all ADHD prone, so you’ll need some sexy screenshots to grab and hold our attention. What makes your map different? What are the epic builds there? Post them and make us NEED to play your map. Stay tuned to learn how to post screenshots.
4. A mind. Now, that made absolutely no sense, but hear me out. In your post, ask people if they would kindly take a few minutes after playing the game to give you feedback. If your map is amazing enough, they’ll do it anyways, but it still couldn’t hurt to ask, now could it?
5. Working Download Links: Now, I can’t tell you how many times a post had been missing download links or had only broken ones. Stay tuned to learn how to upload your map to a file sharing site.
6. A brief description of your map. Make it sexy, short, and epic. If you’re not a very good writer, ask people if they would kindly post a small description. You never know who may answer.
Great. Now, you may not know how to do some of that stuff. Here we go:
Uploading pictures: (Made with the assistance of Delirious_Doctor’s sticky post)
First, you’ll need to take a screenshot. In game, turn your HUD off using F1. Great. Now, take a screenshot using F2. Beautiful. Take more.
To find the pictures you posted, I’m going to quote the Doctor directly:
“If you're running Windows, your screenshots are located here:
Press the Windows Key and R at the same time. In this dialogue type (or copy and paste) the following
%appdata%\.minecraft\screenshots
If you're running on a Mac, your screenshots are located here:
/Users/*username*/Library/Application Support/minecraft/screenshots/
If you're running Linux, your screenshots are located here:
`/.minecraft/screenshots”
Press the Windows Key and R at the same time. In this dialogue type (or copy and paste) the following
%appdata%\.minecraft\screenshots
If you're running on a Mac, your screenshots are located here:
/Users/*username*/Library/Application Support/minecraft/screenshots/
If you're running Linux, your screenshots are located here:
`/.minecraft/screenshots”
Awesome. Now that we’ve got that understood, there are a few site you can use to upload your pictures, even without making an account.
I prefer to use Imgur. Why? Not quite sure. It’s quick and easy though, so head on over there: http://imgur.com/
Great, upload your picture and take that “forum image” link it gives you. It should already put the [img] tags there, so you shouldn’t have to worry. If my description still doesn’t help, just go read the sticky: http://www.minecraft...this-out/#uppixUploading your map to a website for distribution:We all prefer to use MediaFire. Just accept that. You don’t have to make an account, but if you plan on releasing more maps, I would. It’s nicer that way.I’m just going to give you the Doctor’s tutorial again.
So you have a map and you want people to download and play it, how do you do that? It's pretty easy. Just follow my directions and you'll be ready to share your latest creation in no time!Just like hosting images online, you will need to find a website to host files for you. There are dozens of popular file hosting websites. I prefer to use MegaUpload because it allows you to upload with or without an account. There are bonuses to get the free account, however, like a file manager that allows you to access all of the files you've uploaded to delete them or whatever. If you don't want to use MegaUpload, you don't have to. It's just personal preference. Google comes up with great alternatives.Alright, so now you have a file host, but that still doesn't solve everything. You need to navigate to your saves folder and compress your folder to upload.If you're running Windows, your saves are located here:Press the Windows Key and R at the same time. In this dialogue type (or copy and paste) the following%appdata%\.minecraft\savesIf you're running on a Mac, your saves are located here:/Users/*username*/Library/Application Support/minecraft/saves/If you're running Linux, your saves are located here:`/.minecraft/savesTo compress the folder (of the map, don't do the whole saves folder please) just right click -> Send to... -> Compressed (Zipped) FolderThis will create a .zip file that's ready to upload. Just head back over to the file hosting website, hit the "Upload" button, and using the explorer menu navigate to the .zip folder you created and hit "Open." Your file should start to upload now and you'll be armed with a link to post on the site soon!”
Great. He’s better at that than me.I hope this tutorial helps you all out. Feel free to leave a comment down below telling me things to add to this post.See you all around the forums 
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Also, is there a way to make a slingshot that fires seeds?
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My example is a wizard:
-Has an iron sword that he fights you with in one hand, has a staff in the other.
-Throws potions,blaze-fireballs, and snowballs.
-Has a beard
-Can buff himself
-Is bearded
-All in a unique pattern of attack, allowing for various defeat strategies
-In a bearded fashion
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I just pictured Gollum in the iron man suit. Thanks.
Good strategy though.
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This is along the lines of how Terraria works. In minecraft, you can break any block with your fists. I kinda want it to change.