Hey everyone. I’m Pastel, you all know me. This is an update about interior design, and somebody else you’re familiar with: Travis! He’s got a brother, a Mom, a Dad, and a dog too. They all live in a house on a hill in a town called Belring.

Life is pretty good with a dog at your side. This dog’s name is Domino.

Best bros for life. Zack’s always got Travis’ back.

A boy’s room is his fortress. A messy fortress is still a fortress.

Pride and achievement lined up on shelves.

Parents’ rooms have a mysterious air to them- like a secret club.

That’s basically Travis’ house. It has all the essentials, but it is ultimately a pretty minor place in the game. Be that as it may, we like making the small, unimportant places more memorable by giving them little unique touches. A lived in universe is important, and if you look at Mother 3 there are loads of tiles that only get used in one single screen, never to be seen again. We feel details like that are part of what makes Mother games feel special.

Part of the map design process involves a sketch of the map. Depending on how important the area, it might look like this:

The little red square is the approximate screen size.

A more important map might get something like this for each little piece, and then get elaborated on later into a full street by street map:

The layout has to deal with being this kind of thing for a while, though.

After the tiles get made (here’s a few), they’re put through a program Dave made called Tilesetter which lets us set collision boxes and animation speeds. But hey, we’re losing track of things… Travis’ family lives in this kind of world, and even though their house is small it’s made with love.

It has space for all of them, so it’s only a little small.

Travis’ Mom works somewhere in town, but Dad works way off in the next city. He has to take a train to work, and usually stays in a hotel. That kind of thing seems like it might become important.

It makes scheduling this kind of thing a bit rough, for example!

I hope you’ve enjoyed looking at these pictures of Travis’ family and home. Especially his room, it’s great for things like this:

Zzzzzzz…

Good night. See you next next week!