# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > Software Discussion >  Worldspinner: Fantasy RPG Worldbuilder & Map Maker

## Johnny Au

See here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...r-and-map-make

It is a Kickstarter project that would allow for the creation of a randomly generated map, the placement of races, and it automatically generates a story.




> Worldspinner makes it easy to create richly detailed maps of your own fantasy world in minutes.
> 
> *Spin a World. Make a Map. Find Adventure.*
> 
> *"Worldspinner is  the online worldbuilding tool that gamers and authors have been waiting  for.  It will give your world a solid foundation upon which your own  imagination has limitless room to expand."* - Philip Athans, best-selling author of _Annihilation_ and _The Guide to Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction_ 
> Worldspinner makes it easy to create your own richly detailed  fantasy world in minutes, including continents, mountain ranges,  cultures, kingdoms, cities, and more. Then, delve as deeply as you like  into customizing your world. You can create beautiful maps without  spending hours with paint tools, and without needing to be an artist. 
> Worldspinner  is a tool, not a game. It doesnt replace your creativity, but  multiplies it. It is hosted online, so you dont need to download  anything and it is available anywhere. The technology is almost  complete; the maps and screenshots you see below are all real examples  from the working system. 
> 
> *"Worldspinner is going to be huge for everyone who loves creating fantasy worlds."* - Wolfgang Baur, Publisher, Kobold Press and author of _Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding_
> ...


What do you think?

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## Corilliant

Uh...this puts us out of a job  :Surprised: 

I'm joking! But this is looks like excellent upcoming software. And the scary thing is, in-between when I first looked at the kickstarted and when I refreshed the page, your pledges went up by about $200...
I'm very impressed; how long did this take your team?

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## Chashio

That sounds like an amazing bit of software. Very interesting. I'm especially intrigued by the history-building aspect. Though I do wonder how much overlap of original story content would happen within one world and also between different worlds. Would there be dedicated writers and artists adding much new content to it over time or would it be just whatever is in it when it launches? Seeing as it's being presented as an online tool, I'm guessing the former... I'd hope for the former. But anyway, pretty cool stuff.

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## Johnny Au

Hahaha.

I am not the creator of the Kickstarter project.  I live in Toronto, not Seattle.

By the way, I did not pledge yet.

Oh, and it reached its goal of $10,000 already.

Perhaps the Cartographers' Guild admins can put this up on the front page.  It looks too interesting for those here.

If any of you pledged, you should tell the people behind Worldspinner in Kickstarter about the Cartographers' Guild as well.

They have plans to have steampunk and sci-fi themes as stretch goals.

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## Johnny Au

Here is what a generated map looks like (it may seem huge, but it is actually scaled down from 12,000 pixels wide)

Right-click and view image to see the image at 4000 pixels wide.

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## The_Listener

Okay so this actually looks kinda cool. I'm excited to see how the culture/language systems play out. But I also agree with other people on this thread, they must have some sort of frequently updated new content to keep the maps/lore/ideas fresh. Otherwise concepts would eventually overlap.

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## Chashio

Thanks for posting an example for us. I could nitpick a few small details which caught my eye but, considering what it is, it is quite impressive.

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## Johnny Au

This would be the thing people in the guild will be talking about years to come.  A website that randomly generates a map that is hand-drawn in style, custom placement of races/cultures/kingdoms, automatic generation of towns and roads, and even automatic generation of lore and changes to the map.  Worldspinner is this.

Registered members can have up to five worlds per account.


Printed maps can generate fun discussions with regards to the automatically-generated stories.


Automatically-generated political map


Automatically-generated aged parchment map

If enough funds are raised, then there would be plans to allow members to create an entire custom culture (and story elements) that can be randomly generated, as well as an option to have the map printed on cloth (vellum is too expensive).

As of this post, it raised over $20,000, which is more than twice its initial goal of $10,000.

I am curious to know if you pledged or are planning to do so.

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## Johnny Au

Worldspinner confirms the ability to print off square and hex grids on the maps to facilitate travel with miniatures.

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## Johnny Au

Read here about themes: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects.../posts/1012868

It looks very interesting.

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## Johnny Au

Read here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects.../posts/1018899

It discusses about how cultures affect the world map.

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## Bogie

I had posted a thread about this kickstarter on Saturday the 11th under the heading NEWS at the top of the forum threads.  
http://www.cartographersguild.com/ne...ckstarter.html

The maps are very good, but they are not going to replace the beautiful art produced by many of our members. Also, while the program will use a number of algorithms to generate the maps using real data on Tectonics, Biodiversity, Weather, etc, the maps are still pretty much random design.  If you have a specific world shape you want, it won't do that yet.  What makes this program so good is the wealth of info that is imbedded into each map and accessed by a hot-link.  I spoke to Darren, the creator of Worldspinner, and he plans to continuously add content and new features so it doesn't get repetitive.

They are now on their 4th stretch goal and should easily hit a couple more by the end of the month.

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## WorldspinnerDG

Hi, this is Darren from the Worldspinner team.  It is with some humility that I introduce myself, as I've seen some amazing maps on the forum here, and we are working on a tool that will never match what a truly skilled cartography enthusiast can produce with sufficient experience and time.

But we do hope the tool proves useful for some of the projects of cartographers here.  I suspect it's probably most useful as an starting point to accelerate a project or learn how the pieces fit together... and especially for tying the map into fantasy RPGs, by storing information on every city, nation, and point of interest on the map.  But I've also learned that when building a tool, no matter what your plans are, the creative people who get their hands on it will invariable figure out how things never foreseen.

So that said, we're interested to hear what you like or don't like about what you've seen so far, and what you'd want to do with it.  Worldspinner is an ambitious project, so there's no way we're going to be able to deliver everything that everyone could possibly want on day one.  But we do hope it proves an interesting starting point, and we look forward to continuing to make it better and better.

- Darren

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## ltan

Hey Darren,  I have a quick question concerning the history aspect of Worldspinner.  

Will user made information be able to be uploaded?  Say I have a world already formed with a rich history and elements that I want to use.  Is that something that I could format into a text file, for example, and then upload it into the map? 

Also, will there be a possibility to have an offline viewer?  I understand that this is a monthly service to create and edit the maps, but an offline viewer would be nice to allow the use of the maps when no internet is available.

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## WorldspinnerDG

The first version is focused on creating a new world from scratch.  We will definitely be adding import, since you (and for that matter I as well) have existing worlds we'd like to bring in.  But it'll be just a little further down the road as it brings up a whole extra bunch of issues to work through such as file formats.

In my opinion, the best offline viewer is actually a big printed map.  It is amazing the amount of detail you can fit into a sheet of paper two by three feet, compared to how much zooming & scrolling it takes on a screen.

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## Johnny Au

Darren, it would be very interesting if later on, it would be possible to import maps made using Other World Mapper into Worldspinner as well.

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## WorldspinnerDG

Johnny, we definitely do plan to add import a little down the road.  One of the biggest questions is deciding which formats/tools to support and what features people need in the import.  Good suggestion on that one, we'll add it to the list to consider; it's largely a matter of prioritizing what will do the most people good (and what is possible).

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## Johnny Au

Darren, I noticed that you have implemented making maps having hex tiles.



They remind me of Civilization V.

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## WorldspinnerDG

We're still exploring how exactly people want hex maps.  A lot of people prefer the "hex overlay" style, which we are definitely doing, but as with anything there's no one "right answer".

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## WorldspinnerDG

FYI - after a very successful run, the Kickstarter will be completing tomorrow.  Just one day left if you want to back and get alpha or beta access, instead of waiting for the public release.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...r-and-map-make

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## rubensduarte13

Interesting software, I will give it a try!

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## heruca

I was following up on this project today and, judging from recent KS Comments, there are a lot of unhappy backers, at least with the map-related part of the app.

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