# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > Sci-fi/Modern Mapping >  Meridin Hill - modern horror project

## RailedRobin

Hey everyone! I posted about this a couple of years ago, but the thread seems to have been lost, and my new work is anyhow better than last time I posted here.

I am currently developing a modern day dungeon crawl with high emphasis on horror. The working name of the game is Meridian Hill, since the game is set in the fictional city Meridian.

Strange things are happening in Meridian, and much of the strangeness seem to come from the citys underground: the sewers, catacombs and lost tunnels that stretch almost endlessly beneath the city.

In the game, players will chose from 5 or 6 different classes to play from, and the game is co-op. If you don't work together you are going to die in that damp darkness beneath the city streets.

Thw game itself will be a tile based miniature game. I've written the basic rules and am currently playtesting with so e friends. Thought I should take the opportunity to post some of the tiles here, for c&c. I used to run a blog about this, but it's kind of on hold atm.

Anyway, here are some of the tile.

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## Anararion

Awesome stuff, I was looking for this kinda stuff for running my online World of Darkness games on roll20.

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## RailedRobin

Thank you! It is partially wod-inspired, almost like a Hunter the boardgame, but not quite. If that makes any sense.

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## Anararion

Yeah I get that. I'm slowly working on my fictional city map for my WoD games lol. This sort of thing is great though for those times using tokens or minis would work in game. As for the board game it'd be awesome to give it a whirl some time. You ever used roll20? You could maybe test drive it with a larger audience at some point on there.

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## Midgardsormr

Nice work! The style and quality remind me a bit of Tannhauser. I love coop board games, and I'm a big fan of horror gaming. I hope you make it to market!

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## arsheesh

Very nice work, I could easily see this being used in a board game.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

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## Lingon

That looks awesome, very creepy. I've got a feeling I'd love this game. Are you planning to publish it, or is it just for your gaming group?

If you _are_ planning to get it published, are you looking for someone to do concept art and sculpts for the miniatures? I think this game sounds really interesting, and if the position is open and you don't mind working with a stranger, I can send you a couple of work samples and maybe we could team up?

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## RailedRobin

Thanks for the kind words, fellas!




> Yeah I get that. I'm slowly working on my fictional city map for my WoD games lol. This sort of thing is great though for those times using tokens or minis would work in game. As for the board game it'd be awesome to give it a whirl some time. You ever used roll20? You could maybe test drive it with a larger audience at some point on there.


The game is not ready for any bigger playtesting yet. As of now I have the core rules down, the starting stats for 5 classes and a bunch of monsters. Now I have to adjust the monsters, since they're a bit too difficult to handle atm. I also have to write a whole bunch of different events and "side quests" and such. Simply put; I have to flesh it out a lot more before I can begin to think of putting it out for a larget audience to test play. I will however keep this forum in mind when I do  :Wink: 

I haven't checked this roll20, but will do to see if it fits




> That looks awesome, very creepy. I've got a feeling I'd love this game. Are you planning to publish it, or is it just for your gaming group?
> 
> If you _are_ planning to get it published, are you looking for someone to do concept art and sculpts for the miniatures? I think this game sounds really interesting, and if the position is open and you don't mind working with a stranger, I can send you a couple of work samples and maybe we could team up?


The dream is to one day have it published, but it's still a long way to go from here to there, still got lots of things to do. At the moment I have some concept artists, but if you post some of your work I might see if it fits with what I have in mind. For the "beta" or whatever one should call it, when I get a larger amount of play testers, I will use paper cut outs (since everyone will have to print the game themselves during play testing). If I reach the publishing stage I will start looking into 3D printing of miniatures, since that seems to be on the uprise. (Are you swedish, by the way?)

Below is an image of a samle set up of the game, some different sections and such.

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## Jacktannery

Looks really great railedrobin. I love the colour scheme, textures, lighting and attention to detail - it bodes well for your game.

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## Lingon

> The dream is to one day have it published, but it's still a long way to go from here to there, still got lots of things to do. At the moment I have some concept artists, but if you post some of your work I might see if it fits with what I have in mind. For the "beta" or whatever one should call it, when I get a larger amount of play testers, I will use paper cut outs (since everyone will have to print the game themselves during play testing). If I reach the publishing stage I will start looking into 3D printing of miniatures, since that seems to be on the uprise. (Are you swedish, by the way?)


Sounds great, thanks for giving me a chance! Private messaging isn't enabled for you yet I think, so I'll have to post the samples here  I hope you don't think it's thread hijacking  :Razz:  I'm attaching a monster and a human character, two recent practice designs I did that I think are representative of my style (if I can be said to have one). If you like them, perhaps we can talk more over e-mail? I use flygandegris--at--gmail.com, replacing --at-- with @. And yeah, I'm swedish  :Smile:

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## RailedRobin

> And yeah, I'm swedish 
> Attachment 55904Attachment 55905


Trodde väl det  :Wink: 

I like your drawings, although they aren't exactly what I'm looking for when it comes to the art of the game. At the moment all art is highly temporary and more or less filler until I can get the right feel and such, so if you want to contribute with some drawings anyway you're welcome, but I can't guarantee they make the final stage (if we ever get there). 

Currently working on my finals exam, so not much time for Meridian, but I've been going over the rules and are kind of conflicted if I should keep it as is or change the combat system (it would prolly be the 4th time I change it). Also trying to come up with ideas for more monsters and a character class based on Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde. I did run a blog about this game a year ago, but I think I might re-do it from the beginning, and be more active. In the meantime, some more tiles and layout examples.

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## Neyjour

These are really, really beautifully done!  Excellent use of textures, and your lighting/shadows give them a wonderful, creepy atmosphere.  Looking forward to seeing more!  :Smile:

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## RailedRobin

> These are really, really beautifully done!  Excellent use of textures, and your lighting/shadows give them a wonderful, creepy atmosphere.  Looking forward to seeing more!


Thanks! Currently trying to come up with different rooms and corridors. Going for an underground feeling, anything subway, abandoned mineshafts/hostipal basements and tunnels. Haven't got access to my project computer, so I have to do some sketches in my head (easier than pen and paper imo). You guys please feel free to recommend some good movies or games or other from which I can draw sone inspiration, or feel free to come up with your own ideas.




(this one is still very much wip)

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## Neyjour

Very nice!  Love how the grate covers are removed, but still laying on the ground at an angle.   :Smile: 

The only movie that comes to mind at the moment is Mimic (1997).  A good portion of it takes place in abandoned, underground subway tunnels.

And for textures, have you checked out Grunge Textures?  Lots of good ones there that would work well for your theme.   :Smile:

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## Midgardsormr

Try a Google image search on the term "urban exploration." There are tons of great blogs out there with some wonderfully creepy images.

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## arsheesh

These are really fantastic!  Very much looking forward to seeing the end product.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

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## RailedRobin

Thanks for the responses!

So, I've decided to restart my blog for this project, and thought I should post a link to it here (since I won't be doing any art for a little while and don't want to clutter up this forum with my rantings.

Rules | Meridian Hill

I'll try to be as active as I can, although I won't post full rules or such (since I'm a little paranoid about those kind of things). But I'll greatly appreciate any C&C you guys can contribute. Oh, and since you guys recommended gritty and grunge textures and such, I'll post some textures I've done in photoshop (cause everyone like pictures, right?). 





(Btw, is there any way to edit the name of the thread? It's supposed to be Meridian, not Meridin, missed that typo when I first created the thread.)

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## RailedRobin

A WIP section, mostly played with creating light effects.



Edit: Hmm, seeing it in this smaller size makes me think it's a bit too colorful for what I'm after.

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## RailedRobin

Two more WIP (one of which has been posted in an earlier verison.)





Feel like I've made some progress now. I've been writing down ideas for some theme based tiles, will start working on them as soon as I've got the time, but I've just started a new job which pretty much takes all my time.

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## RailedRobin

Hello again guys. I've been really busy at my new job lately, but a couple of days ago I did some map making.

I found an old piece I'd abandoned (it was too bright and cheerful) and gave it a bit of make-over. It fits the mood a bit better now, but I'll probably continue working on it. I've been putting down some ideas on paper and I pretty much know what direction some of the next sections will be. Hopefully I'll get some energy to work on them soon (getting up early and getting home late due to work). And I've also started to get the monsters a bit more thematic (are you guys interested in hearing about them, or just the board sections?).

Anyways, here's my latest piece.

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## Chashio

I'd certainly like to hear about your monsters. This is a pretty neat project... I'm really not usually into this sort of stuff (excepting concept monsters which fill a good quarter of my sketchbooks  :Smile: ) but I have to say this project you have going is extremely well done.

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## RailedRobin

> I'd certainly like to hear about your monsters. This is a pretty neat project... I'm really not usually into this sort of stuff (excepting concept monsters which fill a good quarter of my sketchbooks ) but I have to say this project you have going is extremely well done.


Glad to hear that! I'm still working on many of the monsters but I've got some of them fleshed out. There will be mostly humanoid monsters, amongst which there will be infected hobos, vomiting tar at the heroes. There'll be some standard escaped inmates and dirty cops. Then we'vw got the crazed firemen, affected by a strangr madness that sweeps through the city (this will be a mayor plot device at the moment). One of the bigger monsters atm is the butcher, a massive man killing anything that gets close (except his apprentices of course) turning them into back alley dishes. I'm also working on shady doctors and nurses, along with a mortician, who's turned to the sewers for their underground practices. And last (writing on my phone so please excuse the short descriptions) are a swedish mythological beeng called 'myling' which is prettt much the ghost of a murdered, unbaptized child. According to legend they can take many shapes, so I'm still working on the looks for them. They won't directly attack unless provoked, but will attract other monsters.

Oh, there's also going to be the bloated corpses of drowned hookers and an electric clown (he was put in a makeshift electric chair). Many of the monsters will (hopefully) be a bit silent hill-esque, but still unique for this game.



Skickat från min GT-I9100 med Tapatalk 4

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## RailedRobin

A quick update:

The monsters will behave differently, and will be game controlled. Ie there won't be a monster player or anything like that, all players are on the same team. Some monsters will be more prone to attack each other than the heroes, others will be roaming around the tunnels, meaning you will have to plan your way through some sections. Sometimes you'll get a heads up, like "In three rounds a butcher will arrive in this room", other times you'll be ambushed. Some of them will actively try to escape if outnumbered or overmatched, while others will go out of their way to pursue the heroes.

Heroes: So far there are 5 playable characters:
The Brawler
The Agent
The Pilgrim
The Hitman
The Vigilante

These are not balanced agiainst each other in the ense that you have to have all of them, or any one special to make it through an adventure. Odds are no matter what character you play you won't make it anyhow (just kidding, but the difficulty is a bit high, so tactics and team works are the words). I have written a system for magics, but will probably not include that in the "beta". I'm also writing rules for a shape shifter class, kinda based on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but I will mainly focus on the five afformentioned ones before writing any new characters at the moment. 

The game is heavily focused on close quarter fighting. The Agent is mainly a "shooter" class, but will get all kind of interesting skills and goverment equipment to make up for this. I am thinking of giving some of the characters individual quests, but will probably focus on writing the main missions first.

The game is D10 based and the main attribute of the characters is Endurance. Simply put if you've got 3 Endurance you will be able to perform 3 actions each turn, and you will have to decide how to divide these actions. For example, attacking and defending agains an attack will cost you 1 Endurance each, which means if you use all your End. on attacking you won't be able to defend that turn.

There, hope that gives a little bit more insight into the game mechanics. And lastly my latest wip. I've been trying to come up with good textures for floor tiling and think this is a step in the right direction.

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## Midgardsormr

Have you ever played Last Night on Earth? If not, you should; it's very similar to what you've got here. And it's a tremendously fun game. 

Flying Frog Productions is the publisher.

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## Nolan75

Amazing graphics, you should work for WotC ^^

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## RailedRobin

Thank you!

Apologies for the late reply, but life's been kinda hectic so I haven't had any energy to work on this project for a long time. Got this week off and finally starting to feel human again  :Smile: 

The game is slowly moving forward. There'll be at least three different NPCs from which you'll be able to get missions and objectives. The idea is that each NPC will have a special theme, or similar, and that you decide which one to get missions from depending on your playing style. If you want much action with high chances of death you go to one of them; if you want to save innocent people trapped by monsters you go to another. I'm also working on some ideas for different campaigns, but first I have to make a bunch of missions the players can play over and over so that there's always something to do.

Anyhow, here is my latest wip, which is a kind of sewer crossing section. I hope you guys like it.

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## RailedRobin

A quick update. I decided to make an example map/layout of all the sections I've done so far. Some of them are still WIP but this gives you (and me) a sense of how the finished game will look. Of course, being modular this is but one of many layouts possible. There will be many more sections and then the "map building" itself will be random, so the players don't know what the finished layout will look like.

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## NexxusDM

Very cool!  I love the gritty/grimy feel.  Very Silent Hill!

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## sarendt

These are very cool, would fit well into a near future game as well, and would make everyone nervous about what might jump out at them while playing  :Smile:   Has there been any further work on these?

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