Developer: ProFantasy
Software Publisher: ProFantasy
Software Ltd.
Reviewed by EDave
on 2/8/02
Article
Discussion Forum
First
Impressions:
I've
been a gamer for over 20 years and, even in my youth, I was always
drawn to world crafting. I like drawing maps and creating game worlds,
and the suite of programs that ProFantasy Software has put together,
including Campaign Cartographer 2, City Designer 2,
Dungeon Designer 2, and Fractal Terrains, is a dream
come true. While the programs were at first intimidating in their
complexity, I soon realized how powerful these tools are. [Editor's
note - they make additional products,
but those will not be covered in this review.]
Fractal Terrains lets the user create entire worlds with
a single click. If you want more control, you can always adjust
things like elevation ranges, climatology, map projection style,
and the color palette used to render your world. You can even
import real-world terrain data to render maps based on Earth.
The toolset also lets you modify sections of your generated world
by hand - raise the elevation here, make this area wetter or hotter,
and so on. You can even export your maps for use in Campaign
Cartographer 2. ProFantasy has made it very easy to use all
of these programs together. Of the four programs in the set, this
one is my favorite simply for its simplicity. You can just click
the "Next World" button again and again until you see one that
you can mold to fit your needs.
Campaign Cartographer is the real meat and potatoes of
this set of programs. It is essentially a sophisticated drawing
program, very similar in many ways to Visio. There are
numerous pen/brush controls, color palette controls, and multitudes
of shape palettes to use. These range from trees, mountains and
swamps to villages, keeps and castles. There are hundreds of available
elements that users can place on maps, and, to give world builders
even more options, ProFantasy has written CC2 to allow users to
import their owned scanned images for use in maps. Again, the
key here is that creators have the control to be as detailed as
they want to be.
Both City Designer 2 and Dungeon Designer 2 install
as modules to CC2. With these add-ons installed, users will find
that they have more shapes and map templates available when running
CC2. This sort of integration works wonderfully to help make the
entire toolset easier to use: CC2 acts as the single interface
for all aspects of map creation, whether making a map of an entire
world, or just a single building in some remote village of your
world.
All of this power comes with a price, however. There are literally
hundreds of options available to you when using this suite of
programs. You can create something as simple as a blank hex
map, or as complex as a complete world map with hundreds of
cities. Fortunately, the manuals are very detailed, and include
excellent tutorials. [Editor's note: Some of the images associated
with this article are rather large, and may take a moment to display.]
Graphics:
The
graphics in Campaign Cartographer 2 vary a great deal. For
the most part, all of the drawing elements are simple line drawings.
Maps are created with simple color fills by default, but you can
create many other effects as well. If you are interested in printing
your maps, the simplicity of the included drawing elements is actually
beneficial: your maps will be clean and easy to read. Since you
can also use your own images, the graphic complexity of your maps
is only limited by your imagination, as shown with the basic colors
here,
and the crayon colors here.
Fractal Terrains produces very interesting graphic images.
You can change the color palette the program uses (it assigns
different colors to different elevations) or create your own.
You can even have the program add shading to give your map some
dimensionality.
Neither of these programs is going to stretch your graphic card's
muscles, but you may want to keep in mind that Fractal Terrains
will give your CPU quite a workout. If you have a slow machine
you can expect to wait a while when the map image is being refreshed.
Sound/Music:
Not applicable, though you could very well listen to your entire CD/MP3 collection while fiddling with these programs.
Gameplay:
One
of the best ways to introduce this set of programs is to walk through
an example of world crafting. I needed a set of maps to help detail
my campaign world. With this tool set, I was able to create several
maps of differing scales (showing the entire world down to a single
tavern) in just a couple of hours.
To begin, I used Fractal Terrains to create a basic
world map. I used the additional drawing tools in FT to enhance
the map a bit to produce the final image and then exported the
world to Campaign Cartographer 2's native format.
Additionally, since I wanted to focus on one specific area of
the world (the place that I intend to begin the campaign), I used
FT to zoom in
on that area and then exported a second map as well.
I then imported the map into CC2 to begin the real work. I added
countries, major/capital cities and other interesting details
to the base map.
Because I wanted to add more detail to a specific part of the
world, I added features like rivers, roads and villages to the
second map.
The capital city of Aden
is important to the campaign, so I used CC2 to create a more detailed
view of certain parts of that city, including one of the local
hangouts, McGunn's
Tavern. This was as simple as creating a new map using a city
template and the city drawing tools.
While I was at it, I decided to create a simple dungeon map for
one of the first adventures I have planned for the campaign. The
setting is an old family tomb on the outskirts of the old part
of the city, and the map
shows the layout and interesting features that the adventures
will find inside. As you can see, Campaign Cartographer 2
and its associated programs let you easily work at any scale to
produce a variety of maps to satisfy your needs.
Enjoyment:
If
you have a passion for world crafting, then you will definitely
enjoy these programs. Take the time to go through the tutorials
and you will be able to use the programs to create any sort of
map that you will ever need to enhance your gaming experience.
The Fractal Terrains program is especially fun to play
with. It is very simple to use (just set a few parameters like
elevation range and color palette if you don't like the defaults)
and lets you create entire worlds with a single click.
Multiplayer:
While
it may be quite enjoyable to make world crafting a cooperative
venture, these programs were designed with the solo world crafter
in mind. Here's a suggestion, though, if you really must share
the burden of creation with others: create the basic world map
and then let everyone else in your play group help to populate
it with countries and cities and dungeons. This works best if
your play group has multiple people who take turns running adventures.
If everyone in your gaming group has some small stake in the game
world it may help to enliven and enrich your gaming experience.
As with other joint ventures of this kind, though, your mileage
may vary.
Overall
Impression:
These
tools do an excellent job of putting control in your hands. You
can use them to be as detailed as you want or need to be. You can
use the whole suite to create an entire campaign world or just use
one of the programs to create a simple map for your next adventure.
The most interesting aspect of this suite of programs is that you
can start with Fractal Terrains to create a world, import
that world into Campaign Cartographer 2 to add details like
cities and dungeons, and then use the City Designer 2 and
Dungeon Designer 2 elements to create additional maps to
flesh out the important places on your map. You could create an
entire set of maps to help flesh out your gaming campaign, even
down to the detailed floor plan of your characters' favorite tavern.
The number of levels of detail this set of programs lets you create
is astounding.
If you are looking to create simple maps or professional products
(such as the world maps for Dark
Age of Camelot, which were created using Campaign Cartographer
2), then you cannot go wrong with ProFantasy Software's excellent
suite of programs.
Marketing
Efforts Towards Women:
None.
This set of tools is definitely an equal opportunity intimidator,
and a wonderful boon to world crafters in all their guises.
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