I LOVE this project. Personally, I don’t like/am not inspired by other available hex tools. I want an evocative map with hexing lightly displayed. Great work!
Some thoughts:
yeah, kill the legend text; but the numbering is nice
needs a way to stitch multiple regions together… perhaps just a simple region prefix? Eg. 0101 could become A101? Like different regions can be the letter?
I WANT THAT SAVE FEATURE… but you’re on this
obviously, adding elements to the map… but I can also do this with a SVG editor… even an online one… maybe :D
I’m not always sure what each hex icon means. Would be great to post that somewhere. Eg. grasslands vs swamp, etc…
In theory, any map feature (a village, a forest, a mountain range etc.) can have a short text description which is displayed on it sticker. Currently there is no way to add or edit descriptions manually. Procedurally, descriptions are generated only for settlement. So in practice "Descriptions" only affect the text on a sticker when you click a village or a town. For example, it could be "Moonhill. An isolated fishing village notable for its lighthouse" if it's checked or just "Moonhill" otherwise. In the future, descriptions will be added to other types map entities and it will be possible to edit them.
Hi Watabou, nice work on the generator. Was playing around with it in Firefox and froze the browser 3 times in a row and required me to restart. Not sure if you have had that problem, but be great if you could fix it.
I played with the keyboard shortcuts and toggles. But I think it was because I generated a bunch of maps and I liked seeing how they encourage me to think about monster lairs.
Thanks! In theory you can download all the files of the generator and they should run offline normally (there is no server side) but I haven't tried it.
I've become a little obsessed with this. The only issue I've had is the legend is sometimes a little hard to read even using the outline text. Would it be possible to have a toggle for a background under the legend?
That's why I had thought it would need to be on a toggle, to avoid that problem. I suppose a transparency slider might allow a compromise between seeing map features and improving text contrast.
I really like your work, they are all just super. Did you have an idea to add the ability to add icons of cities and dungeons on the pre-generated map manually?
Maybe one day this will become possible but not anytime soon. Towns and (to a lesser degree) dungeons are not just placed randomly on map. They get verified not to be too close to each other, they get connected by roads (taking into account all the settlements at the same time) etc. For manually placed locations I would have to do the same and this seems kind of cumbersome...
Weird bug. When there are two or more dangers on a map and I right-click on them to be taken to 1PDG, they go to the same map with the same name (based on whichever one I clicked on first). If I get the permalink, reload the site in a fresh tab and out the permalink in, it apparently "remembers" which one I clicked first last time and keeps generating that dungeon map. But if I put the permalink into the address bar and go to the non-Itch version, I can then click on a different danger and get the map of that (but every subsequent click on a danger will then send me to that map). Oh, and features get renamed when the permalink is used to go between the Itch and non-Itch version. :-)
I just did some experimenting and it seems it might be to do with Chromium? The issue disappears when I use Safari but exists when I use Chrome or Edge.
This is awesome! I'm playtesting a solo mapping RPG called I am the Forest and was wondering if there is a way to control the map/grid size. The game has a grid that is 4 hex vertical by 6 grid horizontal flats on top. Each hex is intended to have a "single feature" like a lake in one, part of a mountain range in one, a swamp in one, etc. Is that doable natively? I went through all the settings and couldn't find anything that would control those settings, but given that it is SVG, maybe there is something in the code I could manipulate?
You can choose the size of the map via the "Tags" dialog but there are only three predefined sizes: "small","medium" and "large". "Small" maps are significantly larger than what you need (smt.h around 10x10 hexes).
In the next update I'm planning to add the ability to request a map of specific dimensions. The goal is to make it possible to generate non-square maps and maps larger than current "large" one, but it could be useful for generating ver small maps as well :)
First of, this is awesome! I have two questions tho: 1 - is it possible to move the legend? I like eveything about it, except for that it sometimes places itself on top of features on the map. 2 - is it possible to make the font smaller or larger?
No biggie, a legend can be easily made in photoshop afterwards. Just a thought.
The legend can only be in one of the map corners and its location is chosen automatically to overlap map features as little as possible. As an alternative, you can Ctrl+click (or Cmd+click on mac) any map feature to add "stickers" to all the features listed in the legend and then hide the legend itself via the context menu (or by pressing L).
Yes. Open the Style dialog (via the context menu or by pressing S), click the "..." button and choose "Text".
Lately, when I generate a region and that region has two or more dangers in it, right-clicking on those dangers to open them in 1PDG results in identical maps – as if it only produces one random seed and sends that to 1PDG for all of them.
I wish that this generator was tied in somehow with the other generators you have made so that it could generate towns, dungeons, etc. all at the same time. it would make a great readymade campaign generator
It is tied with other generators: you can right-click a settlement or a dungeon to choose "Open in MFCG/VG/1PDG" to "zoom in". Anything tighter would require them to be merged into one huge generator, which would be to hard develope or even maintain.
Hi. No, custom feature names are not saved as a part of a permalink. But this generator is closer to getting a proper save/load feature than my other generators, so in the future it may become possible to save all the changes you make.
Would it be possible to get (an option for) a table on the page with the legend and metadata? Moving the legend off the image could help make it more readable, and it would be nice to see the tags and other information that is currently accessible only via the context menu.
Hi! Do I understand correctly that you are asking about moving the legend to the place where the list of hotkeys currently is? Sorry, I don't think it's technically possible, the generator can't access that static part of the page.
Ah, so if I understand correctly the generator has control over a single element of the page, and not multiple elements. I can see how that could make it more difficult.
Hmm... and it seems all we can see is the generator, not the generated content. That is, likely cannot embed the meta text in an alt tag or the like.
I do see that the meta text is in separate text elements in the SVG export, though. It would be fairly easy, after manually exporting the image as SVG, to tweak the appearance.
Thanks for the quick response. I've got some things to think about.
Hey Watabou, great job on this project! I was wondering if there is any way to automatically mass generate and download these maps as .png's (I wanted around a hundred)?
In all my "big" generators you can access the context menu on mobile, although methods differs from generator to generator. Here in Perilous Shores you just need to tap anywhere to open it. As far as I remember, in 1PDG long press is used for the same purpose. Both methods are less discoverable than a menu button, but both allow the menu to be a context menu with different items depending on where it is activated.
Is there an option to remove a certain feature from map? Let's say I don't want a certain settlement, can I delete or hide it? I know you can hide all of them, but is it possible with just one?
Currently it is not possible to remove individual map features. You can hide all the settlements (Details > Towns > Hidden). Or you can remove a specific settlement from the almanac ([Town name] > Remove from almanac), but this only removes its name from the legend.
It is very easy to remove a town icon from an exported SVG. For example, you can open it in Chrome, right-click the icon and choose "Inspect". Then right-click the enclosing group of the highlighted element (that will be the group for the whole icon) and choose "Delete element".
The legend is moveable in the city generator, but here its position is always chosen automatically to block as few map features as possible (preferring the top left corner). If the legend blocks something you need, you can make it smaller by selecting a smaller font.
I love this generator, so good. I would love to be able to switch Settlements to dangerous places and vice versa, as I never can get enough skulls to show even on evil or perilous tags. Your continual improvements are great!
First of all, thank you for making such an awesome tool.
I had a couple questions regarding how to use it and if there's any way it could be modified for different uses.
1. Is there a way to edit the name for the entire region? I know you can edit location names or add them to the almanac/legend, but I haven't been able to figure out how to change the region name.
2. Are there plans in the future to be able to add locations? That way theoretically every hex could be labelled for reference - possibly as an alternative to the hex number request in one of the other comments.
3. Is there any possibility that in the future one will be able to edit the procedurally-generated map? Adding a forest hex, mountain, or settlement, moving a coastline, etc. Being able to hide hexes, locations, or roads would be helpful as well, so that the map could be shown to the players without revealing secrets.
4. Is there any way to add or modify assets (e.g. more tree types, adding castles/temples/cave icons)?
Yes. Right-click the region name and choose "Edit name" in the context menu.
Maybe in the future I'll add the ability to mark hexes with "pins" like in MFCG, but not anytime soon. In any case labelling every hex this way would look ugly. Numbered hexes will be implemented soon.
To make maps editable in this generator is not very hard, but it would require much time and this is not the sort of coding I like. You can hide towns, dungeons and roads via the Details submenu of the context menu.
There is no way to add or edit assets because there are no assets here. Every icon is procedurally generated: for example if I wanted to add palm trees to the generator I would have to write a method for drawing them, not to draw them manually and save it as an image.
After making a custom style, I
exported to PNG and the colors were orangified. Instead exporting to SVG
kept the colors. Using Inkscape to re-export the SVG, I got a PNG with the
un-oranginated style.
Here's the style: colorful.json. Below are the original colors (first) and the oranginal ones (second).
Exported from Perilous Shores as SVG, then loaded to Inkscape and re-exported as PNG Exported from Perilous Shores as PNG
That's weird. For me PNG export works normally both in general and with your custom style. Also I didn't receive such complains before. Have you tried PNG export in my other generators? They almost identical code for export and they should exhibit the same behaviour.
Ah, turns out it is caused by a Firefox plugin: Canvas Defender. Disabling that plugin gets me normal colors. The plugin alters the HTML canvas behavior by adding some randomness. The plugin messed with all five of the exporters I tried: Shores, Neighborhood, Village, Dungeon, and Rose.
Incredible map generator indeed. I've used some of your generators (one page dungeon, Compass Rose, Sigil and this one) in my last game jam project "Projet-Z" and even in its itcho's presentation page. So, thanks for these wonderful tools that helped me a lot !
Thanks. Via the context menu you can rename items in the legend, delete existing items and add new ones. But it is not really possible to create new features: for example if you right-click an empty place on the map there won't be the "Add to almanac" item in the menu.
Thank you. There is no "built-in" way for such integration, but I guess you can just manually roll encounters (using other generators or tables) for specific hexes depending on their type?
Got it. Thanks. What I'm looking for is populating an entire map. I have a sandbox content generation engine I'm working on - so something programmatic would work best (say a JSON or YAML file).
Is there any chance a future version will allow us to copy a link to a specific region to save and restore later? I absolutely love how useful this generator is especially now that dungeons and cities/villages are connected, and am hoping I can save a specific seed for use in an on-going tabletop campaign.
I am planning to implement permalinks for all my "big generators" and Perilous Shores is next in the queue to get this feature (and the only one because the rest of "big generators" already have it).
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I love coming here and messing around with all the generators! Did the ability to change mountain types move? I cannot seem to find it.
Thanks in advance and really fun work.
Are you talking about "jagged" mountains? This is a style option: Style > Terrain > Jagged.
Thank you
I LOVE this project. Personally, I don’t like/am not inspired by other available hex tools. I want an evocative map with hexing lightly displayed. Great work!
Some thoughts:
0101could becomeA101? Like different regions can be the letter?Fantastic work, sir… bravo!
Excellent product here, Watabou! I had a question. What are "descriptions?" I don't see any and I don't know what that menu option does. Thanks
In theory, any map feature (a village, a forest, a mountain range etc.) can have a short text description which is displayed on it sticker. Currently there is no way to add or edit descriptions manually. Procedurally, descriptions are generated only for settlement. So in practice "Descriptions" only affect the text on a sticker when you click a village or a town. For example, it could be "Moonhill. An isolated fishing village notable for its lighthouse" if it's checked or just "Moonhill" otherwise. In the future, descriptions will be added to other types map entities and it will be possible to edit them.
A bit more info here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/perilous-shores-61720163
Hi Watabou, nice work on the generator. Was playing around with it in Firefox and froze the browser 3 times in a row and required me to restart. Not sure if you have had that problem, but be great if you could fix it.
BTW - I think your project is cool!
I haven't received reports on this issue before. Did it happen with some specific settings like tags or map dimensions?
I played with the keyboard shortcuts and toggles. But I think it was because I generated a bunch of maps and I liked seeing how they encourage me to think about monster lairs.
"Upwellcote: A busy logging village notable for the unique kind of duck puddings made only here."
My hat goes off to you, friend. Love this! Drawn straight into the world with this delightful little bit of color text.
Thanks! I'm planning to replace these descriptions with something more exciting and (more importantly) less repetitive :)
I guess the nature of these projects, is that you can add more depth, more variety, more interconnectedness, more everything, forever! :D
I'm working on a game called Secret Keep, which is fairly early in development, creative procgen archipelagos, with mission based gameplay.
It's always inspiring to see what you are doing with your generators, for little ideas and inspiration. :D Soooo muuuuch tooo dooooo!
Here's a little Dev Diary Video from a while ago, if you're interested to see where I'm at with it. :D
Keep making the magic!Nice! Good luck with your game!
Great work! The result is amazing!
Is it possible to run this offline?
Thanks! In theory you can download all the files of the generator and they should run offline normally (there is no server side) but I haven't tried it.
Wow, this looks great also for DND GMs I think.
I've become a little obsessed with this. The only issue I've had is the legend is sometimes a little hard to read even using the outline text. Would it be possible to have a toggle for a background under the legend?
I'll consider it. Also this: https://itch.io/post/5728531.
The problem is that the legend is likely to overlap at least some map features and its background would block them completely.
That's why I had thought it would need to be on a toggle, to avoid that problem. I suppose a transparency slider might allow a compromise between seeing map features and improving text contrast.
Thanks!
Maybe one day this will become possible but not anytime soon. Towns and (to a lesser degree) dungeons are not just placed randomly on map. They get verified not to be too close to each other, they get connected by roads (taking into account all the settlements at the same time) etc. For manually placed locations I would have to do the same and this seems kind of cumbersome...
Weird bug. When there are two or more dangers on a map and I right-click on them to be taken to 1PDG, they go to the same map with the same name (based on whichever one I clicked on first). If I get the permalink, reload the site in a fresh tab and out the permalink in, it apparently "remembers" which one I clicked first last time and keeps generating that dungeon map. But if I put the permalink into the address bar and go to the non-Itch version, I can then click on a different danger and get the map of that (but every subsequent click on a danger will then send me to that map). Oh, and features get renamed when the permalink is used to go between the Itch and non-Itch version. :-)
I did a screen-record:
I just did some experimenting and it seems it might be to do with Chromium? The issue disappears when I use Safari but exists when I use Chrome or Edge.
I'll check it. Thanks for the report!
It should be fixed now.
This is awesome! I'm playtesting a solo mapping RPG called I am the Forest and was wondering if there is a way to control the map/grid size. The game has a grid that is 4 hex vertical by 6 grid horizontal flats on top. Each hex is intended to have a "single feature" like a lake in one, part of a mountain range in one, a swamp in one, etc. Is that doable natively? I went through all the settings and couldn't find anything that would control those settings, but given that it is SVG, maybe there is something in the code I could manipulate?
You can choose the size of the map via the "Tags" dialog but there are only three predefined sizes: "small", "medium" and "large". "Small" maps are significantly larger than what you need (smt.h around 10x10 hexes).
In the next update I'm planning to add the ability to request a map of specific dimensions. The goal is to make it possible to generate non-square maps and maps larger than current "large" one, but it could be useful for generating ver small maps as well :)
First of, this is awesome! I have two questions tho:
1 - is it possible to move the legend? I like eveything about it, except for that it sometimes places itself on top of features on the map.
2 - is it possible to make the font smaller or larger?
No biggie, a legend can be easily made in photoshop afterwards. Just a thought.
Ah, I see. That is awesome! Thank you. And again, thank you for the awesome generators!
Lately, when I generate a region and that region has two or more dangers in it, right-clicking on those dangers to open them in 1PDG results in identical maps – as if it only produces one random seed and sends that to 1PDG for all of them.
I'll check this, thanks! It sounds more like a glitch with the context menu, than with the generation itself.
How can you export to print your map?
Right-click to open the context menu, then Export as > PNG or SVG.
I wish that this generator was tied in somehow with the other generators you have made so that it could generate towns, dungeons, etc. all at the same time. it would make a great readymade campaign generator
It is tied with other generators: you can right-click a settlement or a dungeon to choose "Open in MFCG/VG/1PDG" to "zoom in". Anything tighter would require them to be merged into one huge generator, which would be to hard develope or even maintain.
awesome! I will try that when I get back to my computer
Hello, is there any work around with the Permalink? My changes doesn't save and it will generate the original names with the map
Hi. No, custom feature names are not saved as a part of a permalink. But this generator is closer to getting a proper save/load feature than my other generators, so in the future it may become possible to save all the changes you make.
https://pin.it/6NiyTze Thanks for the strength, hope to do the same.
hi watabou, I wanted to know if there is a way to optimize the mobile version a little better, it ends up being bad to use the generator via mobile
What would you like to be optimized on mobiles? Performance, UI?
hi Watabou, I really like what you've done here.
Would it be possible to get (an option for) a table on the page with the legend and metadata? Moving the legend off the image could help make it more readable, and it would be nice to see the tags and other information that is currently accessible only via the context menu.
Hi! Do I understand correctly that you are asking about moving the legend to the place where the list of hotkeys currently is? Sorry, I don't think it's technically possible, the generator can't access that static part of the page.
Ah, so if I understand correctly the generator has control over a single element of the page, and not multiple elements. I can see how that could make it more difficult.
Hmm... and it seems all we can see is the generator, not the generated content. That is, likely cannot embed the meta text in an alt tag or the like.
I do see that the meta text is in separate text elements in the SVG export, though. It would be fairly easy, after manually exporting the image as SVG, to tweak the appearance.
Thanks for the quick response. I've got some things to think about.
As an alternative, an option to output the legend to a .txt file and being able to show just the numbers on the map would be fantastic. :-)
I'll think about it👍
Meanwhile you can easily hide the legend in svg right in Chrome:
Hey Watabou, great job on this project! I was wondering if there is any way to automatically mass generate and download these maps as .png's (I wanted around a hundred)?
Thank you!
Unfortunately, there is no way to do it, sorry.
Is there any way to change the text colour to optimise the contrast?
Currently all the text is drawn using the "Outlines" colour and outlined with the "Paper" colour. Both colours can be edited in the "Style" dialog.
Hey watabou. Great job on all of your generators. Just a feedback about usability.
I noticed that only one of them has a menu button. All others required a right click to access the context menu.
A visible menu button allows us to use your generators on mobile.
I don't know if you intentionally left mobile out of it but thought it could be of some help to let you know.
Congrats again.
Thanks!
In all my "big" generators you can access the context menu on mobile, although methods differs from generator to generator. Here in Perilous Shores you just need to tap anywhere to open it. As far as I remember, in 1PDG long press is used for the same purpose. Both methods are less discoverable than a menu button, but both allow the menu to be a context menu with different items depending on where it is activated.
Oh that's great. Maybe just some kind a message about it and we should be good to go. Thanks for your reply and clarification.
Is there an option to remove a certain feature from map? Let's say I don't want a certain settlement, can I delete or hide it? I know you can hide all of them, but is it possible with just one?
Currently it is not possible to remove individual map features. You can hide all the settlements (Details > Towns > Hidden). Or you can remove a specific settlement from the almanac ([Town name] > Remove from almanac), but this only removes its name from the legend.
It is very easy to remove a town icon from an exported SVG. For example, you can open it in Chrome, right-click the icon and choose "Inspect". Then right-click the enclosing group of the highlighted element (that will be the group for the whole icon) and choose "Delete element".
Super useful tip about svg, thanks so much!
Can you make the legend be moveable? I thought you could move the legend, but I don't see where you can do that.
The legend is moveable in the city generator, but here its position is always chosen automatically to block as few map features as possible (preferring the top left corner). If the legend blocks something you need, you can make it smaller by selecting a smaller font.
Fantastic! thank yoU!
I love this generator, so good. I would love to be able to switch Settlements to dangerous places and vice versa, as I never can get enough skulls to show even on evil or perilous tags. Your continual improvements are great!
First of all, thank you for making such an awesome tool.
I had a couple questions regarding how to use it and if there's any way it could be modified for different uses.
1. Is there a way to edit the name for the entire region? I know you can edit location names or add them to the almanac/legend, but I haven't been able to figure out how to change the region name.
2. Are there plans in the future to be able to add locations? That way theoretically every hex could be labelled for reference - possibly as an alternative to the hex number request in one of the other comments.
3. Is there any possibility that in the future one will be able to edit the procedurally-generated map? Adding a forest hex, mountain, or settlement, moving a coastline, etc. Being able to hide hexes, locations, or roads would be helpful as well, so that the map could be shown to the players without revealing secrets.
4. Is there any way to add or modify assets (e.g. more tree types, adding castles/temples/cave icons)?
Another fun generator :)
After making a custom style, I exported to PNG and the colors were orangified. Instead exporting to SVG kept the colors. Using Inkscape to re-export the SVG, I got a PNG with the un-oranginated style.
Here's the style: colorful.json. Below are the original colors (first) and the oranginal ones (second).
That's weird. For me PNG export works normally both in general and with your custom style. Also I didn't receive such complains before. Have you tried PNG export in my other generators? They almost identical code for export and they should exhibit the same behaviour.
Ah, turns out it is caused by a Firefox plugin: Canvas Defender. Disabling that plugin gets me normal colors. The plugin alters the HTML canvas behavior by adding some randomness. The plugin messed with all five of the exporters I tried: Shores, Neighborhood, Village, Dungeon, and Rose.
is there a way to change the names of the cities/sites? I'm new to this website so I don't know.
Right-click the site at the map or its name at the legend to open the context menu > Edit name
Thank you so much! I love your generators.
Cannot upload previously saved color selections. Chrome/Brave browser.
Could you send me that saved style file?
Sure. Where do you want me to send it? I don't see a file attachment on this site.
watabou at gmail
This is so cool, and I'm having a lot of fun generating maps and new ideas with it.
Incredible map generator indeed. I've used some of your generators (one page dungeon, Compass Rose, Sigil and this one) in my last game jam project "Projet-Z" and even in its itcho's presentation page. So, thanks for these wonderful tools that helped me a lot !
I'm glad it was useful! Cheers!
Amazing Generator. Is it possible to edit the Legend and the location symbols?
Thanks. Via the context menu you can rename items in the legend, delete existing items and add new ones. But it is not really possible to create new features: for example if you right-click an empty place on the map there won't be the "Add to almanac" item in the menu.
This is beautiful. Can I integrate this with some hex content generation?
Thank you. There is no "built-in" way for such integration, but I guess you can just manually roll encounters (using other generators or tables) for specific hexes depending on their type?
Got it. Thanks. What I'm looking for is populating an entire map. I have a sandbox content generation engine I'm working on - so something programmatic would work best (say a JSON or YAML file).
Is there any chance a future version will allow us to copy a link to a specific region to save and restore later? I absolutely love how useful this generator is especially now that dungeons and cities/villages are connected, and am hoping I can save a specific seed for use in an on-going tabletop campaign.
I am planning to implement permalinks for all my "big generators" and Perilous Shores is next in the queue to get this feature (and the only one because the rest of "big generators" already have it).
Very cool. I would love to have a persistent seed to be able to access for a campaign as well. Thanks for the lovely generator.
Just Fantastic!
Is there any chance of a roads option connecting towns/villages in the future?
Thanks!
Roads are on my list, I'll probably try implementing them properly in the next update (https://twitter.com/watawatabou/status/1409655466846609410).
Procedural generation at its finest.
This is insanely good! Thanks 🙂
Any chance you could add the preset from the last image here? It's quite unique.
Here it is: https://watabou.github.io/perilous-shores/palettes/bold.json. Save it on your computer and Load in the Style dialog.
Thank you!!
This is incredible