Thursday, February 16, 2012

New Campaign Map Made in Google Docs

I'm a big fan of Google Docs - I use it for pretty much everything I do that isn't work related.  The ability to keep everything online where I can get to it from anywhere is a huge advantage for me, and especially the ability to share and collaborate with other people.

In preparation for my Tankards and Broadswords RPG playtesting tonight, I worked on a campaign map yesterday, and decided to make it in Google Docs' Drawing feature.  I've used this feature before to make UML diagrams and other drawings for coursework and personal use, but I've never tried it before as a map-making tool; I've always used Campaign Cartographer instead.

While CC is an excellent program, and what you can make with it is light years agead of what Google Docs provides, I still think the results were...okay.  Maybe a little too bright and technicolor for some people, but it will suffice for some friendly, casual high-adventure gaming:


Google Docs has a "publish to web" feature, that generates a .png file from your most recent saved work, so any time you modify your work, the new version is what people see. For those people having trouble viewing the .png in their browser, here's a static JPG:



Anyhow, I'm happy enough with the results.  One of the nice things about the Google Docs Drawings is that you can very easily expand the canvas out; handy for those games where your PC start with the "local area" map and then as time goes on, you pull back the zoom, so to speak, and add more and more to the surrounding areas.

2 comments:

Black Vulmea said...

I'm seeing a small red X.

Jack Badelaire said...

That's really weird. I added a .jpg directly for those whose browsers aren't showing the.png file.