MapForge (battlemap-making software)

[heruca]

Update: Now only $221 away from being funded, with 4 days remaining. The Stretch Goals have been announced, here.

[heruca]

Funded! Woohoo! And only $68 away from Stretch Goal #1, with 3 hours remaining.

[heruca]

GMs of Fantasy, Modern Day, or Post-Apocalyptic TTRPGs who want to make isometric maps should check out this Kickstarter campaign.



A quick glimpse at the content Add-Ons being offered:


And even if isometric mapping isn't your thing, this campaign is also a great way to pick up a MapForge license at a discount, in case you want to make top-down or hextile maps, instead.

The campaign is about $1000 from funding, and ends in 17 days.

[heruca]

Sadly, the above-mentioned campaign won't fund, as mentioned in KS Update #3.

[heruca]

I ended up self-publishing the 10 Add-Ons from that failed Kickstarter campaign. All of them are now available for direct purchase. Links to each product are available here.

[heruca]

FullBleed, out of curiosity, what specific functionality do you think MapForge is currently missing? It can make top-down maps, hex-tile maps, isometric maps, and edit Donjon-generated maps. It offers over 50 free mapping content Add-Ons (~7400 assets), and a ton of paid Add-Ons to choose from, covering all major genres. Given all that, I think it's already quite competitive with most of the other apps out there (especially the ones where you have to pay every month or year).

FYI, I do have plans for expanding on MapForge in the future (perhaps this November).

I haven't been using any of the map-making apps (I almost always use photoshop), so I can't say what it's missing. I can say that I don't hear it mentioned like I do some of the others out there (for example, I don't think I've ever seen someone explicitly mention that they used MapForge to make a map on the major map sharing reddits.) So that tells me that it needs to try and do something the other guys don't... and the tile-forge ability sounds like it might have given it some bragging rights.

Out of curiosity, does MF export to the UVTT format? https://arkenforge.com/universal-vtt-files/

One of the goals of my current Kickstarter, which launched yesterday, is to add support for the UVTT format (or ".dd2vtt", if that fits your workflow better).

[heruca]

One-third funded, 23 days remaining.

[Full Bleed]

One-third funded, 23 days remaining.

I still think you should integrate Tile Forge into Map Forge (provided they are compatible with one another). They are both Map Building tools. Call it Map Forge Pro. Add a $20 tier to this kickstarter for people to "upgrade" to the Pro version. Give people who already own both Map Forge and Tile Forge a "free" upgrade to Map Forge Pro with a "Helping Hand" pledge.

[heruca]

57% funded, 9 days remaining.

[heruca]

Woohoo! 104% funded, with 2 days remaining.

KS Update 3 mentions a new awesome reward.

[heruca]

does MF export to the UVTT format? https://arkenforge.com/universal-vtt-files/

It does now, when using MapForge v1.3.5 or higher.

I recommend v1.3.6, though, which adds an Add-On Manager to better manage the hundreds of Add-Ons that are now available for MapForge.

[heruca]

TileForge (not to be confused with MapForge) is getting another Kickstarter, which you can read about here.

[heruca]

The current TileForge Kickstarter is 78% funded, with 8 days remaining.

If you passed on the original TileForge Kickstarter campaign because there was no prototype app available at the time (just mockups of the proposed user interface), you're getting a second chance now that there's an already-shipping app to build and improve upon.

For those who don't know what TileForge is, it's software that lets you create geomorphic tilesets for any game genre. It's intended for GMs of tabletop RPGs who use battlemaps and map tiles (either printed, or in a virtual tabletop program).

Every single backer (yep, even just a $1 pledge) gets three rewards:
1) A collection of 160 textures (for personal use only) organized into useful categories.
2) Access to a list of links to texture sites, so you can continue building up your texture library.
3) A free hex tile content Add-On for MapForge (which already offers 60 other free content Add-Ons), which you can preview here.

[heruca]

The 2nd TileForge Kickstarter has funded!

Not sure if there's enough time (31 hours) to unlock the 1st Stretch Goal (cave walls), but it sure would be nice if that happened.

[heruca]

The 2nd TileForge Kickstarter has delivered on the campaign Rewards.

Here's a video showing how the app turned out, which walks you through all the new features in TileForge v1.1.0.