When making my game environment maps and notes, I thought of basing it off an actual place and finding a suitable area that fitted my game landscape. I first gazed over the midlands but to my dismay, there was no big lakes but I as came across Leeds, Eyemouth and Skinburness; I finally found Stranraer, the perfect hammerhead like coastal area that had a lot to offer.
Location area for hook, line & sinker game environment
Corrupted goblin king skull
Stranraer close to neighbouring town Wigtown, has two major ports; Stranraer shore and Portpatrick. Portpatrick was perfect for the Dr Cryptus castle lab as in my initial idea, it had a harbour port next to it for shipments and it's own personal hovercraft. The area near Knocknain is where the library lighthouse is situated and the goblin mining town is where North Cairn is. The skull to the right is something I made for the corrupted goblin king boss, perhaps as a flag but it was done in tandem with the research.
wRuined castle
Library lighthouse
.Down below are some maps I have creates, some small, some large and some with vivid colours. Each has details of Stranraer in different perspectives. The map below for example is quite simple but shows each major area of the story and even some extra bits that do not appear.
Hook, line & sinker game environment map. Compass included with colour but no notes or key.
This map has no notes or key attached to it other than some colour for a lava pool and a compass to show which direction north is in and where it sits in the world. Sure the map is shown to be landscaped but in the real world it is portrait and is angled differently.
If you have noticed the small dragon sea serpent esc shape in the bottom left corner then that is exactly what it is. However if you think it is real then you would be a "foolish human" as the goblins would say. This monster is clearly a fake and is chained up to a well. It is a planned trap that keeps humans away from entering that area of Stranraer as the goblins here have farms and towns.
The goblins simply winch the chains & lead the serpent into the water and pull it back into a cove during the day.
Different AI art versions of Owl bot character
owl bot grinding on rails
Along the way of making my maps, I made more concept art using Stable Diffusion Ai generator. This was to simply get a good enough image of my robot owl librarian. The top two are very good where as the bottom left ones look classic space robots or spaceships from Space: 2099. I also then made an image of Owl bot grinding on a rail, as this is how he moves in the library and nearby areas.
new drawing version of willow the main character of game world
The last things i did was make a new version of Willow, the main hero character of the game and look at real-life maps of Stranraer to dee where certain locations would be positioned in my game-world.
more zoomed in pic of game landscape
both maps merged together
Reflection
In reflection, I think I could've made more detailed maps like the real life ones shown with hills and smaller landmarks, possibly even level locations. But I am overall proud of what I have done, finding a real life location was really handy for research and I would love to go there one day in the future just to see what it looks like from my personal perspective.