Game: Battlemaps: Corridors and Hallways Vol.I
Publisher: 0one Roleplaying Games
Series: generic
Reviewer: Wyrdmaster
Review Dated: 2nd, November 2003
Reviewer’s Rating: 9/10 [ Something special ]
Total Score: 10
Average Score: 5.00
Mmm. I’m here to wax lyrical about 0one Roleplaying Games latest set of Battlemaps. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not taking bribes from these Italian padroni, I’ve simply seen these Battlemaps go from good to great.
Without a doubt 0one are some of the best cartographers in the gaming industry. They might be the best. The battlemap series has always produced wonderfully detailed maps. The series has gotten better because the company has listened to the needs of gamers. There are now three versions of every map in a battlemap volume. There’s the almost photo-real quality colour map. These are the maps that you pull out for an important battle and which immediately tell your players that this is going to be an important melee. But you need a printer that can do justice to the art and detail. My scabby black and white printer can’t. There’s a greyscale version of the colour map. It’s just as detailed, even if some of the amazing light effects are lost, and much kinder on old printers. The third version of each map is the line drawing skeletons of each location. You’ve got the outline of the hallway, you can see the obstacles and any furniture that might be and you have the all important movement grid. You get the best of both worlds – practicality and luxury.
This collection of battlemaps isn’t the most glamorous of titles. We’ve corridors and hallways. Previous editions of battlemaps have been skilfully arranged so the dungeon rooms and other locations could be placed into one coherent whole but I’d wager most gamers are used to exploring dark and dangerous passageways before getting to the room. Corridors and hallways are places where space is often a problem and therefore having a map for them is even more important. These corridors are a welcome addition to my battlemap collection.
There are three sets of corridor and hallway style in this volume and each set is made up of four pieces. It’s possible to line up each of the four pieces and form continuous hallways with them and have corridors off to the side. Perfect.
There’s a dungeon set. These corridors are narrow, lined with cells and often have bones and other dungeon bric-a-brac on the ground. There’s a crossroads piece, a straight piece, a T-junction and a right-hand turn.
There’s a “Hallway of the Statues” set. Hallway is a better description than corridor for this set. Imagine a regal hallway with imperial statues lining alcoves in the walls. There’s a lot of red glow and the crossroads piece has a sceptre centrepiece.
There’s a “Hallways of the Pillars” set too. There’s a castle like ambience here. You can see the tapestries hanging on the walls. In many ways the Hallways of the Pillars is the middle ground between the scrum of the dungeon set and the elegance of the Statue set. The walls are granite grey. As the name of the collection implies the hallways are peppered with dozens of pillars. Getting a clear line of sight along these hallways will be tricky!
Its really easy finding the corridor piece you want. The PDF opens up with a graphical contents page of all the hallways and corridors. You’ve a view one possible way the four pieces in each set might be placed together to form one corridor and you can click on each title. Clicking on a title immediately causes Adobe to jump down to the battlemap section in question. It’s especially convenient for those last minute rushes.
The Battlemap series gets better with each extra volume. This isn’t just because 0one keeps on out doing themselves but because the collection becomes even more useful as you’re able to collect more pieces in the same style.
Good stuff.
