Hello, fellow forumers, and WELCOME to another Potato’s Guide! To start us off, I’ll give a little background on why I made this guide.
Many of the maps on Discovery are or seem rushed, unfinished, or almost exactly the same as another map you’ve played. But, for every low-quality map (or five) there’s an in-depth, beautiful, and awesome one. Of course, you’ll want your maps to be like the second type! To help you all achieve this, I’ve made a list of small-but-mighty changes and add-ons you can put in your map to help it reach high-quality status. So, let’s get into it!
1) It’s The Small Things That Matter 
Tiny details can make a huge difference in your map. Making a restaurant game? Taking the time to checker the floors like in a pizzeria will make your map stand out. Creating a house? Putting prop-art flower boxes on the windowsills can make the game feel more complete. The list goes on and on! Look for places you can add thought-out details to your map.
Here are some pictures of the examples I mentioned, if you plan on using them:
(The checkered floor is dark/light marble terrain)
2) Inspiration Helps Make New Ideas 
Are you feeling stumped on how you can fill out a space? Can you not find what you need to complete your map? LOOK FOR INSPIRATION! The Forums and Discovery are amazing places that you can check for ideas. Checking out solved Help topics (or making your own) might lead you to what you need, or you can check out a similar map to yours and see how someone else did it. But before you go and do this, make sure you’re never directly copying someone else’s work. (See Tip #7)
3) Deepen the Storyline 
Okay, you got me. I’m a stickler for a good story. But the good news is, a bunch of other people are too! Even if you’re making a simple PVP map, put a little backstory into it. Why is the player here? What are they doing this for? What the heck, I’ll even take a gim walking out of a car to represent that they just drove to work! Adding a story makes your game more in-depth, and who doesn’t want that?
4) Use Easter Eggs 
Easter eggs are little surprises you use in your game such as customized props, sentries, and hard-to-get endings. Advertising that you put these in your game in the map description can help interest people into playing your game longer, exploring the entire map, and telling other people about the game.
5) Make It… Educational? 
Alright, HEAR ME OUT FOR A SECOND-
Having an optional educational mode in your game makes it useful for a study game. And why would you want people to be able to study on your map? MORE PLAYERS. Kids who want to play a fresh new map but also get some learning in will most likely check Discovery, and when they see your game has that they’ll (most likely, anyway) (I’m not that good a fortune teller) play it.
6) What Not To Do 
Now that I’ve given you tips on making your map high-quality, here’re some traps people usually fall into when creating a map:
- Repetitive Gameplay - Especially in platformers, no one wants to play a very similar version of the last level. Try to add new mechanics and surprises to every level of your game.
- BAD GRAMMAR - I can tell you for a fact that having bad grammar and spelling in the text & dialogue of your game makes it hard to read and generally makes the game seem less complete and well-made. (seE, its annoyang is not iT.)
- Unfinished Games - Just like (insanely) WIP guides on the Forums, published games that remain unfinished on Discovery take up space and aren’t fun to play (or read, in the case WIP guides). It’s okay to add an unfinished extra level or something for later, but please make sure that the majority of the game is finished before you publish.
7) A Warning on Copying Games 
I know I touched upon this in tip #2, but I’ll go a little more in-depth with it here:
DON’T.
COPY.
GAMES.
Not only does this put maps that other people worked hard on to shame, but (for y’all who would still do it besides the point I just made) it also lowers the chances that someone will play your map, since the one you copied is most likely more high quality. If you (somehow) STILL have the urge to copy someone’s game, maybe it’ll deter you if I tell you that you also have the chance of your account being deleted? No? WELL THEN BUDDY YOU BETTER HOP OFF THIS GUIDE BEFORE I GET TOO RILED UP-
bzzt
bing-dinga-ding-ding
Sorry, we had some technical issues there. Welp, looks like those are all the tips I have for now, but I’ll probably add more (especially for platformer games) at a later date if my editing time doesn’t run out. Thanks for reading, guys! 
(I tried to not make a dupe topic by just restating what other people have said in other topics, so please inform me if one or more of these tips have already been explained in the same or better detail. If you give the guide link, I’ll try to credit it somewhere if I can still edit the post. Thanks again!)
WAIT WAIT WAIT, ONE THING MORE BEFORE YOU GO!
can you give some advice on my guide because that would be good for future reference
…okay thank you 
- Could use more pictures
- Could use more formatting
- Too much info, more banter
- Too much banter, more info
- It’s good the way it is
- Other
Feel free to give more advice and ratings in the comments section!
why did you click on this, the guide is finished
Some other guides y’all should check out:
I might add something of mine to this guide