I think that the play area of the game is a very important piece of the game. The play area is defined by the game border, in our case - the game border is the walls.
SS13 is run on an old engine, one with many quirks that hard working people have managed to work around and overcome over the years. The standard that has been set for the particular issue of tiles, was the 32x32 wall tile sprite.
With this size, we had benefitted from:
1) Clarity in what you're seeing - it was immediately recognizable what you're seeing on the wall, and in such a hectic game, it is important that I find all buttons, fire extinguisher cabinets, APC's, air alarms, light switches and more because they all play a role in one system or another that ultimately affect whether I stay alive or die, my performance as a player.
2) Second is the good accessibility to use the game's many systems - with clarity also came ease of use, it was easier to click most wall mounted devices, which means they favored functionality and ease of use, and like I mentioned previously, in such a hectic systems-heavy game it is important that I as a player can also interact with the many objects around me in the quickest and easiest way possible.
3) The ability to see several objects on the wall and the wall not obscuring other tiles - old 32x32 walls were worked on by many people to ensure that if there are several wall mounted devices or objects overlapping on the same tile, that you'll still see and be able to click with precision, everything that is on that tile, and see it from the correct viewpoint, orientation, and taking line of sight into consideration.

Now that I've talked about what I liked with 32x32 walls, I'll talk about my main problem with the increased tile size of the wallening, and why I think it is fundamentally flawed due to this increase in tile size:

The size of the new walls tile is 32x48, also called "Tall" walls.

These talking points are a bit of a repetition but I think Its important I make the distinction between what I find positive and negative, because when it comes to the wallening, the expanded size of the tile art means that it is inherently flawed in many ways, mainly that it obscures what is to the north of it.

Here is a list of the problems it brings, following with an explanation:

1) Lack of visual clarity and the ability to gather information quickly.
2) The ability to click on items with accuracy, thus making the game less accessible.
3) An inherently more difficult process for sprite makers to make clear, accessible sprites due to the new "Tall" tile size of 32x48.


In such a systems-heavy, hectic game, it is important to gather information quickly, to know which options are available to you, and to be able to interact with those systems quickly. The walls partially obscure the tile north of them, which led to the implementation of shift or toggleable option to see what's under and on the walls. The wall-mounted devices sprites on east/west and southern walls are extremely small and hard to see or click on, contributing to a lack of clarity (not being able to see) and accessibility (not being able to click precisely or at all). Balloon alerts of what is on the wall force you to move your mouse away from where the item actually is, and is an extra step whereas before there was none, which again reduces accessibility. This is a straight downgrade from being able to see everything at a glance. It also means that ANY device mounted on a southern wall is extremely hard to see (if at all), hard to interact with, and hard to draw a sprite for. The tallness of the walls is not the only contributing factor to why the wallening is inherently flawed. It is also due to the tall walls overlapping with themselves - on east/west and southern walls the walls overlap with one another, thus devices have to be drawn at a very limited area on the very tip of the wall sprite. This means that drawing sprites for any wall-mounted device on an east/west or southern walls ensures that that device will be basically invisible - a small line of pixels and a very small clickable area, much less distinguishable from one another compared to the old walls.

My point is that no matter how many sprites you make, you've now decreased the amount of physical space the wall mounted devices can take on the wall, and this will be a forever-issue with 32x48 walls, no matter how many clever sprites and re-sprites you come up with. The shift click/toggle and balloon alerts are a straight downgrade from the functional, clear and easily clickable, accessible walls and wall-mounted devices we had before.

This is my feedback and thoughts, I hope atleast one person read it fully and if you did - thank you, I hope that the coders can not kill this beautiful game that I love, I appreciate all of your work and I know you do it for free, but that being said the concepts of play area and game borders in game design are extremely important key elements for competitive multiplayer games such as this one and you cannot overlook them in the name of beauty, that will be the quickest downfall of this game. By all means make new sprites and resprites but keep the walls to 32x32, this is the ss13 and BYOND standard for maximum clarity, accessibility, and ease of use. Thank you.