Maps

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When I was small there was a table in my dad's flat that I could walk under & sit with piles and piles of papers scribbled & typed, some boring some amazing, what I remember most were maps, sheets and sheets of them for D&D, PBMs, all those old Eye Of The Beholder style dungeon crawls - I never stared at any one for long but I liked to sit there surrounded by all that knowledge and possibility...

Now I'm 22 and playing Bard's Tale and for the first time I am making maps myself, curled up in bed with pen and laptop, and the experience is so amazing, I mean the actual process is boring and dull and frustrating and also kinda almost unnecessary but when I look at a finished map for a level I'm not on anymore I don't even feel like what I'm looking at is mine anymore, it feels like a secret of the universe I've found fallen out of some old magictome.

(This is sort of almost a companion thread to Laura's Codes thread, it's pretty similar turf I guess)

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 18:34 (twenty years ago)

I have to use half-centimetre squared paper and pencil. Develop a little key for the symbols I use: traps, hidden doors, special events & such. Fucking teleport traps are the bane of mapping. RPGs that you can't map like this - Nethack excepted, obv - just aren't as good.

― Patchouli Clark (noodle vague), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 18:50 (twenty years ago)

Can we talk about video game maps too? Or is this just more D&D/RPG maps. I collect image files of maps I really like because I'm kind of in love with them and like to navigate through a lot of my favorite games in my mind. Like, the Metroid maps? So great. Maybe I can link to some of my favorites later.

Also, has anyone ever wondered what maps of Katamari games would look like? Those would be like my holy grails.

Sorry if I have derailed this.

― Laura H. (laurah), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 18:51 (twenty years ago)

I remember seeing maps of games like Mega Man 2 or Mario 3 as a kid and being shocked at how small and linear (or sometimes how large and complex!) they looked relative to my impressions during play.

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 18:54 (twenty years ago)

If you LOVE the mapping, start playing the Might & Magic games. I usually get mad and never had the patience to methodically map shit out.

― kingfish orange creamsicle (kingfish 2.0), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 18:59 (twenty years ago)

I remember seeing maps of games like Mega Man 2 or Mario 3 as a kid and being shocked at how small and linear (or sometimes how large and complex!) they looked relative to my impressions during play.

Wow! I remember seeing a map of Mario 3's world 7 level 1 as a kid and feeling exactly the same. "Blimey, is that all there is to it?"

― melton mowbray (adr), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 19:06 (twenty years ago)

I think this effect is also enhanced in levels (I'm thinking SM mostly here) where the screen moves and you're not controlling the movement. You feel much more at the mercy of the level.

Seeing the maps gives you a measure of control, particularly over games/levels that seem so daunting when you're in the midst of them.

Did anyone ever make maps for games when they didn't have strategy guides and such? And then later compared the maps they made to the official maps? I tended to screw up all the proportions, making certain rooms/areas so much bigger than others (again, possibly because I conceived of them as MORE).

― Laura H. (laurah), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 19:13 (twenty years ago)

This is about all and any maps, Laura! I really liked when someone pointed out about Ico that its castle was something that wld actually make sense as a thing, rather than the tunnels carved out of solid rock approach...

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 19:14 (twenty years ago)

I think my holy grail would be a complete annotated map for Rings Of Power, it'd have be made by someone else to really work for me &'d take up half a wall easy but what a wall!

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 19:27 (twenty years ago)

Hm, now I'm curious but can't find Mario 3 maps online.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 19:52 (twenty years ago)

No SMB3, but check this out: http://www.ianalbert.com/misc/gamemaps.php

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 19:58 (twenty years ago)

Some world maps here, but not level.

― Laura H. (laurah), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 20:03 (twenty years ago)

Those Doom maps are crazy.

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 20:11 (twenty years ago)

This is true devotion. And a map I have loved.

Another:

http://tdr.pyromanuniversity.com/images/rainbow.gif

― Laura H. (laurah), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 20:20 (twenty years ago)

http://www.vgmaps.com/

Last week I was spending afternoons at work just loading up some of the giant .pngs from this site and scrolling through them reminiscing. It was pretty pathetic, I have to say. The giganto Super Metroid .png of all the actual game screens shopped together is my current desktop background.

Woo!

― TOMBOT, Wednesday, 2 November 2005 20:56 (twenty years ago)

... mmmm the rainbow road

― c7n (Cozen), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 21:07 (twenty years ago)

Those SMB3 maps suck ass.

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 21:10 (twenty years ago)

The rest of that site is a goldmine though!

Blaster Master really was immense, and Contra is bringing back memories.

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 21:11 (twenty years ago)

the san andreas maps are great too

― do you know each time you access the internet... it gets logged against you (Coz, Wednesday, 2 November 2005 21:15 (twenty years ago)

Crude ASCII Maps

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 21:16 (twenty years ago)

haha this is my new desktop BG! Tiled! Seamlessly!

― TOMBOT, Wednesday, 2 November 2005 21:30 (twenty years ago)

http://www.ianalbert.com/serveimage.php/450267/gamemaps/super_mario_world-2_donut_land-donut_secret_house-2(0ED-background).gif ?

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 21:40 (twenty years ago)

I love this thread sooooo much. I love you guys.

― Patchouli Clark (noodle vague), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 23:39 (twenty years ago)

http://www.ianalbert.com/dont_hotlink.php/0/misc/hw-u7.jpg

― soul provider (Cozen), Thursday, 10 November 2005 20:57 (twenty years ago)

This is great.

Me and a friend used to draw made-up Sonic maps when we were bored in middle school.

― sleep (sleep), Friday, 11 November 2005 00:04 (twenty years ago)

The good ol' days: http://maps.speccy.cz/maps/JetSetWilly2.png

― robster (robster), Friday, 11 November 2005 09:42 (twenty years ago)

that jsw map is great but what's with all the extra rooms?!

in my day we had 48k and we were happy!

i have an UnderWurlde map somewhere...

yikes!
http://maps.speccy.cz/map.php?id=Underwurlde&sort=0&part=8&ath=

― koogs (koogs), Friday, 11 November 2005 18:37 (twenty years ago)

ooh:
http://maps.speccy.cz/map.php?id=AntAttack&sort=0&part=0&ath=

― koogs (koogs), Friday, 11 November 2005 18:38 (twenty years ago)

course you know there's something missing from THAT ant attack map :-)

― Britain's Obtusest Shepherd (Alan), Friday, 11 November 2005 18:58 (twenty years ago)

five months pass...

http://members.aol.com/ultimadocs/u4mybrit.jpg

― sleep (sleep), Wednesday, 19 April 2006 15:56 (nineteen years ago)

whoa

― kingfish doesn't live here anymore (kingfish 2.0), Wednesday, 19 April 2006 23:42 (nineteen years ago)

> course you know there's something missing from THAT ant attack map :-)

the ammo dump?

(btw, bug in the ilx url parser - the "& part" is being translated into unicode character 2022, partial differential)

― koogs (koogs), Thursday, 20 April 2006 08:06 (nineteen years ago)

actually, i'm pretty sure that the ammo dump is only in the code, not in the map data in ant attack, which is 128 bytes square.

― koogs (koogs), Thursday, 20 April 2006 08:08 (nineteen years ago)

I just played through Doom in my head while looking at those maps :-)

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Thursday, 20 April 2006 10:47 (nineteen years ago)

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