For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to Zerker's Jazz Jackrabbit (PC) maps.
The mid-1990s were an interesting time for PC gamers. Shareware was a way of distributing games (essentially, free demos, legally allowed to be copied and shared, in an age before the Internet), CD-ROM technology was emerging, and PC gaming started to take on more cues from game consoles, including gamepads without joysticks, and the platforming genre as a whole. And for 1990s gaming in general, regardless of the market or platform, anthropomorphic animal characters seemed to be popular.
Jazz Jackrabbit is at the center of all that. Jazz Jackrabbit was distributed as shareware, soon republished with more content as "Jazz Jackrabbit CD" on CD-ROM, advertised within the game itself that the Gravis PC GamePad was the official controller of the game (and popular enough at the time to almost be considered standard for PCs), and at the time, there weren't many big-name platforming games for PCs (though certainly Apogee Software/id Software's output, including the Commander Keen series, made its mark before Epic MegaGames's Jazz Jackrabbit). And this was indeed big, kickstarting the career of Cliffy Bleszinski, the force behind Unreal and Gears Of War. Even if Jazz Jackrabbit may not have been as big as Sega's Sonic The Hedgehog, he certainly was, for a short time, the mascot for Epic MegaGames, and made a cameo appearance in another of their games, One Must Fall 2097 (another "must-play" from that era).
An interesting thing to note is that since these map rips go well beyond the normally playable area, there are some interesting features in those outlying areas. An interesting thing to point out - though also a warning - is there are some features that spell out some words, even some rude and crude statements. In particular, see (or beware of) the Guardian areas, since those are boss stages that don't take up much room, and hence have a large canvas for developers to play around to test things - or just to be testy. Zerker's included all of this in these Jazz Jackrabbit maps, as well as the special "Holiday Hare" episodes - this is the complete Jazz Jackrabbit package!
So the recognize the effort put into mapping this '90s PC icon, Zerker's Jazz Jackrabbit CD (PC) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for April 2018.
I didn't forget that it was MAR10 Day this past Saturday, but I was too busy editing my Mega Man X: Maverick Challenge video for my "JonLeung1" YouTube channel that I only played my daily run of Super Mario Run on my iPad and briefly got a few Mario items in Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp on my Android phone. The tides are changing if the only Mario games I played on this day this year are apps!
Earlier this month, I got the new costume items in Super Mario Odyssey (Switch) and re-upped my Coin total back to 9999, but I haven't actually played any of the Luigi's Balloon World DLC yet.
The letter X sure is confusing when it comes to video games. Here are some images I made while working on my latest YouTube video about Mega Man X. The controller one is something I've seen before, but decided to remake it so the image would be consistent with one about the game titles that use "X". There are both still images and animations of each below.
For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to Eishiya's Momodora: Reverie Under The Moonlight (PC) maps.
In this prequel to the first Momodora, set four centuries earlier, Kaho the pirestess must stop a curse from the Kingdom of Karst which is spreading across the land. Will she be able to defeat the Accurst Queen of Karst and save her village?
Momodora: Reverie Under The Moonlight is a platforming retraversal game, often referred to as a "Metroidvania" type of adventure. As Kaho, you will be travelling back and forth across the eastern Kingdom of Karst, which, as is often the case with many Metroidvanias, is a fairly large world full of dangerous obstacles and hostile creatures but also helpful items that will grant you access to more dangerous areas. It will be a much easier journey with the aid of these maps, thanks to Eishiya. Every pixel of this indie game's world is here, from the Sacred Odalia Grove to Karst Castle (and even the Development Room accessible only with 100%).
So to recognize the effort put into mapping this indie hit, Eishiya's Momodora: Reverie Under The Moonlight (PC) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for March 2018.
Having some standards for quality control is one thing, but being too insistent on perfectionism, at the cost of functional-even-if-not-the-prettiest maps, is definitely a loss.
Because you can always resubmit maps (and I know you and a couple others already have that habit), you can always go back and redo or clean up maps if you find a better way to present something.
You could use a version number on maps, if you are inclined, and use a version number of less than 1.0 (as seems to be the norm) if you feel a map is incomplete or could be revisited. Or some kind of footnote, disclaimer, indication that the map is not complete. I know such text could potentially clutter it, but it is an option.
If you have something that is presentable, might as well get it up so it could be of use to someone, rather than have it sit on your hard drive forever if you don't know when or even if you will have a chance or the means to improve it.
Now, I don't want a deluge of unfinished maps. ("Presentable" is key.) But as you can see, we almost went a whole calendar month without new maps - and actually did go over a month without maps, from Dec. 28 to Jan. 30 (and then suddenly got some maps for three games from two mappers on that day) - so having updates of some sort would be nice to show this site isn't dead.
A few years ago updates were guaranteed weekly! For multiple games each weekend! There was a time when for a huge stretch I didn't know what an updateless weekend was like! But now, a bit of a different story, but surely we can do better than a month between any maps at all.
Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII are probably the games sitting on my Steam account for the longest time before even starting them... Over two years since they've been released for PC, and I bought them around then, but I still haven't touched them. I enjoyed FF XIII despite its linearity, though I heard the sequels are better; just busy, I guess. I'd prided myself on keeping on top of main-numbered FF games (except for the online ones, XI and XIV). Whether you think FF X-2, FF XIII-2 and LR: FF XIII count, I'll definitely be behind when FF XV: Royal Edition comes out for PC this spring. (Technically I already am, I just don't have a PS4, but there will be no excuses once it's on Steam.)
So assuming I get to them eventually, I might actually make use of some XIII-2 maps...
For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to G.E.R.'s Sonic Mania (PC) maps.
Taking place after Sonic & Knuckles, Doctor Eggman sends some EggRobos to Angel Island to retrieve the Phantom Ruby. Sonic, Tails and Knuckles are sent back to areas from their previous adventures, and must chase down Doctor Eggman and his EggRobos - now the Hard Boiled Heavies - to stop the Phantom Ruby from being used for evil.
The latest 2D Sonic game (as of now) is actually pretty good, very much in the vein as the original games from the Genesis. In fact, many Zones from those early games return, such as Green Hill Zone and Chemical Plant Zone (gotta love that music). Fitting, as this game commemorates the series' 25th anniversary. Even if not entirely original, there are some nice surprises, and it's still a standout retro game, in an era where retro games are a dime a dozen. Plus, it's always good to see a Sonic game fully mapped!
So to recognize the effort put into mapping the latest hedgehog game for Groundhog Day, G.E.R.'s Sonic Mania (PC) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for February 2018.
Decided to review the elgato green screen I recently got (thanks to bustin98 for helping me out, too)! I actually managed to conceive of, film, edit and publish this video all within one day! Hopefully future videos using a green screen will look better than the old green cloth I used to use... for like the one Mega Man video, heh. But you can expect more soon!
I know there are some techy guys out there, I wonder if you guys would know anything about music extracting, recreating, or cleaning up.
There are two songs I would like tidied-up versions of, but there are other sounds that get in the way, and no full version exists that I know of. Anyone have the ability to extract, edit or remake these?
Just Dance 2018 - Double Rumble - Sports 'Til I Drop https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8dV092VKKI&t=13s - it's actually a longer version of the previous song - could it somehow be extracted from the Wii ISO? - but it would need to be cleaned up as the "sports" sound effects may be part of the audio
HIGH SCHOOL DANCE BATTLE - CHEERLEADERS VS BALLERS! // @ScottDW https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mt3tlZzrIQ&t=1m30s - from 1:30 to 3:06 - (if you're curious, that's a 360 degree video, so you either move your tablet/phone, use the WASD keys or click and drag to look around) - doesn't seem like ScottDW will be releasing a full version? All his music is free to use in YouTube anyway...
I know it's unlikely, but I might as well put this out there...
So I don't know if you heard the news from two evenings ago, but YouTube changed the monetization eligibility rules for the YouTube Partner Program, so that Tubers with less than 1000 current subscribers and 4000 hours of playtime in the last year no longer generate any ad revenue. While it is true that a large percentage (they say 99%) of the people affected were making less than a couple bucks a year anyway, what is really aggravating is how it feels like YouTube is throwing small content creators under the bus. Being only two weeks after the Logan Paul incident where he published a video which included a dead body, while he was punished, most would say not severely or quickly enough, it makes it more obvious that they favour big Tubers (and let them get away with just about anything) and don't care about small Tubers (not only revenue, but we might lose out on some tools and features). EDIT: Okay, maybe we don't lose as much feature-wise as I was originally led to believe, but it's still about their attitude towards small creators more than the miniscule amount of revenue.
Those currently in the YouTube Partner Program (like myself) are not grandfathered in, and will lose monetization by Feb. 20 if the current requirements are not met.
So of course, I would absolutely hope that you subscribe to my channel. But I would also encourage everyone to subscribe to any YouTuber they like to watch, most especially if they have under a thousand views.
I finished a review of The Unofficial SNES/Super Famicom: A Visual Compendium (and I only got it two days ago, on Friday! What a weekend)! Yes, timely content - it comes out on February 1! Check it out!
This is actually a couple days late, but there were a few days earlier this week when the forums were down. There's a possibility most of you didn't even notice. But regardless, I have to give a really big thanks to bustin98 for fixing it. Other than truncating a couple decade-old and somehow "incomplete" posts, it doesn't appear like we've lost anything. I did backups (or so I thought) regularly since the last time there were forum issues, but now I'll make the habit of backing up the whole "forums" folder and via the webhost's tools to be absolutely sure.
Also, very briefly a few days ago, the site itself was down for a short while, like a few hours. That was just a server migration thing. May have been related to the forums going down.
It seems there're no issues now, but I still wanted to make a post to thank bustin98 again, and in the off chance that any maps/pages on the site are missing, to please let me know.
VGMaps.com is an archive of video game maps up since May 6, 2002. Optimized for at least 800 x 600 resolution.
This site does not contain commercial ROMs or any other illegal materials. All directly "ripped" game images are the property of their respective copyright holders. This web site and compass logo are copyrighted by Jonathan Leung 2002-2018.
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