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Gaming / Open World Maps... Sizes and Comparisons
« Last post by Cyartog959 on Today at 03:01:21 am »
Mappers of the VGMaps community, I got a good challenge in mind about keeping track of open world games' maps' sizes and comparing them, from smallest to the biggest maps yet.

In open-world games, mainly 3D, they comprise of singular, vast landscapes that are sort of like playgrounds, mere sandboxes for people to roam about and explore, but they provide loads of missions, secrets, and loads and loads of optional tasks to take on.

What people take in charting their maps, they calculate by square miles, or alternatively, square kilometers, and they center on how far they've explored, and how far can anyone go.

As far as many know, we had not many open world games, because many games were platformers, and others different, but we also had hardware that limited scope, size, and scale of said maps, mainly is that to those working on games, they didn't had much RAM memory and strong CPUs to work with. Time went on and we were able to have it. The question is, how would people utilize all the increased RAM and CPU processing power to create more massive maps in open world games?

The more prominent game series that propelled the open world genre to elevation is the Grand Theft Auto series, likely GTA III. Mature as they are, they do provide vast landscapes for freedom of exploration, though they do have stories to progress through in order to unlock particular methods of traveling, and later abilities to reach other places.

Later games gave out more bigger maps to explore and more missions to undertake, but other than that, people do have their fun ideas on experimenting with traveling to heights normally deemed impossible by normal means of playing these games. I also think others like to see how long their playable characters can fall from extreme heights before they go splat out of boredom.

Of course, there are many other games that follow the open world blueprint, including others that had the maturity toned down to broaden to slightly younger people, but how they make their maps' sizes can be less than those, but there are those trying to come close to matching them, or even surpassing them, even if its not a GTA game.

On top of all that, so far, there's no patch update and DLC that expands any existing open world game's maps by adding extra land mass outside of regular borders. I don't know of any game that did it, but until there's one, I don't think I can count them. Of course, it would be interesting to see any open world game to do it...

So, I simply issue our challenge to keep a collective track of any open-world game that have the biggest maps yet.

I do have a couple inputs in mind, in order from biggest to smallest...

1. - Grand Theft Auto V (75.84 sq km/29.28 sq miles)
2. - Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (38.2 sq km/14.75 sq miles)
3. - Grand Theft Auto IV (16.14 sq km/6.23 sq miles)
4. - Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (9.11 sq km/3.52 sq miles)
5. - Grand Theft Auto III (8.12 sq km/3.14 sq miles)

I can't place in GTA VI's map size, but I can say it's going to be bigger than GTA V's.

The many 3D Spider-Man games, on the other hand, all do tend to take place in New York, but how their differing sizes between them besides them sharing New York's layout is puzzling me.

If anyone has their own input, please go ahead. I welcome the effort. Show us what you can find as the biggest open world map yet.

ADVISORY: Flight simulations, sandbox only games, life simulation games, MMOs and such, cannot count to this.
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Map Requests / Re: List of Looney Tunes Video Game Map Requests
« Last post by Cyartog959 on October 19, 2025, 10:37:18 pm »
A nice lowdown on mapping games, but many of them LTIan requested, albeit repeatedly, are 2D, the others are 3D.

I already knew there are tutorials about doing 3D maps before, but just for those that don't know, how do they do it?

And, to further add, there have been more 2D games made besides Looney Tunes games, despite not being mapped yet. While we do have other tools, I feel using Tiled, the level editor, is a more necessary choice in easing anyone's map ripping workflow.

The small matter of using Tiled for any past 2D game, even DS/DSi, is the low amount of custom-made tools needed to bridge particular gaps to rip their maps more efficiently. Meaning, how would anyone rip DS games easily without them, besides the regular procedure, of course?
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Map Requests / Re: List of unmapped NES games
« Last post by RetroidPrimeX on October 18, 2025, 10:45:57 pm »
Happy 40th Anniversary to the Nintendo Entertainment System!

Well, the day's over...

Shall we set a countdown clock?

1461 days until Oct. 18, 2029!

One game per week!  And... go!
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Map Requests / Re: List of Looney Tunes Video Game Map Requests
« Last post by RetroidPrimeX on October 18, 2025, 10:37:04 pm »
I agree that if we want to see maps for more obscure titles like these Looney Tunes games, the best chance is to roll up our sleeves and create them ourselves. Hopefully more fans will be inspired to join in after reading this!

Yes, please do.

And if not LTIan, surely there are other fans of Looney Tunes video games.

Maybe someone willing to put in the work to map them.
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Map Requests / Re: List of Looney Tunes Video Game Map Requests
« Last post by kolastra on October 17, 2025, 12:40:51 am »
Wow, thanks for the detailed breakdown! This kind of step-by-step guide is incredibly helpful — especially for people (like me) who’ve always wanted to contribute to video game mapping but weren’t sure where to start. I agree that if we want to see maps for more obscure titles like these Looney Tunes games, the best chance is to roll up our sleeves and create them ourselves. Hopefully more fans will be inspired to join in after reading this!
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VGMaps Social Board / Re: YouTube channel! (JonLeung1)
« Last post by JonLeung on October 16, 2025, 10:08:29 pm »

I will soon have a full vlog of Jason and I at Edmonton Expo 2025, but until then, here's this year's Cosplay Craftsmanship Cup.
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Map Requests / Re: List of unmapped NES games
« Last post by JonLeung on October 16, 2025, 11:44:22 am »
As for "1.36 NES games per day", this not unreal because some games consist of one-screen "maps" or have non-platforming structure.

With less than two days until the 40th anniversary, and under two hundred games to go, I'm pretty sure we won't have all the NES maps done by the 40th anniversary.

Not unless someone can map 100 games a day, and for me to be able to put them up instantly.  Nope, not happening.  I know I can't work that fast.

How about for the 45th anniversary (in the year 2030)?

If one NES game is mapped every a week, a full map set should be completed in under four years.  So, 44th anniversary?  4+4=8... like 8-bit.  Or something...?
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VGMaps Social Board / Sonic 3's
« Last post by Cyartog959 on October 10, 2025, 01:36:31 pm »
A bit of an insight, but, didn't any of you know about what was Sonic 3's planned launch date?

Well, after watching Splash Wave's look into Sonic 3's development history on YouTube... I'm kinda sure some of you are quite familiar of what some of Sonic Team and S.T.I.'s devs went through, but, just in case...

It was not Feb 1994, but the game as a whole, if it wasn't split into 2 halves, WAS actually planned to be launched in Summer 1994, but, thanks to the promotional deal with McDonald's Sega made, that date got thrown off by many months, and we know where it led, to the invention of Lock-On Technology, to take care of such problems.

We also knew Sonic 3 started previously as a 3D game, planned with its Virtua Processor chip installed, which didn't happen because of it being too costly.

The dev work actually began in Jan 1993, shortly after Sonic 2's launch, but, thanks to mentioned complications, including the promotional deal, all that work got canned in June '93. Very shortly, though, it got restarted back to the 2D blueprint in about Jul '93, but improved from Sonic 2, including having mini-bosses in each Zone's 1st Act, instead of some.

Thanks to the pressure of launching the game to meet that deal's deadline, the game got split, with the 1st half to be launched in Feb. '94, and the second half in Fall '94, months later. At least, we had the first of its 3 Bonus Stages in the 1st half.

Then, after 3 more Sonic games got launched in later '93, its second half was given about enough time to finish all remaining Zones, resuming from Spring 94, including the Extra Zone, Doomsday, along with the additional 2 Bonus Stages, done in the next month, then, the remaining months spent building Lock-On Technology in the cart before its launch on Oct. 94.

Yes, you're already educated on that, but I felt a bit more history of Sonic 3, at least about the intended launch time, should be shared.

If you'd like, you can watch that video here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vdvtssb10Q8
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Map Gab / Re: Sega Genesis Mini 2 - full map set
« Last post by JonLeung on October 10, 2025, 09:07:15 am »
If anyone's still in the mood for some Sega Genesis mapping...

I'm always wondering if I should make a topic about mapping all of the games available on the "Nintendo Classics" apps (as they are now called) for subscribers of Nintendo Switch Online (the online service for the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2).  More games are added occasionally, so it'd be something I'd have to keep updating, but I imagine it should easily be possible to map them faster than they add to them.  :P

The apps include games from the NES/Famicom, Super NES/Super Famicom, and the Game Boy/Game Boy Color on the basic tier.  Subscribing to the Expansion Pack also adds games from Game Boy Advance, Nintendo 64 (with a separate app for M-rated games, and more features on the Switch 2), Virtual Boy (announced but not yet available at the time of this post), and GameCube (for the Switch 2, not the original Switch).  And it's not limited to Nintendo platforms, there's the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive as well.

Here's the current list of those, as seen on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Classics#Sega_Genesis_/_Mega_Drive

As of now, there are 51 Sega Genesis games, but 42 of them have already been mapped.  Certainly having the Sega Genesis Mini and Sega Genesis Mini 2 fully mapped knocked out many of these classics already.

Now, I haven't checked if those 42 games are FULLY mapped, but the nine games that we don't have any maps from at all are these:

ESWAT: City Under Siege
Flicky
Mercs
MUSHA
Puyo Puyo (J)
Super Thunder Blade
Target Earth
Thunder Force II
Zero Wing (E)


So yeah, I dunno... should I make a "NSO/Nintendo Classics apps" requests list?

From my personal requests list, all I have right now for the Genesis is one Sega CD game: Snatcher.  (Though maybe I should add Zero Wing (E) to it, weird that we don't have that already...)

Thanks again for all your hard work!  I don't mean to sound like I'm all like "you're not done yet, LOL".  Though I am a Nintendo fan, I always feel like the Genesis needs more representation here.
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Map Gab / Re: Sega Genesis Mini 2 - full map set
« Last post by G.E.R. on October 10, 2025, 04:30:06 am »
It wasn't so difficult due to use emulator with the possibility of manage layers (visible/invisible), game genie codes (invincibility player) and free moving around some levels.
There was small sized levels or small levels count in most this games.
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