- Welcome to VGMaps.
Recent posts
#1
Gaming / Metal Slug 30th Anniversary
Last post by Cyartog959 - Yesterday at 06:19:36 PMI would like to let you know that SNK's Metal Slug series is celebrating its 30th anniversary right now!
From the first game where it started, we've witnessed great run and gunning action and loads of bullets fly against numerous warmongering enemies and threats through the always beautifully pixel made games the series has provided!
Though it started from the Neo Geo brand arcade and consoles, the series went to other systems, too, and even though it retains the look and feel from past games, they're no longer bound to tech constraints of said past systems.
My real hopes for the series is to retain the same gameplay for Metal Slug 8, which a lot of people really wanted time and again, but go straight into putting health systems for players instead of one-hit only(but can become an unlockable for those wanting the original challenge's fidelity), become hi-bit to retain the beloved pixel art style, go for the actual widescreen resolution of 424x240, and perhaps 480x270/2, and have actual health indicators for ALL bosses, as well as plenty of additional side content to have and some good unlockables, including bestiaries, art galleries, sound tests, and more!
This retrospective video SNK just made commemorates the series and its amazing installments so far! Give it a watch!
SNK's come that far, let's keep that series going!
For those of you who played the games, what are your favorite entries and bosses in the series so far?
From the first game where it started, we've witnessed great run and gunning action and loads of bullets fly against numerous warmongering enemies and threats through the always beautifully pixel made games the series has provided!
Though it started from the Neo Geo brand arcade and consoles, the series went to other systems, too, and even though it retains the look and feel from past games, they're no longer bound to tech constraints of said past systems.
My real hopes for the series is to retain the same gameplay for Metal Slug 8, which a lot of people really wanted time and again, but go straight into putting health systems for players instead of one-hit only(but can become an unlockable for those wanting the original challenge's fidelity), become hi-bit to retain the beloved pixel art style, go for the actual widescreen resolution of 424x240, and perhaps 480x270/2, and have actual health indicators for ALL bosses, as well as plenty of additional side content to have and some good unlockables, including bestiaries, art galleries, sound tests, and more!
This retrospective video SNK just made commemorates the series and its amazing installments so far! Give it a watch!
SNK's come that far, let's keep that series going!
For those of you who played the games, what are your favorite entries and bosses in the series so far?
#2
Map Requests / Re: JonLeung's Requests
Last post by JonLeung - Yesterday at 06:10:43 PMVGCartography has completed his map set for Chrono Cross!
I remember enjoying this game enough back in the day, despite actually getting annoyed at all the characters I was gaining without having the time to learn how to really use them...
But I don't think I ever did New Game+. Which is silly considering how often I find myself chastising people who don't do the New Game+ in Chrono Trigger.
These maps are tempting me to play this again... maybe one day I will, and I'll surely use these maps if/when I do.
Thanks as always, VGCartography. Your maps of games for the original PlayStation are nothing short of exemplary!
I remember enjoying this game enough back in the day, despite actually getting annoyed at all the characters I was gaining without having the time to learn how to really use them...
But I don't think I ever did New Game+. Which is silly considering how often I find myself chastising people who don't do the New Game+ in Chrono Trigger.
These maps are tempting me to play this again... maybe one day I will, and I'll surely use these maps if/when I do.
Thanks as always, VGCartography. Your maps of games for the original PlayStation are nothing short of exemplary!
#3
Maps In Progress / Re: VGCartography - getting to...
Last post by VGCartography - Yesterday at 09:23:01 AMAfter a LONG time, I finally finished Legend of Dragoon and Chrono Cross maps on PS1. Those pre-rendered map sets are kind of a grind but these two I actually had fun finishing, I wasn't too familiar with the back half of them since it had been 25+ years since I got that far.
LoD is up, CC was submitted today. Spyro 3 was also finished. PS1 4eva
LoD is up, CC was submitted today. Spyro 3 was also finished. PS1 4eva
#4
Maps In Progress / Re: deficitattack maps
Last post by VGCartography - Yesterday at 09:20:22 AMI am very interested - Star Ocean 2 had some beautiful backgrounds! Love that era.
#5
Mapping Tips/Guides / Clickteam Fusion's Map Extract...
Last post by Cyartog959 - April 22, 2026, 03:11:41 PMWell, given that so far, nobody's gathered information, maybe I may partake, after finding some information, and perhaps educate those that may want to do some map ripping from these games.
I think the tools for ripping Clickteam Fusion game maps requires CTFAK(Clickteam Files Active Kernel) 2.0 to unpack the game's files and access the mfa or mfa_level files, that's where the maps are formatted to.
For extraction, CTF's "Clone Object" is needed to identify the object behaviors or special tools in order to extract backgrounds/backdrops and active objects. Some may use specialized Level Viewers to capture the maps' layouts in their entirety.
May take effort, but the whole process is worth it.
After finding the level's tilesets, its necessary to capture them and export them into PNGs, then capture the layout's backdrop/active object positions into CSV, JSON, however, raw data conversion to Tiled's .tmx format is a must for that.
To make a tileset for easier and more extreme flexibility, use an image editor that does the job, such as GIMP, paint.net, or whichever, to create the "Master Tileset" from the level's own extracted CTF tiles, then load into Tiled.
Once done, anyone familiar with Tiled may know what to use; create new map, set tile size to match the originals', 16x16, 32x32, so on, then place extracted tiles into Tiled to recreate the layouts, and of course, use the Object Layer to place all the essentials; items, such as power-ups, shields, enemy spawn points, and hazard objects, and converting the CTF active object properties into Tiled custom properties.
For more complex stages, however, its important to write a custom parser(likely using Python as a requirement, for instance, or very similar, maybe C++) to read the CTF map data and export it directly to to the .tmx format, allowing to parse tile grids.
To convert them all for easier import into another game engine with greater flexibility, such as Hatch Game Engine, that's a whole different story, but saving them and refining collision shapes and data is very important, just as it is for these steps I've talked about.
That, and converting the maps into Hatch's Scene stage structure to ensure they're 100% compatible for importing, such as Stage 1, Act 1, Scene 1, then to Scene 2, Act 2, Scene 1, and so on, for games that have large, multi-map stages, like many of Freedom Planet's stage's Acts that does the exact thing, for instance.
Hope I covered a lot for this.
I think the tools for ripping Clickteam Fusion game maps requires CTFAK(Clickteam Files Active Kernel) 2.0 to unpack the game's files and access the mfa or mfa_level files, that's where the maps are formatted to.
For extraction, CTF's "Clone Object" is needed to identify the object behaviors or special tools in order to extract backgrounds/backdrops and active objects. Some may use specialized Level Viewers to capture the maps' layouts in their entirety.
May take effort, but the whole process is worth it.
After finding the level's tilesets, its necessary to capture them and export them into PNGs, then capture the layout's backdrop/active object positions into CSV, JSON, however, raw data conversion to Tiled's .tmx format is a must for that.
To make a tileset for easier and more extreme flexibility, use an image editor that does the job, such as GIMP, paint.net, or whichever, to create the "Master Tileset" from the level's own extracted CTF tiles, then load into Tiled.
Once done, anyone familiar with Tiled may know what to use; create new map, set tile size to match the originals', 16x16, 32x32, so on, then place extracted tiles into Tiled to recreate the layouts, and of course, use the Object Layer to place all the essentials; items, such as power-ups, shields, enemy spawn points, and hazard objects, and converting the CTF active object properties into Tiled custom properties.
For more complex stages, however, its important to write a custom parser(likely using Python as a requirement, for instance, or very similar, maybe C++) to read the CTF map data and export it directly to to the .tmx format, allowing to parse tile grids.
To convert them all for easier import into another game engine with greater flexibility, such as Hatch Game Engine, that's a whole different story, but saving them and refining collision shapes and data is very important, just as it is for these steps I've talked about.
That, and converting the maps into Hatch's Scene stage structure to ensure they're 100% compatible for importing, such as Stage 1, Act 1, Scene 1, then to Scene 2, Act 2, Scene 1, and so on, for games that have large, multi-map stages, like many of Freedom Planet's stage's Acts that does the exact thing, for instance.
Hope I covered a lot for this.
#6
VGMaps Social Board / I'm Worried About the Future o...
Last post by Cyartog959 - April 22, 2026, 06:25:36 AMWhat Nintendo left for a lot of people, we grew up with the real true dedicated gaming handhelds that gave us great games, even the dual-screen DS and 3DS games. The smartphone mobile games have since been alienating and mentally reconforming many of their minds to think and believe their purpose and history doesn't exist to them, and that brings sadness in my heart, as well as others' out there that still crave for the exact experiences they grew up with in their childhoods. Even they are not educated on their proper history and creation beneath them.
Yes, I haven't forgotten Sony's PSP and Vita, too. They were, and still are, neat.
Not only that, but they gave developers more work to create games when they got unique SDKs for them, and that gave them joy to work on them alongside home console games and see gamers buy and play them to see their work in fruition.
I'm very worried that there's no way to really preserve these kind of games for current and new players to truly enjoy and cherish for later generations, both physically and digitally. When some people try to speak about that to others, they just scoff at them and constantly tell them to only get mobile, hybrids, and PC-made devices over and over, because they think they're all they want and need for gaming, when in truth, it's not. They really don't fit in pockets, period.
They don't fill the void at all, and it really puts the future of that kind of gaming outlet into question. They are not, nay, never, inevitably destined to be worthless junk heaps, nor their games to be delisted, unplayable, and unobtainable. They have real charm.
What a true dedicated handheld gaming system needs, even a dual-screen in the lines of 3DS, is to take improved fidelity and tech capabilities into account, even matching both screens' sizes to be wide, add a few new features to give them extra distinction, and make them future-proof, especially to stand out against mobile games that don't have the same experiences. It's never that difficult to say, ask, and do. It does take work, yes, but doing it is not impossible.
I really hope and pray(which helps in any situation, per say) for such new systems to be made to more than accomplish such goals for gamers and preservationists.
Yes, I haven't forgotten Sony's PSP and Vita, too. They were, and still are, neat.
Not only that, but they gave developers more work to create games when they got unique SDKs for them, and that gave them joy to work on them alongside home console games and see gamers buy and play them to see their work in fruition.
I'm very worried that there's no way to really preserve these kind of games for current and new players to truly enjoy and cherish for later generations, both physically and digitally. When some people try to speak about that to others, they just scoff at them and constantly tell them to only get mobile, hybrids, and PC-made devices over and over, because they think they're all they want and need for gaming, when in truth, it's not. They really don't fit in pockets, period.
They don't fill the void at all, and it really puts the future of that kind of gaming outlet into question. They are not, nay, never, inevitably destined to be worthless junk heaps, nor their games to be delisted, unplayable, and unobtainable. They have real charm.
What a true dedicated handheld gaming system needs, even a dual-screen in the lines of 3DS, is to take improved fidelity and tech capabilities into account, even matching both screens' sizes to be wide, add a few new features to give them extra distinction, and make them future-proof, especially to stand out against mobile games that don't have the same experiences. It's never that difficult to say, ask, and do. It does take work, yes, but doing it is not impossible.
I really hope and pray(which helps in any situation, per say) for such new systems to be made to more than accomplish such goals for gamers and preservationists.
#7
Maps In Progress / deficitattack maps
Last post by deficitattack - April 21, 2026, 01:40:15 PMHi everyone, new to vgmaps but not to ripping in general...
I have ripped all (I hope) backgrounds of Star Ocean 2 on PSX, if someone is interested...
Also I've started Snatcher on MEGACD but it's incomplete (need to debug more)
I have ripped all (I hope) backgrounds of Star Ocean 2 on PSX, if someone is interested...
Also I've started Snatcher on MEGACD but it's incomplete (need to debug more)
#8
Mapping Tips/Guides / New and better version of snes...
Last post by ReyVGM - April 20, 2026, 01:50:06 PMSomeone called shanytc has developed a fork of SNES9X called SuperSNES9X which has a lot of good features lacking from the main branch, features which can be helpful to map makers.
Some of these features, of course, are available on more modern emulators such as BSNES, Bizhawk, Mesen and the sort. But personally, I still prefer to use snes9x because it's really fast and has the least amount of annoyances when compared to other emulators.
Anyway, some of the new features it has is a BSNES-quality sprite/titlemap viewer with the option to export the graphics.
The cheat search and cheat editors have been updated too. You can now batch add addresses and edit them. There's right click implementation too and having the cheat editor open no longer pauses the game. It also now allows to have multiple bindings so you can assign both a controller and keyboard to the same input.
Every config file or save state from the regular snes9x will work with this branch and viceversa.
Here's the latest release:
https://github.com/shanytc/snes9x/releases/tag/1.63.10
Some of these features, of course, are available on more modern emulators such as BSNES, Bizhawk, Mesen and the sort. But personally, I still prefer to use snes9x because it's really fast and has the least amount of annoyances when compared to other emulators.
Anyway, some of the new features it has is a BSNES-quality sprite/titlemap viewer with the option to export the graphics.
The cheat search and cheat editors have been updated too. You can now batch add addresses and edit them. There's right click implementation too and having the cheat editor open no longer pauses the game. It also now allows to have multiple bindings so you can assign both a controller and keyboard to the same input.
Every config file or save state from the regular snes9x will work with this branch and viceversa.
Here's the latest release:
https://github.com/shanytc/snes9x/releases/tag/1.63.10
#9
Map Gab / Re: VGMaps.com now has over 50...
Last post by JonLeung - April 16, 2026, 08:33:07 AM
Here are 100 words in game titles/map names, listed here by frequency.
"Man" is among the most common, but "Woman" is the least.
"Final/Battle/Dark/Kid" & "Space/Alien/Force" are next to each other.
#10
Map Gab / Re: The LARGEST map - G.E.R.'s...
Last post by Cyartog959 - April 16, 2026, 03:34:44 AMQuote from: G.E.R. on April 15, 2026, 12:58:46 AM
420000 screenshots is no so scary as it might seem at first glance. All images was captured, distributed to folders, imported in Photoshop automatic and compressed too, then their manual stitching took about 1 second per image
Maybe, but, that sure was a lot of screenshots to capture for a much bigger map, especially if its a Metroidvania. A great accomplishment, I say! I was astounded when I read how many screenshots you used to put that together! Its size almost reached the JPEG maximum pixel size limit in both directions!
Where The Embraced One, who did Hallownest's map mostly alone for years(which, of course, I still appreciate such efforts, to say), accomplished such a task, you actually focused on it so very well, you took almost 2 months to chart Pharloom, all the way from bottom to the very top, by comparison!
I would be that surprised if another map would reach beyond that limit for JPEG. Perhaps using JPEG XL, if VGMaps supports it(Uh... does it?), would be substantial; otherwise, PNG's a very good choice, too.
Wonder how much RAM it would take for any browser to handle decompressing it to view it up-close. Quite much, depending on the amount anyone's PC has.
Of course, the game's already got DLC plans, so I would presume more work's inbound for revising it later on.
Congratulations, by the way! My compliments!