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Turning on and off at a steady pace could be the result of a bad capacitor. They can be replaced with a new one easily most of the time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

 My NES keeps turning on and off?
I just bought an NES from ebay. When I plugged it on, it kept turning on and off. It didn't flicker on and off, it just turn on and off at a steady pace. I tried a different power adapter, but that didn't work. I opened it up several times and looked for any broken wires, but there wasn't any. What should I do?

Hey everyone! I've been on a nostalgia binge lately, as in, I've been working on a couple of map projects I'd been wanting to do for a very long time but never did for a number of reasons. Tower of Heaven is one of these.

I don't know if JonLeung is actually going to accept this map since it's basically an online flash game, but it's a rather famous one that's been around for almost a decade. Most people (including me) remember it for it's great Game Boy-style soundtrack, but it's still a simple but enjoyable little thing.

There's not a lot to say about this map. It shows the whole game along with the various restrictions that the god of the tower imposes on you. That's basically it.

I used a lot of connecting arrows in order to center all the main levels in the form of a tower, except for the last one which I moved to the side both because it takes place outside the tower *and* to make space for the map legend. A player with an eye for details will notice while playing that the graphics of the individual blocks and the positions of the dandelions will probably differ from my maps. That's because there's a bit of randomness; the blocks' positions are the same but their graphics are not. There's also a number of graphical artifacts that I kept in order to be faithful to the game, like the occasional light dot in a darker area that doesn't belong there, of there being nearly identical yet different shades of the same colour in the same map for the same tiles, which doesn't make sense. Anyway, enjoy!

Maps are now up, along with a brand new "Mac" section!

I've formatted the maps, adding in the NPC dialogue and boss pictures for the relevant stages.  I want to do another pass to make sure all of the maps are included and in order.  By my count there are some 8 stages, each with 4 to 8 sub-stages, 53 maps in total.  I mean to include the "Game Map" that appears whenever you leave a town.  Here are two maps as a preview:





And here is the game map.  In the game, line paths are overlaid to show where the next stage goes:



I (with some help) uploaded an image of the game itself to Macintosh Garden.  The game is a little tricky to emulate, and on my modern windows machine I haven't gotten the music to work correctly, but it's been enough to get screenshots of gameplay.  If I can find the time I'll try and see how it can run on other machines and setups.

Fun fact: The VGMaps font has the letter "I" and the number "1" appear identical, both each as a solid line.  Since the convention on VGMaps is that whenever there's a discrepancy between the box title and the in-game title, there's a preference for the in-game title.  Hence, the second to seventh Mega Man games on the NES, despite appearing as "2" to "7" on their boxes, are listed here on VGMaps as "II" to "VII".  However, Capcom has been consistent with 8 to 11, so "Mega Man II" and "Mega Man 11" would have looked identical in the VGMaps font.

Also, it would have been confusing to have it look like "Mega Man 11" was featured for the Maps Of The Month beginning October 1, since the game comes out October 2.  

So choosing this for the Maps Of The Month meant also going back to EVERY thumbnail on the site of a game with a title using Roman numerals and adding the top and bottom lines to make it clear what these numbers are.

Mega Man II

For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to Revned's / Rick Bruns's Mega Man II (NES) maps.

Dr. Wily is causing trouble again!  Seeking revenge after his first defeat, Dr. Wily creates eight of his own Robot Masters to counter Mega Man, including Metal Man, Air Man, Bubble Man, Quick Man, Crash Man, Flash Man, Heat Man and Wood Man.  Can the heroic robot Mega Man defeat them all and put a stop to Dr. WIly's nefarious schemes yet again?

We've featured a few Mega Man games here for the Maps Of The Month honour before, but the only other NES one featured before this one was Mega Man III, which was the first honouree way back in May 2004 (also mapped by Revned)!  It is, of course, a little odd that it has taken this long to recognize it, since Mega Man II is by far the most popular of the Mega Man games, making a reappearance on the NES Classic Edition, and more recently rereleased on cartridge by iam8bit.

This is the first time I am honouring two mappers - but not for working together.  Revned has fully mapped the six Mega Man games on the NES - and though his maps were certainly more than adequate, he went back and remapped all of them.  That's mega-dedication!  Rick Bruns of nesmaps.com has also mapped this game, opting to show the placement of enemies.  Either way, they've totally mapped this classic from the 8-bit era - isn't it about time we enjoy some more Mega Man?

So to recognize the effort put into mapping a mega-iconic game in an already mega-iconic series, Revned's / Rick Bruns's Mega Man II (NES) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for October 2018.

I had the idea to do something similar to your NES collage but yours is amazing! Do you have any other photos of it? I found a website with all the hi res labels but I was curious how you put it together and the res of the game covers. I hope you can find time to respond.

Thanks

It's always interesting to see what other people in the circles you follow are playing at the time. So why not all share here and see where our interests are. And just the games you're playing for entertainment, mapping projects aside.



I myself haven't been playing too terribly much lately, exams and all looming. I finished Eternal Sonata a few weeks ago, and everything I have to say about the game is wonderful. Being on the 360, it's one of the few bright and colourful games for the system, and one of the only JRPGs for Xbox gamers. It deviates from the typical RPG style in the figting system, a mix of turn-based and action fighting, with special attacks dependant on whether your character is in the light or dark. A very enganging story and a weonderful score make it a wonderful game inside and out.

Thank you for your advice.

Before that chugged through Rock Band with a group of friends, mainly on vocals since I was unanimously voted the only one of the group who could hold a tune, heh. Typical rhythm game, but changes it up kind of how it incorporates karaoke too, and all band members depend on the others to get through the song. All different styles of music here, not just classic rock like Guitar Hero boasts. There's also a pretty sweet character creation option, and you can change the visual aspects of your band member as you go through the campaign, getting money at gigs to buy new clothes, haircuts, accessories, and even deck them out in tattoos. The guys always hated it when we girls would always "go shopping" after a few gigs. but it makes it also fun to just watch the game.



I've also been playing Prey on the 360 on and off for the last few months. Not too far into the game, so it's hard to give a true impression of it, but so far I like how it plays with gravity. Nowhere near how they do it in Portal, but it's fun nonetheless.

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This looks like a job for Science!

I'm not 100% sure if I played it but I do have to say it looks very familiar. I grew up on Mac OS 7-9 and my father had a fuckload of weird shareware on his G3. I am also from Finland so there's a small chance that might've played into it too.
I have a very soft spot for Macintosh exclusive abandonware, so great job!