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The biggest problem for me is the missing ability to separate all the layers with a simple button press. So also congratulations on completing these maps, G.E.R.!

Congratulations on the award G.E.R.!

Modern 2D games rarely get mapped because of the relative complexity of their graphics so it's nice to see that some people are still trying .

Sonic Mania

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.

Hello VGMaps!

My name is Adam, and I'm a 38 year old father of four with a long-standing love of the classic games that were a part of my childhood. I remember spending days mapping the dungeons of Phantasy Star with pencil and graph paper. So Satisfying.

Lately, I've been playing another of my favorites, Y's: The Vanished Omens, and was thinking about building a screenshot map of the entire game. It's not so big that it would be too daunting, and I know the game better than any guide I've read (except for most enemy names). I thought I'd check to see if it had already been done, and stumbled across this site. When I saw the (quite impressive) list, and not my game, I decided that this would be a great place to contribute such a project. So...

This looked like the right place to introduce myself and call dibs on Y's: The Vanished Omens, for the Sega Master System. Not that I think someone else is going to beat me to it; it is pretty obscure. But I hope I can bring some attention to this classic. I feel it is the epitome of old-school fantasy-adventures. If anyone else has played it, or checks it out after reading this, let me know what you think.

Top-down or isometric?
What about the different floors?
Turok 2 is on Steam, and there's a console for inputting commands like fly, clip, stop time, wireframe.. The only maps anyone has done (short of just scanning/stealing from Prima's guide) is of the Hub, but the whole game can be easily mapped out using the PC version. Except it's in 3D and rooms get blocked by other rooms if you're going for a straight screenshot.

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!

[Just Dance 4 - Just Sweat - Aerobics In Space (Intense)]

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 4 - Just Sweat - Aerobics In Space (Intense)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1OPHiNzefI&t=6m13s
- from 6:13 to 7:50
- could it somehow be extracted from the Wii ISO?

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...

Thanks in advance!

[EDIT:]

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.

[The Unofficial SNES/Super Famicom: A Visual Compendium]

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!

[bustin98]

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.