VGMaps
General Boards => Maps In Progress => Topic started by: Jackster on November 05, 2020, 09:06:43 pm
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Current Projects:
Rockman EXE WS (WonderSwan Color)
Super Mario Bros. Deluxe (GBC)
Super Mario Advance (GBA)
Complete Projects:
Atlantis no Nazo (Famicom/NES) (https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/NES/index.htm#AtlantisnoNazo)
Toy Story (Sega Genesis) (https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/Genesis/index.htm#ToyStory)
SmartBall (SNES) (https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#SmartBall)
Rhino Rumble (Game Boy Color) (https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/GB-GBC/index.htm#RhinoRumble)
Shining Wisdom (Sega Saturn) (https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/Saturn/index.htm#ShiningWisdom)
Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble (GBC) (https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/GB-GBC/index.htm#KirbyTiltNTumble)
Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land (GBA) (https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/GBA/index.htm#KirbyNightmareInDreamLand)
Kirby and the Amazing Mirror (GBA) (https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/GBA/index.htm#KirbyTheAmazingMirror)
Kirby's Dream Land 3 (SNES) (https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#KirbysDreamLand3)
Kirby Super Star - The Great Cave Offensive (SNES) (https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#KirbySuperStar)
Link: The Faces of Evil (Philips CD-i) (https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/CD-i/index.htm#LinkFacesOfEvil)
Zelda's Adventure (Philips CD-i) (https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/CD-i/index.htm#ZeldasAdventure)
Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon (Philips CD-i) (https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/CD-i/index.htm#ZeldaWandOfGamelon)
The Apprentice (Philips CD-i) (https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/CD-i/index.htm#Apprentice)
Pulseman (Sega Genesis) (https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/Genesis/index.htm#Pulseman)
Klonoa: Moonlight Museum (WonderSwan) (https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/WS-WSC/index.htm#KlonoaMoonlightMuseum)
Plok! (SNES) (https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#Plok)
Future Projects:
The Densetsu no Stafy series (GBA & Nintendo DS)
Super Mario Advance series (GBA)
Super Princess Peach (Nintendo DS)
Rocket Knight Adventures (Sega Genesis)
Sparkster (SNES and Genesis versions)
Batman (Sega Genesis)
Blaster Master 2 (Sega Genesis)
Nazo no Murasamejou (Famicom Disk System)
Skyblazer (SNES)
Kirby: Canvas Curse (Nintendo DS) (the rest of it)
Kirby: Mass Attack (Nintendo DS)
Mickey Mania (Sega Genesis)
Klonoa: Empire of Dreams (GBA)
Klonoa 2: Dream Champ Tournament (GBA)
Klonoa Heroes (GBA)
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A new set of mine is now up on VGMaps. I've spent the past 2 days working on it based on an urge to create maps for this game system.
Link: The Faces of Evil (Philips CD-i)
https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/CD-i/index.htm#LinkFacesOfEvil (https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/CD-i/index.htm#LinkFacesOfEvil)
When I get the time, Wand of Gamelon and Zelda's Adventure will be next.
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Thanks for those maps, Jackster! As a Zelda fan it is cool to see some of the lesser-known (or else infamous) and non-canonical Zelda games. I definitely look forward to maps of the other two Zelda games, if and when you do them!
As mentioned in my requests topic (https://www.vgmaps.com/forums/index.php?topic=2478.msg21569#new), until your submission yesterday, the CD-i section had been sparse for a long time. The file date of the only original map for Zelda's Adventure says 2006, though I feel like it could have been closer to VGMaps.com's birth. Even if it was indeed 2006, that was still a while ago, and a long time for an atlas page to have only a single, lonely map. Your submission of actually-ripped maps has multiplied the value of that page tremendously!
I'll have to ask you a technical question if you don't mind. I can get the CD-i games to start running on MAME, but once it hits actual gameplay, only Zelda's Adventure works fine. Zelda: The Wand Of Gamelon and Link: The Faces Of Evil have the opening animations running fine, but then it gets stuck once I'm supposed to be in control. Like it slowly loads the screen, but then it freezes with weird audio. I wonder what I've done wrong. Any ideas?
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Great job on those Faces of Evil maps Jackster! I was hoping someone would finally map those stages because I find those graphics gorgeous.
Can't wait for you to do the same with Wand of Gamelon!
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I'll have to ask you a technical question if you don't mind. I can get the CD-i games to start running on MAME, but once it hits actual gameplay, only Zelda's Adventure works fine. Zelda: The Wand Of Gamelon and Link: The Faces Of Evil have the opening animations running fine, but then it gets stuck once I'm supposed to be in control. Like it slowly loads the screen, but then it freezes with weird audio. I wonder what I've done wrong. Any ideas?
I was able to replicate this when running Faces of Evil on the latest version of MAMEUI. Looks like the CD-i driver got broken or something, because even transferring my config files for both the driver and MAME over didn't work. My suggestion is to download MAMEUI 0.214. This was the version I was using to get the CD-i games running smoothly. You can find it in the archive below:
http://www.progettosnaps.net/mameui/ (http://www.progettosnaps.net/mameui/)
EDIT: Looks like they were able to fix up Zelda's Adventure in the latest version. Previous versions had the game lock up when you walk over to the next screen (it surely does in 0.214). Good to know.
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That's another map down.
Zelda's Adventure (Philips CD-i)
https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/CD-i/index.htm#ZeldasAdventure (https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/CD-i/index.htm#ZeldasAdventure)
I've also edited my first page a while back to include my current, completed, and future projects.
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And with that, that last of the Unholy Triforce is now complete.
Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon (Philips CD-i)
https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/CD-i/index.htm#ZeldaWandOfGamelon (https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/CD-i/index.htm#ZeldaWandOfGamelon)
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Kirby maps are now up.
Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land (Game Boy Advance)
https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/GBA/index.htm#KirbyNightmareInDreamLand (https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/GBA/index.htm#KirbyNightmareInDreamLand)
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Thanks for the Nightmare In Dream Land submission yesterday!
It's surprising to me that VGMaps is still lacking maps for some Kirby games, so I am glad that you are planning to tackle three more.
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Phew! After 2 weeks of working on the remainder, what was originally my first map project is now finally complete and submitted.
Shining Wisdom (Sega Saturn)
https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/Saturn/index.htm#ShiningWisdom (https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/Saturn/index.htm#ShiningWisdom)
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So realizing that Kirby's Dream Land 3 is going to take longer than I thought, I went ahead and took something else from my list while I work on that.
Rhino Rumble (Game Boy Color)
https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/GB-GBC/index.htm#RhinoRumble (https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/GB-GBC/index.htm#RhinoRumble)
Despite the parallax background effects they put in this game (which I'm still scratching my head over how they did it on a GBC), it was surprisingly very easy to rip.
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After spending 3/4 of my vacation working almost non-stop on this game, it is finally done and I am exhausted.
Kirby & The Amazing Mirror (Game Boy Advance)
https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/GBA/index.htm#KirbyTheAmazingMirror (https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/GBA/index.htm#KirbyTheAmazingMirror)
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Another week, another Kirby game now done.
Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble (Game Boy Color)
https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/GB-GBC/index.htm#KirbyTiltNTumble (https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/GB-GBC/index.htm#KirbyTiltNTumble)
Each stage includes both Normal Mode and the harder Extra Mode, the latter which can be accessed after you collect 32 Red Stars in Normal Mode.
Also the reason these maps use LCD colors is because these were ripped through Bizhawk via the GBHawk core. From what I researched, Tilt 'n' Tumble is broken in Gambatte, so after starting the game up Bizhawk disables any use for that core for this specific game and switches to GBHawk instead. And while Gambatte has an option to change between vivid colors and LCD colors, GBHawk doesn't; it's strictly stuck with LCD.
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With that one, long Kirby project out of the way, time for an easier one.
SmartBall (SNES)
https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#SmartBall (https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#SmartBall)
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After many weeks working on this game that took longer than expected, it's finally done.
Kirby's Dream Land 3 (SNES)
https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#KirbysDreamLand3 (https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#KirbysDreamLand3)
There was a lot of things I've learned along the way as I was mapping this game, as well as simulating other features such as pseudo-transparency (which I would later use for mapping the underwater levels in Smart Ball). It was quite a trip, but I'm glad that yet another big project is now out of the way.
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A new map of mine is now up.
Toy Story (Sega Genesis)
https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/Genesis/index.htm#ToyStory (https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/Genesis/index.htm#ToyStory)
This one was an attempt on some ideas I had to map these levels and to challenge myself to see if I can pull it off. The results were pretty good if I say so myself. You can watch how Traveller's Tales pulled off some of these effects here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXKs1ZSgMic) and here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhMMK3QLxSM). These videos helped me further understand how to map these.
The ideas include:
- Getting the perspective right in the side-scrolling levels. Notice the floor with the furniture sides matching it. What I did was rip the background from Bizhawk's VDP Viewer, cropped and edited the floor so it looks straight, tiled it in Clip Studio Paint to expand it throughout the level and stretched it to give it a perspective. The sides were just animated background tiles made up of 22 frames that i had to rip each one by hand. Then I used CSP's perspective guide to place each of those frames to match that of the floor.
- Simulating pseudo-transparency the way it's displayed on a CRT rather than an emulator (i.e. the coin tubes in Level 10 and the glass in Level 12), something continued from mapping Kirby's Dream Land 3 that I plan to do for future Genesis games. Had to use filters for Bizhawk and Kega Fusion, as well as watching a speedrun played on a real console and CRT, as reference in order to pull this look off.
- The 3D 'Doom' level. I already knew some basics in 3D modeling for Maya, so making the map for this level wasn't entirely hard. Ripping the textures from the game took some thinking though since what you see in the level is rendered in the VDP Viewer too. So what I came up with was to position myself so I'm facing the wall straight and screen capturing each of the textures from there. It's not perfect, but since the textures are going to be distorted anyway when rendered in an orthographic view, it doesn't really matter.
- The 3D driving level. This one I had to eyeball on the road for; to see how far the turns go, how far the straight parts of the road go, etc. As for mapping it, if you're familiar with Clip Studio Paint, you would know that there is a ribbon feature in its brush engine where you can easily draw things like chains and rope with (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cl0lwswapE). So I created my own road texture in Aseprite, turned it into a ribbon brush in CSP, and drew it on a vector layer for easier editing. I was originally going to add in the background stuff like the buildings and the trucks, but that would have been difficult to get the textures for. So I left them out.
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After some time on and off, my next Game Freak game is now complete.
Pulseman (Sega Genesis)
https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/Genesis/index.htm#Pulseman (https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/Genesis/index.htm#Pulseman)
I underestimated this game. Apparently, this game makes extensive use of pseudo-transparency on a whole bunch of levels. There was like 2-3 rooms that was nothing but that. Because of that, I strained my hand in the process and there were times where I had to take breaks from mapping in order to recover. So glad to be done with this game.
Besides fixing the transparency, I also went and fixed up a bunch of the backgrounds so the foreground is a lot more visible.
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Since this game has been sitting on my Current Projects list for weeks, I finally got around to finishing it today.
The Apprentice (Philips CD-i)
https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/CD-i/index.htm#Apprentice (https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/CD-i/index.htm#Apprentice)
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Just dropping in to say I appreciate a lot of these - the Zelda CD-I ones were amazing to see since I've never played or watched the game, it looks gorgeous if you only knew the backgrounds lol. Also the 16-bit Toy Story was a fun trip down memory lane.
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It's been a while since I did any maps for this site, so I'm going to attempt to get back on track starting with a game I watched in an episode of GameCenter CX: the Sunsoft game Atlantis no Nazo.
A preview of what I have so far. With 100 zones I have to do, this is going to be a loooong journey.
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/541604006334562326/964607017253752862/5.png)
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From what I know about this game (which is very little), there are many different routes and it's not clear where to go. Hidden routes can include things like falling down a pit that looks just like any other (but deadly) pit. Good luck with mapping this! Once it is done, I am sure it will be a valuable guide.
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While I'm waiting for my Atlantis no Nazo maps to get in, I went and filled in something from Jon's request list: the Great Cave Offensive section of Kirby Super Star is now fully labelled.
Kirby Super Star (Super Nintendo)
https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#KirbySuperStar (https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#KirbySuperStar)
Wanted to try my hand at ripping these maps with the Graphic Debugger feature in Bizhawk rather than relying on the Autostitcher. As a result, the black gradient that usually appears at the bottom of the screen is now gone. The maps were then combined and labelled the same way I did with the maps for The Amazing Mirror: using Clip Studio Paint.
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The maps are up now! Each map contains both marked and unmarked versions inside, and many of them even have solutions.
Atlantis no Nazo (NES/Famicom)
https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/NES/index.htm#AtlantisnoNazo (https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/NES/index.htm#AtlantisnoNazo)
This game took me over 3 weeks to map, because of how much stuff I had to put into them. Ripping the maps themselves was easy, but adding in the secrets, strategies, solutions, etc. was very time-consuming. I originally wanted to add in a flowchart connecting all of the zones after I got done with the maps, but because I spent so much time adding in new stuff to the maps after researching, I was exhausted and didn't really feel like doing it. I just wanted to get this done and over with.
Had to rely on a Japanese guidebook I found on Archive.org (https://archive.org/details/atlantis-no-nazo-strategy-guide-wonder-life-special-600DPI/Atlantis%20no%20Nazo%20-%20Strategy%20Guide%20%5BWonder%20Life%20Special%5D%20%28Compressed%29/), a Japanese walkthrough with pictures (http://www.cute.hm/hogehoge/html/enter.html), a combination of Capture2Text (http://capture2text.sourceforge.net/) and DeepL, a GameFAQs text walkthrough, a flowchart I found on StrategyWiki (https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Atlantis_no_Nazo/Zone_Map), a code site containing addresses that aided me through this game (https://wikiwiki.jp/nnnes1/%E3%82%A2%E3%83%88%E3%83%A9%E3%83%B3%E3%83%81%E3%82%B9%E3%81%AE%E8%AC%8E), and a few 100% speedruns of the game on Youtube and Twitch. It was a lot of work.
With this finally out of the way, onto the Swan of Wonders!
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Old, mostly forgotten games like Atlantis no Nazo can be pretty hard to fully map since, unlike modern games that get datamined from top to bottom on the week of release, you can't be sure that all the secrets have been found and documented even after several decades. That or their age might mean that complete guides once existed in print but haven't necessarily been scanned or otherwise preserved on the Internet.
Good job on taking on such a challenging game!
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The first of 3 Klonoa puzzle platformers is now mapped. The other two, Empire of Dreams and Dream Champ Tournament for the GBA, are already on my to-do list. This one was an attempt to add more stuff to the Wonderswan page as well.
Klonoa: Moonlight Museum (Wonderswan)
https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/WS-WSC/index.htm#KlonoaMoonlightMuseum (https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/WS-WSC/index.htm#KlonoaMoonlightMuseum)
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After almost a whole month working on this, the maps are now done and finally up.
Plok! (SNES)
https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#Plok (https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#Plok)
Man, I don't know where to even start with this one:
- This game sure had a lot to offer. Since I never really played this game up until recently, it got confusing at first. Multiple times, I had to go back to add stuff in after I was familiar enough with the game.
- To my surprise, the shells were on the same layer as the foreground, so all I had to do was find the code to freeze the animation (which also freezes all background animation; just that one code), and run it through Screenshot Autostitcher. Saved a lot of time compared to other games where collectables are in the sprite layer and had to rip them separately.
- The backgrounds took the longest time to do. At first, I thought they were static background images, but it turned out to be made up of reused tiles. The Cotton Island/Legacy Island backgrounds for instance, while they don't scroll, were basically the same tiles with a different color palette for each level. So I hatched up a plan to expand the backgrounds and use the recycled tiles to recreate the expanded areas (https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/541604006334562326/984231504509022278/bg-expand.png). While it wasn't all that difficult to do, it was tedious work that took me longer than expected.
- I went and tried out Aseprite 1.3 during the making of these maps, as this version introduced a new tilemap system (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWWOdZ4uprs) that made recreating those backgrounds quicker and easier than normal.
- There were parts of the levels in the game that were left incomplete since they were unreachable anyway without cheating or hacking (such as some of the Fleapit levels). So I had to recreate those areas as well.
- After submitting the maps, I got told by Jon via email that the overworld maps were missing, which I completely forgotten about as I meant to do those after I got done with the levels. So I spent 4 hours this morning mapping those and submitted before I had to go to work. These contain both marked and unmarked versions.
So yeah, it was a wild ride, and I'm relieved that I finally got this game done.
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Those maps are amazing! Great work as always :)
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Very cool, always liked this game but I never beat it. Some of those levels towards the end get pretty bizarre, huh. Thanks for these!
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It also reveals that most of the maps aren't nearly as big as the game makes them out to be, which is neat I think.