1
VGMaps Social Board / Re: Happy (belated) 23rd birthday to VGMaps.com!
« on: May 12, 2025, 07:06:06 pm »
A tiny bit late but still heartfelt happy birthday!
Show Posts
This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.
2
Maps In Progress / Re: John Brain's Sega Genesis maps (25/25)
« on: February 28, 2025, 07:01:33 pm »
Personally, I enjoy them mostly from an aesthetic point of view, either by themselves or assembled together to give an idea of what a game world looks like as a whole.
3
Maps Of The Month / Re: 2025/02: Kirby's Dream Land 3 (Super NES) - Jackster
« on: February 01, 2025, 12:25:58 pm »
I'm surprised it took this long for this game to be mapped out.
I was never a big fan of Kirby's Dream Land 3. Not because it's not good but it always felt too safe, too mellow to me and I don't think I can even explain why. It just *does*.
Mind you, I do love the graphical style and the music, especially the ending theme which always makes me sad near the end. There's a feeling of quiet finality to it, as if you're expected to go to sleep now that the story is over.
Anyway, great work by Jackster as usual
!
I was never a big fan of Kirby's Dream Land 3. Not because it's not good but it always felt too safe, too mellow to me and I don't think I can even explain why. It just *does*.
Mind you, I do love the graphical style and the music, especially the ending theme which always makes me sad near the end. There's a feeling of quiet finality to it, as if you're expected to go to sleep now that the story is over.
Anyway, great work by Jackster as usual
!
4
VGMaps Social Board / Re: Is there a painless way to correctly tag a massive library of messy MP3s?
« on: January 03, 2025, 09:15:45 pm »
It's been twelve years since my last post in this thread and I've yet to finish tagging my collection which has become much larger since then.
I quickly ended up giving up on automated methods which usually added too much clutter in the tags. Instead, I've been using Mp3tag to manually do the job which isn't ideal but gave me the control and results I desired.
It took me some time but I ended up with a small list of tags I felt were necessary with a few rules to handle various situations. File naming stumped me for a while (illegal characters) as did music genre but I eventually worked through all that.
The problem is that once I start tagging my collection, I don't keep going until I'm finished and just stop halfway through. I think I've started the whole process three times already!
Thanks for suggesting AudioRanger evern though I doubt I'll give it a try. I just have too much music which isn't official in any way (YouTube rips, game rips, podcasts, etc.) nowadays.
I quickly ended up giving up on automated methods which usually added too much clutter in the tags. Instead, I've been using Mp3tag to manually do the job which isn't ideal but gave me the control and results I desired.
It took me some time but I ended up with a small list of tags I felt were necessary with a few rules to handle various situations. File naming stumped me for a while (illegal characters) as did music genre but I eventually worked through all that.
The problem is that once I start tagging my collection, I don't keep going until I'm finished and just stop halfway through. I think I've started the whole process three times already!
Thanks for suggesting AudioRanger evern though I doubt I'll give it a try. I just have too much music which isn't official in any way (YouTube rips, game rips, podcasts, etc.) nowadays.
5
Mapping Tips/Guides / Re: DO NOT submit maps that you didn't create yourself!
« on: December 16, 2024, 07:40:40 pm »
Whoever they are, please extend the thanks of the community for allowing their works to still be shared, even if partially anonymously.
6
Map Requests / Re: List of unmapped NES games
« on: December 15, 2024, 05:30:59 pm »
I've actually fully mapped Ufouria: The Saga in 2006 so you can remove that one from the list.
7
Maps Of The Month / Re: 2024/10: Sweet Home (J) (NES) - zagato blackfist
« on: October 02, 2024, 08:36:08 pm »
Yep, that's the one.
I haven't seen it yet but maybe someone else has...?
I haven't seen it yet but maybe someone else has...?
8
Maps Of The Month / Re: 2024/10: Sweet Home (J) (NES) - zagato blackfist
« on: October 01, 2024, 05:44:06 pm »
Great job zagato blackfist!
This reminds me, I should really watch the movie the game is based on. I have a dubbed copy that's been siting on my SSD for a few years now...
This reminds me, I should really watch the movie the game is based on. I have a dubbed copy that's been siting on my SSD for a few years now...
9
Gaming / Re: If I play a lot of console-style games on PC, am I a PC gamer?
« on: October 01, 2024, 05:41:55 pm »
Looks like the forums is being invaded by AI 
10
Maps In Progress / Re: Shovel Knight (PC)
« on: August 24, 2024, 12:05:29 am »
Sorry Cyartog959 but I definitely gave up on mapping the rest of the main game (Shovel of Hope), not to even mention the other campaigns.
Like many (most?) modern games featuring pixel graphics, the graphics don't actually conform to an exact pixel grid, which makes obtaining pure 1:1 graphics really taxing. Add to that the numerous, often partially obscured backgrounds to capture and isolate (which are usually half the reason the maps look as good as they do and thus necesary) and the fact I have way less free time to map nowadays...
Frankly, I'd much rather spend my effort on mapping games that actually excite me from a technical point of view and even those I'll sometimes give up if they require so much work that a single map takes weeks to do. It's not like I'm lacking in games I want to map (or finish mapping someday) anyway.
Ever since you joined the forum, you've been asking for, frankly, a rather ludicrous amount of maps to be done. I admire the passion and interest but it's clear you have little idea on just how much work they can take. The time and effort required are precisely why the majority of us don't take requests on the Requests board, preferring to concentrate on our respective projects. Sometimes a request might pique someone's interest because of novelty but there's really no guarantee.
I second FlyingArmor's suggestion from another thread: why not give it a try yourself?
No one here's a magician (well, aside from VGCartography, probably
) and what each of us has achieved did so after years of practice. I've been at it for nearly 25 years and I'm still learning new tools and techniques, trying to add my own little touches, etc.
You might find it fun, or even challenging! You might even find a niche of your own or a particular style!
Like many (most?) modern games featuring pixel graphics, the graphics don't actually conform to an exact pixel grid, which makes obtaining pure 1:1 graphics really taxing. Add to that the numerous, often partially obscured backgrounds to capture and isolate (which are usually half the reason the maps look as good as they do and thus necesary) and the fact I have way less free time to map nowadays...
Frankly, I'd much rather spend my effort on mapping games that actually excite me from a technical point of view and even those I'll sometimes give up if they require so much work that a single map takes weeks to do. It's not like I'm lacking in games I want to map (or finish mapping someday) anyway.
Ever since you joined the forum, you've been asking for, frankly, a rather ludicrous amount of maps to be done. I admire the passion and interest but it's clear you have little idea on just how much work they can take. The time and effort required are precisely why the majority of us don't take requests on the Requests board, preferring to concentrate on our respective projects. Sometimes a request might pique someone's interest because of novelty but there's really no guarantee.
I second FlyingArmor's suggestion from another thread: why not give it a try yourself?
No one here's a magician (well, aside from VGCartography, probably
) and what each of us has achieved did so after years of practice. I've been at it for nearly 25 years and I'm still learning new tools and techniques, trying to add my own little touches, etc.You might find it fun, or even challenging! You might even find a niche of your own or a particular style!
11
Map Requests / Re: JonLeung's Requests
« on: July 16, 2024, 05:31:06 pm »
I'm so happy someone finally made a full map of the game showing all the connections between areas!
RPGClassics has had a full set of maps for many years but all areas were separated and you had to click on doors and stairs to navigate the mansion. Somewhat immersive, but I much prefer zagato blackfist's version!
RPGClassics has had a full set of maps for many years but all areas were separated and you had to click on doors and stairs to navigate the mansion. Somewhat immersive, but I much prefer zagato blackfist's version!
12
Map Requests / Re: Full map set for Sonic the Hedgehog's games
« on: June 15, 2024, 11:36:06 pm »I get your perspective, TerraEsperZ, but I still feel it'll be worth the effort in mapping them.
Oh, definitely!
It won't be no trouble for mappers like any of you to accomplish.
That however, I'm not so sure about! It would be one heck of a challenge for sure, but over the last couple of years, we've seen a bunch of new mappers with 3D modeling experience do amazing work. So it's more likely to happen that I would have expected a decade ago, but it would still be quite the time investment.
Since I've been dabbling in PSP emulation for a project, I tried doing a quick rip of Sonic Rival's first map and I already ran into a number of problems I'm simply way too inexperienced to handle. Like, you can only capture part of a map at a given time so you'd need to merge multiple rips together. The geometry also seems to be somewhat squashed along one axis so you'd need to correct that. And that's without even mentioning animated objects, lighting effects, transparencies, etc.
*Definitely* a huge challenge!
13
Map Requests / Re: Full map set for Sonic the Hedgehog's games
« on: June 15, 2024, 02:53:47 pm »
Sonic Rivals features 2.5D maps that loop around in 3D as this is mostly a racing game. The gameplay is 2D but each level features multiple paths going in their own direction in 3D, which would make mapping them a bit of a nightmare.
Making gameplay maps showing the various paths you can take would be hard to represent with a full 3D map but if you were to somehow "unroll" a map in order to flatten it and display in 2D, there are a lot of path connections that wouldn't make sense without a 3rd dimension.
I'm not sure I'm making myself clear but just take a look at a longplay on Youtube to see what I mean.
Making gameplay maps showing the various paths you can take would be hard to represent with a full 3D map but if you were to somehow "unroll" a map in order to flatten it and display in 2D, there are a lot of path connections that wouldn't make sense without a 3rd dimension.
I'm not sure I'm making myself clear but just take a look at a longplay on Youtube to see what I mean.
14
Maps In Progress / Re: John Brain's Sega Genesis maps (25/25)
« on: June 15, 2024, 12:21:17 pm »
Thank you for sharing your thoughts John Brain.
I really hope you don't hang up your mapping hat just because you've achieved your goal and that you keep working working at it. There are still many Genesis games in need of some love!
I really hope you don't hang up your mapping hat just because you've achieved your goal and that you keep working working at it. There are still many Genesis games in need of some love!
15
Gaming / Re: Nintendo Leak: The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past on Game Boy
« on: June 07, 2024, 05:51:03 pm »
Wait, are those Mario statues in the Great Swamp!?