Messages

1

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.

2

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.

3

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.

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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...?

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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...

6

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 

7

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!

8

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!

9

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!

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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.

11

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!

12

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!?

13

Map Gab / Re: Hand-Drawn Game Guides by Phil Summers (NES)

« on: May 13, 2024, 08:55:38 pm »

I too remember that discussion because I was a subscriber to Phil Summers' Patreon for about a year during which he released six issues of his Hand-Drawn Gaming series before closing his page down: Castlevania, Gimmick!, Double Dragon 2, Mega Man, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Bionic Commando.

The artwork was as good as the free guides but they were smaller at eight pages each and usually only featured partial maps or simple tips. I can't complain because the artwork was very good, reminding me a bit of Katsuya Terada's artwork for Nintendo Power's three parts Secret of Mana guide in issues 62, 63 and 64 way back in 1994.

If he's working on an actual book, I'm curious to see what it's going to be about!

14

Gaming / Re: Vertical loop glitches in Sonic Superstars

« on: April 02, 2024, 03:48:17 pm »

Those are some *very* obvious seams. It's kinda sad that Sonic games from 30 years ago did such things better.

15

Map Requests / Re: JonLeung's Requests

« on: March 27, 2024, 04:41:16 pm »

Even weirder coincidence: I've been slowly making my way through Hardcore Gaming 101's Top 47k Games of All Time podcast over the last three years and just yesterday, I listened to their episode on Nightmare on Elm Street for the NES.

I remember starting to map Friday the 13th in 2009, thinking I was clever in handling the "parallax" background by doubling the lenght of every segment. I remember giving up after starting the cave because I really wasn't a fan of game in the end. My goal would have been to try and make a unified map covering the whole game but the way the game is structured, what with featuring several concentric circles, would have made the whole thing quite inelegant.

Anyway, great work as always zagato blackfist, finally providing maps to so many overlooked "classics"!