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Yep, that's the one.

I haven't seen it yet but maybe someone else has...?

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...

Looks like the forums is being invaded by AI 

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!

[zagato blackfist]

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!

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!

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.

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!

Wait, are those Mario statues in the Great Swamp!?

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!

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

[zagato blackfist]

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"!

The first Alone in the Dark was among the earliest PC games I got to play at home. Before one of my uncle lent me his copy of the game for me to copy, I had only played the games I inherited from another uncle along with his PC a few years prior, which were mostly Space Quest games along with Wolfenstein 3D and F-117A Nighthawk Stealth Fighter.

Alone in the Dark was something else though, and given that I was really into Lovecraft stories at the time, I was really immersed in the game. I remember getting through a few spots the hard way (like fighting every zombie in the dining room) and making detailed maps by hand of the whole mansion along with the underground maze.

I considered making maps for the game back in 2006 (nearly 20 years ago!) but using an isometric view never felt like a serious possibility because too much would be hidden by the walls. Thankfully, VGCartography proved me wrong and yet again, came up with great looking original maps!

Great work as usual my friend!

I'm pretty sure both versions of the first Ecco the Dolphin game are a bit different, with the CD one featuring extra stages. However, I was never a big fan of them so I can't say if stages common to both are identical or sometimes a bit different.

Sadly, we've already entered an era where game and software preservation has become very difficult if not impossible in most cases. I'm afraid on-going patches (including day-one), essential server-side components and, of course, software-as-service will eventually lead to huge portions of online content to essentially vanish forever.
It's bad enough for games but movies and TV shows will soon cease to be available on physical format altogether.
Piracy will eventually be unavoidable for those but for most online games, there will simply be no alternative .