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.


Messages - TerraEsperZ

Pages: 1 ... 4 5 [6] 7 8 ... 155
76
Map Requests / Re: JonLeung's Requests
« on: January 11, 2020, 08:41:46 pm »
Hey JonLeung, it's been a while.

I don't want to make any promises on map projects because I tend to not follow through and especially since I just don't have that much available time anymore.

But I have a few projects from your list that are pretty far along and it's good to be reminded that there is interest in them. I tend to forget just how many unfinished project I have lying around...

The ones I'd like to commit myself to are the following:

Shantae (GBC): The whole overworld is 99% done but the labyrinths are only about 40% done. I'll see what I can do about it this year.
Sonic 3D Blast (Genesis): I'd really like to finish this, especially since I was on a roll for a while with almost 40% of the game mapped.

I've got a few other projects that might possibly be continued/done this year, but I won't even bother mentioning them otherwise it'll just be disappointing  when I don't deliver.

77
Map Gab / Re: Sega Genesis Mini - full map set
« on: September 03, 2019, 08:17:10 pm »
Concerning Sonic the Hedgehog 3, there (possibly/most likely) seems to be a long unresolved issue concerning music rights, specifically because of the involvement of Michael Jackson (there are many recent YouTube videos on the subject).

Given how complicated and expensive music rights settlements can be as well as Michael's involvement which is still being denied officially, it is most likely the reason why Sonic 3 & Knuckles hasn't been ported to any modern systems, only emulated. It also explains why the Sonic & Knuckles Collection for PC released in 1997 featured different music for several levels that included samples most likely taken from Jackson (Carnival Night, Launch Base) or where the music is basically an existing unreleased track (Hard Times by The Jetzons for Ice Cap).

78
Map Requests / Re: Chrono Trigger Re-Release Additions
« on: July 04, 2019, 08:37:16 pm »
Didn't the Steam release featured really garbage filtered graphics? That would make it a lot harder to make pixel perfect maps of these new areas, unless the mapper uses the DS version.

79
Map Gab / Re: Old School Gamer Magazine would like to use YOUR maps!
« on: July 04, 2019, 08:35:42 pm »
This is a great idea, especially since it feels like the site hasn't been as active as it used to be years ago. It might generate more interest for older games and their amazingly detailled worlds.

And personally, if they want any of my maps, I'd be honoured to be featured!

80
Map Requests / Re: Metroidvania games
« on: February 11, 2019, 03:21:11 pm »
I'd heard of The Messenger, but thought it was like any other deliberately-retro-style indie platforming game.  I wasn't aware of the switch from an action-platformer to a Metroidvania.  Reading more about it, I'm intrigued.

I guess that was a spoiler, but you know what?  I think I'm glad I know that now, because I probably wouldn't consider playing the game otherwise.  Assuming I ever have time to get to it...

I think it was initially advertised as a linear, stage-based retro-platformer in the style of Ninja Gaiden and that held no interest to me whatsoever. It was hearing about the twist that made me buy the game, and that sucks a bit for the developers.

In the regards that there's a major twist to the gameplay that shouldn't be spoiled before playing the game, The Messenger feels like Undertale. It's supposed to be this major reveal that completely baffles you after playing for a while but I honestly wouldn't have played either game without knowing in advance what those games were really all about.

81
Map Requests / Re: Metroidvania games
« on: February 10, 2019, 09:59:39 am »
I love Metroidvania games as well, but they can be such a pain to map properly, otherwise I would dedicate my life to mapping as many of them as I could.

Most of the time, you first need to have a good to great understanding of the game as a whole before even starting, otherwise you might run into unforeseen obstacles further down the road (like the Pirate Mothership in Metroid: Zero Mission where most/all of the rooms overlap slightly along their borders, making assembly a nightmare).

It's even more difficult if they're on a modern system where you don't have the many benefits of a fully-featured emulator (like disabling layers, viewing tiles and sprites, writing LUA scripts, editing memory) like on the PC or all modern consoles. The only games that are reasonably mappable correctly in those cases are very primitive looking ones with little or no lighting effects and no parallax scrolling.

About your list, I started mapping Alwa's Awakening on PC but never really got far before losing interest. I was still suffering heavily from sleep apnea at the time and had little mental energy for mapping even though I wanted to map something, *anything*. Looking back now, I think it attracted me more because it looked technically simple to map rather than because the game seemed fun so I doubt I'll be going back to it before finishing some of my other projects.

Also, let me add a few more games to your list:

The Messenger (PC / Switch) - This is another one that would be so good to see mapped, especially since every area exist in both 8-bit and 16-bit versions. The maps would spoil the reveal that it *is* a Metroidvania (which isn't apparent until several hours into the game) but they would still be fun to compare.

Shantae (GBC) - It's dated and nowhere near as fun as the following games, but I'd love to see this one fully mapped (I'm currently trying to restart this project).

Shantae: Risky's Revenge (DSi / iOS / PC / PS4 / Wii U) - Looks a lot better than the previous one but is a lot harder to map because of that blasted parallax scrolling and lots of waving effects in the underwater areas. I managed to map a few areas years ago but it's taking so long to handle the backgrounds... Give me a few extra years of life and maybe I could get it done but I'm not sure I'll have the patience as it is :(.

82
Map Requests / Re: Shovel Knight world map
« on: January 18, 2019, 08:42:01 pm »
Hi Schaufel!

I'm the mapper who submitted the Plains and Village maps to the site and I can assure you that the world map in the corner is 1:1 pixel perfect. If all you need is a map that looks exactly the same but with bigger pixels, I can post bigger versions to my Imgur account.

100% size (original)
200% size
400% size

And if I totally misunderstood your request, please let me know and I'll see what I can do to help :).

83
Maps In Progress / Tower of Heaven v.2.0.0 (flash)
« on: October 12, 2018, 11:44:14 pm »
Hey everyone! I've been on a nostalgia binge lately, as in, I've been working on a couple of map projects I'd been wanting to do for a very long time but never did for a number of reasons. Tower of Heaven is one of these.

I don't know if JonLeung is actually going to accept this map since it's basically an online flash game, but it's a rather famous one that's been around for almost a decade. Most people (including me) remember it for it's great Game Boy-style soundtrack, but it's still a simple but enjoyable little thing.

There's not a lot to say about this map. It shows the whole game along with the various restrictions that the god of the tower imposes on you. That's basically it.

I used a lot of connecting arrows in order to center all the main levels in the form of a tower, except for the last one which I moved to the side both because it takes place outside the tower *and* to make space for the map legend. A player with an eye for details will notice while playing that the graphics of the individual blocks and the positions of the dandelions will probably differ from my maps. That's because there's a bit of randomness; the blocks' positions are the same but their graphics are not. There's also a number of graphical artifacts that I kept in order to be faithful to the game, like the occasional light dot in a darker area that doesn't belong there, of there being nearly identical yet different shades of the same colour in the same map for the same tiles, which doesn't make sense. Anyway, enjoy!


84
Well, I've been using good old Paint (no .net here!) and yeah, that's pretty much what I've always done. I paste the screenshot in the canvas while zoomed in at the appropriate level, then I move it around until it's exactly where it needs to be. Considering that Paint doesn't have layers, that's not always easy and sometimes I have to change the "background" colour and the transparency mode in order to temporarily remove said colour to make the alignment easier. I sadly have no idea how to do it using  something more sophisticated like Paint.net or Photoshop :(.

85
Map Requests / Re: Oracle of Seasons: one missing map
« on: May 15, 2018, 10:38:59 pm »
I don't actually remember why I never mapped the Hero's Cave in this game. Then again, I remember being under a lot of self-imposed stress at the time, trying to keep up with Revned and probably obsessing over a whole bunch of meaningless details.

A few years back, I played with the idea of doing specific area maps that would include every seasonal variations and also every cave and building interiors. But then I got upset because the regions as they are defined on the minimap didn't fully correspond to how they are separated as separate seasons as you played, blah blah blah... Like for the first time, meaningless details.

I can't promise anything, but I'll try to get the Hero's Cave done over the next few weeks if you can wait that long. Thanks for the interest by the way!

86
Map Gab / Re: Lilly Looking Through (PC)
« on: April 13, 2018, 08:00:39 pm »
I also wanted to talk about how I mapped the whole thing "as close to perfectly as it could be" to quote myself.

You see, Lilly Looking Through is a game made in flash and the vast majority of its graphics are accessible from the get go. Basically, each of the ten areas has all of its static graphics laid out in one or two .png files; that includes the various background/middleground/foreground layers as well as every large and small static objects. This was great because the game uses a lot of alpha transparency across various layers, which would have been impossible to capture accurately while playing. I was basically able to reassemble every screen in GIMP from it's individual components, transparency and all, using the perfect source graphics instead of the very slightly altered version that Flash displays using subpixel rendering.

There were a bunch of animated effects that were trickier, like the animated reflection of the sun in the ocean that was partly hidden by several foreground objects. Thankfully, the game doesn't care if you edit or otherwise mess with its graphics files. So for the example above, I just went and deleted every graphic from the .png file except the ocean. When i got back to that area in the game, I could then see the background layer with the animated effects without any of the foreground objects in the way. I repeated that same process for every screen where a particular animation, lighting or color effect had to be captured in-game.

Hopefully, the result were worth the efforts.

87
Map Gab / Lilly Looking Through (PC)
« on: April 13, 2018, 06:47:57 pm »
Well, it's been a while since I've posted anything. More than a year in fact, and that wasn't even a full project, just two orphaned maps. But I never really stopped mapping you know; I just grew so obsessed with perfection that I became unable to live up to my unrealistic standards...

...or some stupid stuff like that.

Anyway, this single map has been a long time coming. I'd pretty much mapped the whole game as close to perfectly as it could be about two years ago, but then it all sat untouched until last week because I was never satisfied with my ideas for the overall presentation. Thankfully, I managed to get over that and it's at least functional if not that great-looking. It'll have to do.

Lilly Looking Through is a pretty small and somewhat unremarkable game. It's more or less a classic point-and-click adventure/puzzle game like those I used to play as a teenager, one where you have to "solve" the current area/screen before moving on to the next one. As a game, it's nothing great mind you; the puzzles are somewhat easy for the most part although they can get tedious, and there are some puzzles with color addition and subtraction that can get quite annoying if not outright frustrating toward the end. All in all, it's pretty short with only ten areas and the story, such as it is, is barely a prologue for something bigger that was never made.

HOWEVER, the game still manages to present an intriguing world through its visuals and ambient music, one I would have loved to explore further in a much longer sequel. The title of the game refers to the player's character, Lilly, finding a pair of magical goggles early on that, when worn, allows her to see but more importantly, to interact with her surroundings but in the past. What's more intriguing, you eventually realize that these past versions aren't all from the same time or era; in one location, you get to see it during the last ice age while in another, it's probably just the night before.

Here, then, is the whole thing in one single map :



DON'T save this one, as Imgur seems to convert any .png over 1 MB into a .jpg. I'll be sending JonLeung a link to the full quality file (~35 MB) as an official submission and you can grab that one then if you like.

88
Gaming / Re: A game about amusement park
« on: February 22, 2018, 05:36:18 am »
You're almost certainly talking about Theme Park right? Unfortunately, I never played it myself or any other simulation game aside from the original Sim City.

89
I gave the recently released Celeste a try and it really rekindled that passion for mapping I used to have. It also made me realize something: do you know what ended up slowly killing my interest in mapping?

Making clean, perfect-looking maps. Seriously, if it wasn't for my obsession with capturing or recreating all the layers of a map, getting all the sprites to use the right animation frame, recreating or outright removing transparencies and lighting effects, I would have fully mapped a dozen more games over the last few years.

Games like Fez, Shovel Knight, Shantae: Risky's Revenge, Celeste, Rain World, and probably a few more. I gave them all a try but without being a coding genius capable of extracting graphics and map data from a game's original files, it sometimes takes *forever* to assemble even one screen correctly (I'm up to about 7 hours to recreate a single, non-scrolling screen from Celeste AND I'M NOT EVEN FINISHED).

I don't know. Clean screenshot maps will always look best and they'll always be my preference, but I'm starting to feel like maybe I should just say "FUCK IT", grab a whole bunch of screenshots, do some very minimal editing (removing the player's sprite for example) and just post that. I mean, some mappers have already done that and sometimes, a "dirty" map is better than no map. I've already done three such maps for Celeste because I just loved that game and I really wanted to see full maps for it, but I've been really hesitant to actually post them. Looks like once again, I'll have to triumph over my worst enemy (i.e. me).

90
Maps Of The Month / Re: 2018/02: Sonic Mania (PC) - G.E.R.
« on: February 03, 2018, 10:29:46 pm »
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 :).

Pages: 1 ... 4 5 [6] 7 8 ... 155