Topics

16

Gaming / SNES platform game character ratings

« on: September 30, 2011, 11:56:33 pm »

For no reason at all a couple of months ago I started a project to rate the skills of all SNES platform game characters.  I always wondered what it would be like to have a character from one game in another game since some characters seem to outperform others.  Wouldn't it be fun to select ANY character to play as in the game of your choice?  I came up with a basic rating system and so far I've gone through about 30 games.  I thought I'd post my results here for fun and to see if anybody disagrees with me.

My system:
Jumping is rated by
Jumping height, Jumping distance, Jumping control
Master jumpers can jump off screen or just fly.
Maneuverability is rated by
Speed, Turning, Weight
Super maneuvers should be able to land on a dime.
Offense is rated by
Attack Potential, Damage Inflicted, Attack Variety
Top killers can instantly destroy anything in front of them or everything on screen.
Defense is rated by
Damage Resistance, Special Evasion, Max HP
Tanks should be able to endure ridiculous damage without dying.
Versatility is rated by
Techniques, Shape Shifting, Environmental Exploits
Morphs never get stuck.

Here's a pic of the table I've been using.  I'll post the games I've already finished now and post more as I go through them.

17

Mapping Tips/Guides / Tips, Tricks, What the Hell's?

« on: June 23, 2011, 08:26:13 pm »

Thought I'd make simple a thread for asking how to get out of those little jams we all run into occasionally.

I'll start off with a couple; I began in on Super R Type and hit the wall right off the bat.  The first area starts with several screens of background and no foreground.  Of course background and foreground scroll at different speeds so I can't just take pics as I'm going along because I wouldn't get the measurements right.  Also there are no static items in the foreground to line up so I'm stuck being unable to accurately measure empty space.

Here's another one just for fun.  I've been playing DKC3 lately and as I go I've been absentmindedly sizing it up, mapping difficulty wise.  In the waterfall levels I noticed a cute animation trick that stretches the waterfall layer vertically from top to bottom.  The effect moves with you so it always looks like the water is speeding down faster and faster and I can't help wonder how different people would map this.  You could just stack the unstretched frames of waterfall and hope no one would notice or you could stretch starting at the top of the map.  It's a funny problem.

18

Maps In Progress / Any LOTR nerds here?

« on: April 25, 2011, 11:12:15 am »

I'm doing the SNES Lord of the Rings and while some areas in the game are clearly named many are not.  Does anybody know the appropriate names for all the various areas?

19

Maps In Progress / Speaking of raw parts

« on: March 27, 2011, 11:04:15 pm »

Recently Paco and I collaborated to map out Mystic Ark.  He made the raw maps and I marked them up.  It worked out really well and it made me think about all the unmarked maps I have on my site that I'll never get around to marking up.  So I decided to let everybody here take a crack at them.  VGMapper contributors get first dibs but here that's only Dark Wolf, Flying Armor, Paco, and Peardian.  If anybody's interested here's the list or all the games on VGMapper that I've made full sets of raw maps for:

Paco has called:
Final Fantasy Mystic Quest
Breath of Fire
Breath of Fire 2
Earthbound

Flying Armor has called:
Brain Lord

The other games I've made raw maps for:
Actraiser 2
Castlevania 4
Donkey Kong Country 2
Dragon View
Earthworm Jim 2
Hexen (N64)
Illusion of Gaia
Magna Braban
Magic Sword
Ogre Battle 64
Ogre Battle
On the Ball
Pitfall (SNES)
Rambo (NES)
Secret of Mana
Space Quest 3
Space Quest 4
Super Metroid
Ultima Runes of Virtue 2
Wizardry 8 (PC)

Paco adds to the list:
Lands Of Lore Guardians Of Destiny (PC)

20

VGMaps Social Board / I mapped us

« on: February 26, 2011, 12:00:40 am »

A friend looking over various mapping sites pointed out that VGMaps seemed to be largely platform games.  To test that I took a small census that led to a larger census that led to a great big census.  It's not perfect but it gives you an idea of the site make up.   The -#- numbers are numbers of games mapped not numbers of maps.

games mapped by genera
Sports - 16
Racing - 24
Beat em ups - 56
Fighting - 69
Shooters - 120
Puzzles - 167
RPGs - 323
Platformers - 425

-1-
!cks
5th_Horseman
a a
A. Lurker
Abster
Alexander Landgren
Amir Azadur
any
ArmoredFrog
Atlasvic
BanjoSonic
Bergles
bkc
Blublu
Bob Nimbe
Calle Lindholm
carl27
ckb
CLon@
Colin Fredericks
creaothceann
Daganisoraan
DANoWAR
Dark Pho
Dave
Dermot Mac Flannchaidh
DIN1031
Dia Scott
Dirk Diggler
DMorgan
DoMas
DvD
Eggie
Eggz
Ericloux
Ernest Garner
Fearnavigatr
Felix
feos
FirebrandX
fusoya
George s
gocha
Gorha
Goucher
Greippi
grl
Halamantariel
Hexa Typhlosion
Ian Albert
Ian Watkins
Intanos VI
Iron Knuckle
Jack Shackington
Jesse Long
Jordan Mepham
Joshua McQueary
Jyouiisan
Kapow
Kamui no Miko
Ken
Kuwaga
KValentine
Leonardo
Loquo
Luchsen
maquiladora
Marianne
Monfriez .sprite
MonkeyBob
murphy341
Nat
Ng Yeow Leong
Patrick Bierans
Pikachu025
Pulverized2000
Raccoon Sam
Ray Kremer
RealSim
Reidex
Rick Philips
Rob Budrick
rocktyt
rouken
SadisticMystic
SamsGFX
Sander de Long
ScruffyDeluxe
sharks
Shiru
Slick Racer
Smokey_
Spinjump
Stakkato
The Kins
Thoman "Igni Ferroque" Conner
Thundard
Tim
TraceTheKriken
Trembor Almasy
Troy Lundin
Tursi
Tygrus
Tymbrimi
ventuz
Vincent

-2-
Alex Foster
Alex Gabbott
anon
Anthony Lin
AstroBlue
Bradley Higgins
Brian Varvaro
Bucky
Carl Heitman
Cave
Edsword
Ghaleon
Ismaddict
Jester
LitCandle
magicbay
Najuc Riovelo
Numbuh4
Optimega
Radblast
Sylx
Tempest Of Shadows
Timothey1979
Ultimecia
Wario Bros.
zerofighter

-3-
573w3
BuckyB
Chriska
Detonator300
FlyingArmor
Kennel
Lord RM
Matis Casco
Mike007
Narasumas
PuyoDead
Ryan Ferneau
Ultragm2003
Wileee
WKSchraff

-4-
De Vol
Frank15
J. J. Max
JMTL
Locke gb7
Mikemc
rocktyt
TenguMan
Vorpal86
zagato blackfist

-5-
Cybergamba
King-Hyrule
MagnetiC
mephea
The Ultimate Koopa

-6-
Andrew Rae
Jaromaru

-7-
KindarSpirit
Osrevad
sprays

-8-
Chisam
Mikeisguder
xyzbilliu
Zander Zoftware

-9-
Assassin
Dammit 9x
Sys SixtyFour

-10-
Gennadiy Master
Piranhaplant
RT-55J

-11-
S&F Prod.
Star Fighters

-12-
Grizzly
sonyball

-15-
Dan_
Paco
Tropicon

-16-
Captain Drake
Stefan Mahrla

-17-
ReyVGM

-18-
Peardian

-20-
X GOD

-21-
Zeric

-22-
JonLeung

-24-
LDK

-26-
Revned

-28-
Maxim
TerraEsperZ 28

-29-
KingKuros

-31-
RyuMaster

-33-
Fabio Albergaria

-34-
Geminiman

-43-
DarkWolf

-47-
Rick Burns

-272-
Will Mallia


I didn't count games that were credited to a .com because I didn't know if they were made by just one person, and I didn't count anything that wasn't an image, like video.

21

VGMaps Social Board / I've always wondered how legal we all are.

« on: November 27, 2010, 08:06:22 pm »

http://dwellonit.taterunino.net/2010/11/26/derived-works-and-franchises/

Do you think this applies to reproductions?  I know parodies are protected but other then that you could very well take down the whole video game related side of the internet.

22

Mapping Tips/Guides / Sprite extraction

« on: September 25, 2010, 10:13:48 am »

I'm having a little difficulty getting a sprite that's sitting behind a water transparency.  The transparency is discoloring the sprite in both regular screenshots and in the tools I'm using (piken soft stuff).  Anybody have any suggestions or tool recommendations?

23

Map Gab / Game Saves

« on: September 05, 2010, 11:21:00 pm »

I forgot I had this until Jon asked for those Metroid M saves.  There's an invisible part of my site set up just for holding all kinds of game saves to make future mapping faster and easier.

http://www.vgmapper.com/Tank.php

Right now it only has my stuff but anyone is free to use it to store their saves too.  If you want to add stuff just download one of the files already there to see how to name your saves then email me the saves, and maybe a title screen, and I'll put them up.

24

Map Gab / Jon I can't get these maps through to you through crappy hotmail

« on: June 14, 2010, 04:01:40 pm »

So I'm posting them here instead.

Actraiser 2
Here are all the Actraiser 2 maps.  I posted both transparency and non transparency versions in case you wanted one, the other, or both.  Magic Bay can't say I never did anything for him.

Wizardry 8
And I wanted to post these on your site but in their original size they were too big.  At full size the biggest is over 60000kb and more the 10000 pixels in both directions.  So I shrunk them all by half and here they are.  But hey they still look good, and for once you have stuff from me that doesn't appear on my site too.  Fun game by the way, if it is impossible hard.