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That's a solution to a different problem than the one I was having. The print screen function works fine. It's just a pain to access on this laptop-keyboard.

I did a bit more searching around, and I found a workable solution. I found the program AutoHotKey, which can make customized hotkeys based off of scripts. After a bit of searching through the documentation/forums, I was able to get what I wanted:

Code Select Expand

CapsLock:: Send {Alt Down}{PrintScreen}{Alt Up}

Now, whenever I have the script active, pressing capslock takes a picture of the active window. This is much more convenient than pressing three keys at different parts of the keyboard.

Right now my current computer is a laptop. Like many laptops, it has a bit of a cramped keyboard. In my case, the print-screen key doesn't properly exist. To print screen, I have to press [FN]+Home, which are pretty much on opposite ends of the keyboard. In cases of twitch-action games outside of emulators, this ends up being quite cumbersome. How can I change this to something less annoying, like caps lock or something? (I'm using Windows 7.)

[Shatterhand]

When the NES is cool, it's really cool.

Shatterhand
High-octane side-scrolling punching action assembled with deadbolt precision and ingenuity. "Serious fun" was Natsume's slogan back in the day, and they really meant it here. Your bare fists provide you with a rather short range, which is never really improved upon, so really have to hone your reflexes. The game does provide upgrades to give you a flying robot buddy to dish out some additional damage. There are 8 different possible helpers, and they are all cool. Overall, it's unrelentingly difficult (I've never beaten it), but I feel that it always plays perfectly fair with you. Even nowadays, I don't think that many action games, of any genre, are as well put together as this is.

tl;dr - It's a game where you can block bullets by punching them. Also, killer graphics, awesome sound.

The Guardian Legend
This is my nostalgia choice. It's a hybrid of a vertical shoot-em-up and overhead Zelda thingy. The overhead sections aren't amazing, but they get the job done and provide a heavy dose of atmosphere. The shmup sections are amazing. Compile knew how to push obscene amounts of sprite flicker out of the system. It's completely frenetic and chaotic and it's brilliant. Crazy weapons (lightsabers!), enemies, and bosses; also, a lifebar. Call me a wuss, but I tend to like shooters with a life bar better (Contra exempted).

For the longest time the game absolutely confused me. I never had any idea what anywhere after the intro stage, the passwords didn't make any sense, and it just seemed like a slipshod game. Then, one day, I had an epiphany and everything just clicked. The weird passwords? All those umlats are there to help you not get capitals and lowercase letters mixed up. Where to go? Just look on the map on go to the blinking dots, and explore at your leisure. After I figured that all out, I managed to complete the game over the course of the next week or so. To date, it is the only NES game that I've completed on the original hardware.

Super Mario Bros. 3
Like The Guardian Legend, this is another game which I enjoyed on a surface level for quite some time, but was never able to get very far into it until some neurons clicked. One evening I was playing with my younger brother (I was player 2), and we stayed up playing through the game without any warp whistles. I recalled that he stopped playing somewhere around the 3rd or 4th world, but I kept on trucking forward until 3 or 4 in the morning when I finally beat the danged thing (as Luigi ). Throughout the entire experience, I was amazed by the sheer breadth of high-quality game design that I always missed out on because I had always warped to World 8.

Other favorites that I really just have to list off because:
Zen: Intergalactic Ninja (Konami's last A-list NES game imo)
Zelda 2 (incredible swordplay. better than Zelda 1 overall)
Mega Man 2, 5
SMB2j (the Lost Levels)
River City Ransom
BATMAN
Summer Carnival '92 - Recca
Gimmick!
Donkey Kong Jr. (inexplicable nostalgia, perhaps, but seriously the game needs a DK '94 style reiteration)
Balloon Fight (pretty much the best part of Animal Crossing)
Metroid (it's a love-hate relationship)
Metal Storm
Vice: Project Doom
Solar Jetman (best cave-flier on the NES, pretty much by default)
Contra/Super C
Yume Penguin Monogatari (just for sheer silliness)

This whole situation is like one of the most pathetic things ever.

I might have considered adding enemies, but unlike Contra most of the enemies move (in Contra most all of the moving enemies are infinitely respawning with no proper placement). Also, I don't have any cool emulator tools like frame advance.

Next stage:

Volcano Man


The only thing missing is the boss's artwork from the credits.

[Stages - Progress]

The game is availible here. It's a very well done Mega Man homage. I've always had the desire to map a Mega Man game, so I figured that this would be close enough to satisfy that particular itch.

Progress:
Hockey Man




Stages - Progress
Hockey Man - v1.0
Volcano Man - v1.0
Jet Man - v1.0
Rolling Man - v1.0
Forest Man - v1.0
Lightning Man - v1.1
Dr. Mad Stage 1 - 40%
Dr. Mad Stage 2 - 40%
Dr. Mad Stage 3 - 80%
Dr. Mad Stage 4 - 80%

Update: All areas of Level 1 have been finished. Thankfully, these areas were merciful enough to not have any crazy raster effects, so they were quite manageable.

New Maps:
- Gem Expo
- Warehouse
- Moving Trucks

About six months ago I submitted a map of the the first part of the second stage because I thought I was going to be gone for 24 months doing mormon missionary stuff (and yes I forgot to tell you guys ), but then I got punched in the face, so I guess that I have nothing better to do than make maps while I recuperate over the next few weeks.

This game is a pretty swank, demoscene-ish Gunstar Heroes clone, except they decided to ruin it with some absolutely terrible pacing. Most of the stages are just the same demoscene-y background repeated ad nauseum, without the slightest variation in level design. This renders much of the game unmappable or entirely pointless to map (the last stage being the worst offender), which is good since it reduces my workload.

Anyways, to start off the thread, here's a map of Stage 1-1. Unlike the rest of the stages that center themselves over a demoscene effect, this one has to gall to provide a reasonable bit of variation, so I felt compelled to map it. Fortunately, it was surprisingly doable it wrangle it into something presentable.

Level 1 - Happy Birthday to Me!
- Gotham by Night
- Gem Expo
- Warehouse
- Moving Trucks

Level 2 - A Two-Sided Story
- Zeppelin Loading Dock
- Zeppelin

Level 3 - Tea Time
- Dark Studio??
- Mushrooms

Level 4 - Snow in July?
- Nothing mapworthy

When at college this winter (unable to access this site), I mapped most of this game. I was considering submitting them, but there were some errors, omissions, and other minor things that I didn't have the time/motivation to fix. Of particular note was the leftmost column of 8x8 tiles, which I had to reconstruct by hand thanks to how the game works (not even FCEUX's awesome nametable-viewer was able to save me there). The tower stage suffered the most because of this.

The maps:
Toxic Factory
Oil-Rig
Acid Rain Forest

Save Jeremy (Tower)
Cave Stage
Final Stages

I'll probably finish them eventually, since I think they're nicer than the current set of maps on the site (no offense, feos).

[Ufouria]

I finished Ufouria (NES) recently. It's a game I'd absolutely would love to love, but just can't. Yes, it's very solidly constructed and the cutest thing ever, but that just makes it's flaws all the more irksome.

Also for the NES, I've played Street Fighter 2010, James Bond Jr., and Vice: Project Doom, all of which I quit at the last level. SF2010 is probably one of my favorite NES games now (despite (or because of) it's glaring flaws), and I think the latter two would make for some excellent mapping material.

Right now, I'm playing through Shatterhand, and it's really good.

I always get lost in Kid Icarus, and seeing the sheer number of rooms the player didn't even visit, it's no wonder. I'd be lost for hours there, maybe even days.

Best way to not get lost: Make your own map!

(Inspired by a thread on another forum.)

Maps are fun to look at, which means they make for great wallpapers.

(More elaborate opening post pending. Sleep comes first.)

Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers - Overworld
Marble Madness - Stage 1

Provided the background doesn't share any colors with the foreground, just leave the background enabled in all your screenshots. You can then individually replace all of the colors in the background with some sort of "magic pink".

[Castlevania: Harmony of Despair]

Non-Nintendo games I'm looking forward to:

Castlevania: Harmony of Despair looks like a playable screenshot map.
Contra 3DS was only announced, but that's good enough for me.
El Shaddai: The Ascension of Metatron is a quasi-religious platformer/beat-em-up from some creative talents behind Viewtiful Joe (the shaders @_@)
Hard Corps: Uprising is a spiritual successor to Contra: Hard Corps being developed by Arc System Works (Guilty Gear, BlazBlue, etc.)
Sonic Colors looks like it might defy all odds and not suck.

The Last Story and Xenoblade were the most disappointing no-shows.

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