Recent Posts

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Gaming / Which retro games do you find the hardest to map without using tools?

« Last post by sophia2005 on September 03, 2025, 04:04:42 am »

Hey everyone on VGMaps! I'm really curious about your experiences with creating maps for retro games, especially on systems like NES, SNES, or Sega Genesis. Which game do you think is the toughest to map out by hand without using tools like emulators or screenshots? Maybe it’s due to complex maze designs, continuous scrolling, or hidden elements that are hard to track down? Share your stories and how you tackled (or didn’t tackle) the challenge! I think this could spark some great discussions for those of us who love game mapping. 😄

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VGMaps Social Board / Re: Sonic 3 Unlocked, Act Transitions, A Blog Series

« Last post by universalkelp on September 03, 2025, 12:40:43 am »

There may be a load of technical talk here, but I came across an interesting blog series about the depths of how Sonic the Hedgehog 3's coding works, its very interesting details about its coding operations, some oddities, and more of all, the knowledge of how Sonic 3's stage segue from one to another!

The series on that blog, Sonic 3 Unlocked, centers on how Sonic 3's acts instantly segue from Act 1 to Act 2 in a Zone, then to the next Zone via in-game scenes after the stage score tally finishes, the likes of which was from Sonic 1 did so at Scrap Brain Act 2's ending after finishing that act, where the game segues from the results to an in-game scene showing Dr. Robotnik sending Sonic to Act 3, but entirely expanded to encompass the WHOLE GAME, WITHOUT each Zone's Acts fading out and in from one to another.

It's all from the whole game, including its split halves.

For those that don't know what the word "Segue" means, and its applicable to video games, it means to make a transition directly from one section to another. Ergo, finish one level, instantly continue to another without fade-outs.

I was completely AMAZED about how that game managed to pull off such seguing within the Genesis' capabilities! Made me think at times, "Why can't other games like Sonic 3 do that kind of thing?". That kind of thing didn't happen for YEARS, until Freedom Planet later on, which its stage structure followed Sonic 3's act seguing formula, before it got slightly modified as it changed from a Sonic fangame to an indie game, and Sonic Mania would resume it suitably.

The coding was all done by Assembly, mind you. And, I'm kinda sure that kind of stage-to-stage segue coding was replicated into other programming languages, if I could only know how to adapt that kind of thing into said languages.

Well, Sonic 3 Complete's fixes did take care of very minor inconsistencies from music placement in select Acts & such, but still...

It's divided into eight posts, starting from August 28 2017, and ended on September 6 2017. They cover everything on how the Act transitions work, including how Icecap's maps instantly segue to the next before facing the miniboss, Big Icedus, there. I'm sure those who may be interested in seeing the inner workings of its coding.

Here they are, from Sonic 3 Unlocked's blog posts...

Act Transitions Part 1: The Beginning - https://s3unlocked.blogspot.com/2017/08/act-transitions-part-1.html bloodmoney
Act Transitions Part 2: Angel Island Zone - https://s3unlocked.blogspot.com/2017/08/act-transitions-part-2-angel-island-zone.html
Act Transitions Part 3: Icecap Zone - https://s3unlocked.blogspot.com/2017/08/act-transitions-part-3-icecap-zone.html
Act Transitions Part 4: Whither Offset? - https://s3unlocked.blogspot.com/2017/08/act-transitions-part-4-whither-offset.html
Act Transitions Part 5: Horizontal Underflow - https://s3unlocked.blogspot.com/2017/09/act-transitions-part-5-horizontal.html
Act Transitions Part 6: Deferred Execution - https://s3unlocked.blogspot.com/2017/09/act-transitions-part-6-deferred.html
Act Transitions Part 7: Putting it Together - https://s3unlocked.blogspot.com/2017/09/act-transitions-part-7-putting-it.html
Act Transitions Part 8 (FINALE): Sandopolis Zone - https://s3unlocked.blogspot.com/2017/09/act-transitions-part-8-sandopolis-zone.html

That kind of coding knowledge can be useful when re-adapted to other languages for games that may need that kind of seamless seguing in stages, even their maps.

And it felt too good not to share this with the rest of the VGMaps community, even those that may be thinking of seamlessly making maps from one stage to another for their games... so, I needed to, and did.

Drop by sometime, and give it a good look! You may find this very amazing and interesting to know the process and how you could use that kind of knowledge for those into level designing and more.

Thanks for sharing, the Sonic 3 Unlocked series is a fascinating deep dive into how the game achieved seamless stage transitions on the Genesis, and it’s a great resource for anyone interested in game coding or level design.

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Maps Of The Month / Re: 2025/09: SOS (Super NES) - Tropicon

« Last post by Cyartog959 on September 02, 2025, 01:15:04 pm »

Yeah, it is rather a bit disappointing for the PS1 sequel not to be globally launched.

I would like to say this. That SNES game is one of the few, if any, that uses all of Mode 0's 4 available background layers, because it wasn't used more often due to its limited capabilities, compared to other games using other modes, even Mode 7.

Makes you wonder how and why many SNES games' backgrounds in many stages appear to be vertically static in place while they move horizontally, not doing both at once.

A bit disappointing that we don't see many SNES games use Mode 0 to utilize its 4 layers at the time.

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Maps Of The Month / Re: 2025/09: SOS (Super NES) - Tropicon

« Last post by VGCartography on September 02, 2025, 06:48:32 am »

I've only played this one a little bit, looks like a stairs labyrinth! I was surprised to see recently it also got a PS1 sequel. I don't think it was officially translated but it got a fan translation not long ago. Moves from 2D to 3D so I'm not sure how similar.

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Gaming / Re: Silksong's Launch is Nigh! Excited?

« Last post by VGCartography on September 02, 2025, 06:45:30 am »

Pretty excited to see what TC has cooked up. Even if it's more of the same, HK was one of my favorite metroidvanias. Only thing I'm dreading is how difficult the optional lategame stuff will be, based on some of HK's insane challenges...

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VGMaps Social Board / Re: YouTube channel! (JonLeung1)

« Last post by JonLeung on September 01, 2025, 08:29:15 pm »

I know I need to get back to making the kind of videos I usually do, but I couldn't help but throw together this quickie.

It's an amusing take on the Mega Man 2 Robot Masters, if they were human.

Remember to give a thumbs up if you like it, and then share it with your friends, and subscribe!  It's what keeps my channel going.

Thanks!

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Maps Of The Month / 2025/09: SOS (Super NES) - Tropicon

« Last post by JonLeung on August 31, 2025, 09:22:32 pm »

SOS

For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to Tropicon's SOS (Super NES) maps.

On the evening of September 13, 1921, a passenger ship called "The Lady Crithania" capsizes during a storm off the coast of England. Among the 2300 people on board are the four playable characters of this adventure: architect Capris Wisher, counselor Redwin Gardner, Dr. Jeffrey Howell, and crewman Luke Haines.  After the capsize, they have one hour to escape the upside-down and labyrinthine ship.

Inspired by the book and film, "The Poseidon Adventure", the game even presents itself as "a Syuji Yoshida film" in its opening credits. Known in Japan as "Septentrion" and not to be confused with another Super NES game called "S.O.S: Sink Or Swim", SOS certainly is quite different than most Super NES games with its dire premise, its serious tone, and its time limit.  It is certainly daunting, with each injury costing you five minutes, and the challenge of having to save many others along the way. The four characters each have a different story, and their endings are not only dependent on the number of passengers they save, but if that includes people that are close to them (such as Capris's stepsister, Amy or Dr. Howell's wife, Adela).

Tropicon has mapped The Lady Crithania thoroughly in three different forms. There's a version where the ship is upright at the start (which is pretty impressive, considering that it doesn't stay that way for long) and two capsized versions, both marked and unmarked.  With only sixty minutes to make your way out, these maps will certainly be of help when planning a route and deciding who to save.

So to recognize the effort put into mapping this underrated survival adventure, Tropicon's SOS (Super NES) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for September 2025.

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Gaming / Silksong's Launch is Nigh! Excited?

« Last post by Cyartog959 on August 31, 2025, 03:09:03 am »

Well, the launch of "Hollow Knight: Silksong" is only days away, and loads of people are really itching to venture through all of Pharloom with Hornet taking the reins as the main heroine in the sequel to "Hollow Knight".

I'm just really glad Team Cherry's able to put the brakes on delaying the game again and again while working in absolute silence, after so long. Complete lack of communication really hurt so many people eager for at least a few updates on its progress.

What previously started as a planned campaign after backer funding, it went into becoming a whole game in itself, because of its increased size, scope, and length. Team Cherry's minimal staff creating a far larger world compared to the previous did also contribute to said delays, but, out of my opinion, they could have, and perhaps, probably would have, avoided much of it if a few more people were brought onboard to help out and guarantee a more sooner launch date, but their choice for doing all that solo dev work is their choice. Not pinning any blame, though.

Team Cherry's got talent, but more people may be necessary for their later projects. Just saying.

Hollow Knight's come quite far, and despite the long wait for Silksong, people are really thrilled to play that game and enjoy so many additions, not to mention exploring a more bigger map than Hallownest's.

With this, of course, the process of mapping all of Pharloom will once again be done by the one mapper that did Hallownest's, Theembracedone. I'm sure those of you in the VGMaps community remember, as well as the praise Team Cherry gave for it.

However, as much as Theembracedone would really have the honor of mapping it with the same tools and programs to do it, I feel it may be on wait, due to that mapper being occupied with work on the choice-making, mystery, mature horror-induced, visual novel, "Where Birds Go To Sleep".

That is not to say Theembracedone has to do it alone this time. Any mapper, if willing, can feel free to contribute to the process, so it would be done in less than years' time. I do commend that mapper doing Hallownest, but a little help now and then is needed, and given the increased size of Pharloom's map, that may be a necessary requirement. The more volunteers, the better, I say.

Who's looking forward to playing it, as I am on the former, and mapping Pharloom, if any for the latter, may volunteer to it?

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Maps In Progress / Re: VGCartography - getting to work on PS1 maps!

« Last post by Cyartog959 on August 27, 2025, 03:33:18 pm »

Really neat that you're getting to other PS1 games that are in need of mapping, even if those have been other platforms and PC.

You're certainly trying to go a bit widespread on many games, even "Ape Escape", "Crash Bandicoot" games, and even "Toy Story 2". Well, no matter what, can't wait to see loads of them mapped!

Wonder how huge or long MDK's maps were at the time before MDK2?

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Map Requests / Re: List of unmapped NES games

« Last post by Cyartog959 on August 25, 2025, 10:57:20 pm »

I think it's possible to speed up the our NES-mapping process by using Cheat Engine codes, this is my method which I use rip 2D-maps (usually).
First need to find values for X/Y player position and set hotkeys somethink like this:

Code: [Select]

[i]Presskey "DEL" decreased X_pos value by 160 pixels
Presskey "PG DOWN" increased X_pos value by 160 pixels
Presskey "HOME" decreased Y_pos value by 100 pixels
Presskey "END" increased Y_pos value by 100 pixels
Presskey "INS" freeze X_pos and Y_pos
Presskey "PG UP" unfreeze X_pos and Y_pos[/i]Then find values for player health/weapon ect and freeze them. This will give free movement on levels without player hit.
Maybe it can be usefull for some difficulties/problem games?

A good solution for those shedding time on doing NES maps. Wonder if other platforms besides NES use same or different methods for free movement on stages without damages/map changing/event triggers in their games' coding by reaching certain one/two-way entry/exit points in them to guarantee more familiarly efficient mapping via Cheat Engine. Is it the same as what you explained, or quite different on others?