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Maps Of The Month / Re: 2024/03: Alone In The Dark (PC) - VGCartography

« Last post by VGCartography on March 04, 2024, 08:53:16 am »

Thanks much all!

This game also has a special place for me, we had the floppy disks and the big manual and a tiny flipbook you had to use to pass the anti-cheat system where you looked up which object was on a random page. The low-res shapes and polygons made some of the creatures even more unknowable and weird, love how goofy yet sinister they are/move.

I'm not much for drawing without heavy reference material, so I used the game screenshots & tigrouind's AITD-roomviewer to extract 3d models of the actual collision in each room (basically uber-simple cubes) to get scale and layout accurate. I've been doing a similar map for RE1, hope to wrap that up pretty soon.

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Mapping Tips/Guides / Re: Screenshot Autostitcher

« Last post by feos on March 03, 2024, 05:55:39 am »

Can't get it to work with video anymore in 64-bit Windows 7 or 10. Had to export the video into an image sequence. Otherwise it can't advance through the video itself, lossless or uncompressed.

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Maps Of The Month / Re: 2024/03: Alone In The Dark (PC) - VGCartography

« Last post by TerraEsperZ on February 29, 2024, 09:44:45 pm »

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!

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Maps Of The Month / 2024/03: Alone In The Dark (PC) - VGCartography

« Last post by JonLeung on February 29, 2024, 09:00:03 pm »

Alone In The Dark

For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to VGCartography's Alone In The Dark (PC) maps.

In 1924, Jeremy Hartwood, the owner of the mysterious Derceto Manor, dies by apparent suicide.  His niece, Emily Hartwood, believes a piano in the attic of the mansion has a clue to her uncle's death, while a private investigator, Edward Carnby, is asked to procure the piano for an antique dealer.  You choose to play as either character and, upon entering the mansion, you find yourself trapped inside.  As you look for a way out, you will learn of the evil that inhabits this place, and how the world at large might also be dependent on your survival.

Alone In The Dark is significant in gaming history.  It is often cited as the first 3D survival horror game and one of the best games ever made.  A remake is coming out this month, with Hollywood talent Jodie Comer and David Harbour.  The original game's legacy includes being an influence on the Resident Evil series, whose director, Shinji Mikami, has said that the first Resident Evil game might have had a first-person perspective, if not for Alone In The Dark and its fixed camera angles.

Indeed, the fixed camera may have been due to technical limitations, but also allowed for scenes to be framed in intentional ways to build tension.  Games with such a look make for interesting "maps" and, thanks to VGCartography, who is quite skilled at his craft (and we love his craft!), we not only have all the screens you may see, but also hand-drawn interpretations of the Derceto Manor and the Underground Maze below.  These original diagrams serve well as actual maps and require artistic and interpretive skills beyond taking screenshots.  These maps that are both "original" and "ripped" are a feast for the eyes, and are quite helpful if you ever find yourself... alone in the dark (in Derceto Manor).  Great job, VGCartography!

So to recognize the effort put into mapping this landmark horror classic, VGCartography's Alone In The Dark (PC) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for March 2024.

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Map Requests / Re: JonLeung's Requests

« Last post by JonLeung on February 24, 2024, 04:02:58 pm »

zagato blackfist has awesomely fulfilled a long-standing request of mine, maps for the totally rad NES game, Totally Rad!

Also as requested, the cutscenes with all the dialogue are included, because it's way cool slang that is essential to its whole vibe.  No mention of Totally Rad can go without referring to its bodacious text!  No duh, am I right?  But colour-coding the text is a really dope choice I hadn't thought of; wicked!

The game came out in 1991, and I made maps for it in 2005 before giving up on it.  That's 14 years.  I'd said a few times that I probably wouldn't get around to it, but that it would still be nice to see it mapped.  Then, 19 years after that, it finally has!  Still surprised it took so long (as the game is totally decent), but in any case, it's all done now!  Gnarly!  Tubular!  Awesome!  Way Cool!  ...And other such '80s/'90s surfer/valley girl slang.

Thanks yet again for fulfilling a request, zagato!

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Maps In Progress / Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future

« Last post by FlyingArmor on February 20, 2024, 08:19:01 pm »

Excited to see DQ6, appreciate all the effort!

Thanks! I'm excited to share them. Just got something like 25 more areas left to map before I begin labelling them up.

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Maps In Progress / Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future

« Last post by VGCartography on February 20, 2024, 07:16:12 am »

Excited to see DQ6, appreciate all the effort!

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Map Requests / Re: Xenopods Pc Game

« Last post by wordyrhyme on February 19, 2024, 07:51:16 pm »

Has anyone found a way to convert yet?

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Map Gab / The mini map of Link to the Past, but the palettes are swapped

« Last post by dark_lord_zagato@yahoo.co on February 18, 2024, 03:38:01 pm »

So recently I was recording some scenes from LttP for my youtube channel, which is mostly just game hacking, modification, and research. I had the idea to enable the use of the flute in the Dark World, and after trying many different cheat codes I finally discovered a way to do this. The game rewarded me with a mini map that was physically still the Light World, but with the same color palette as the Dark World.

Since I was successful, I decided to take a screenshot of this. I also decided I wanted to compare it side by side with the normal Light World map. Instead of using the flute again though, I just went back to the Light World and pressed X because I thought it would be the same map. That's when I noticed there are subtle differences...

On the left is a screenshot of the LW map you get from using the flute, but with the sprites turned off. On the right is a screenshot of the LW map you get from pressing X. If you open one of these up in paint and paste the other one of top of it, then hold ctrl and start tapping the z and y keys, you will see how these are different.


---

I sat there scratching my head for a few days when I finally realized what was going on. Mode 7. I tried this again in ZSNES and got my screenshots from vSNES, and the maps are identical whether they come from the flute screen or the X button. I suppose the orientation must be slightly different in game. I kind of suspected they looked different when I was playing this back in the 90s but I had no real way of comparing them back then.

Just for fun i'll share the screenshot of the LW map with the DW palette below, and also my more recent mode 7 rips of both worlds with and without their palettes swapped.

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VGMaps Social Board / Re: Trying to complete my Super NES music collection...

« Last post by JonLeung on February 17, 2024, 10:17:37 am »

As you can see, I finally released my "One Minute of Music from EVERY SNES Game (US & Canada)" video!  This is why I needed the music.