Topic: Nosferatu (SNES) Mapping

[Robert_Chrystian]

Hello, guys, how are you?

I have to say first that I'm really impressed with the ton of effort all you guys put on those maps. I had a blast looking around, and I can only say "thank you"

Well, I'm new here, and I've entered the forums to ask if anyone could help me with the maps I'm making for Nosferatu (SNES, 1994). I'm kinda doing it the easiest way with screenshots, using the little knowledge I have. I have full Photoshop projects, with the BGs and sprites separated, and I think they're looking great, however, there are some inacessible places by gameplay only, and some corners I can't screenshot because there's no way to put the game camera on there by normal gameplay. I'm really a newbie when it comes to hacking and real sprites ripping, all I know is play with Paint and Photoshop + my knowledge about graphic layers, so I would really likeif anyone with experience could help me guiding me through some tool to rip what I can't screenshot.

Here's some examples of rooms that I've already finished, so you can look (they are printed screens, not the actual rip, so don't mind the scale). I'm kinda following the "complete game guide" way, so I'm indicating which items are in chests, with monsters drops items, numbered doors, etc. Hope someone can help me. Thank you!

Stage 1 (1)
Stage 1 (2)

[dark_lord_zagato@yahoo.co]

Hi Robert. If you're looking to get into places that are inaccessible during normal gameplay there are a few things you can try.

Making position modifier codes will usually do the trick. You just need an emulator with a code engine. Start your search, jump, and select less than previous value. Then fall back down and select greater than last value. Keep doing this until you have it narrowed down to a few possible codes. I've drawn a crude graph to illustrate where on the screen you can expect to find your character.



The great thing about axis position modifier codes is that if you get a vertical code you can set the value high, at say 10, and float in the air over anything that would distract you from mapping. I've already made Nosferatu codes for this. Screen orientation moves the screen itself. Player position moves your character. x256 pixels moves you an entire screen.

7E0069??   Horizontal Screen Orientation
7E006A??   Horizontal Screen Orientation x256
7E006B??   Vertical Screen Orientation
7E006C??   Vertical Screen Orientation x256
7E006D??   Horizontal Player Position
7E006E??   Horizontal Player Position x256
7E006F??   Vertical Player Position
7E0070??   Vertical Player Position x256


The hacking utility vSNES can also help you out sometimes. You can load up your savestate and pull map data out of it. It can disable layers and change the default background color to make ripping graphics easier. It can also flatten out a screen by killing the mode7 graphics. Depending on which game you're playing you might be able to take gigantic screenshots with it too.

http://www.zophar.net/utilities/snesutil/vsnes.html

Hope this helps.

[FlyingArmor]

Hey Robert. It's great to see new people contributing to video game cartography!

It's been about seven months since you have posted here, so I was wondering how far you've gotten with mapping this game? I'm curious because I've been watching a let's play of this game by the Japanese group "Ii Otona-tachi" for the past two months or so, seeing Taichou and Ossan die over and over again, and use up all their continues to get through all the levels on hard mode. I think I've made it up to part 42 and they've finally gotten to Nosferatu at the end of Level 6, though they didn't last long there.

Through watching their videos I got to see what a really amazing game Nosferatu is, so it'd be awesome to see your maps from that game make their way onto VGMaps. Those two maps you've shared thus far look great and I look forward to seeing the more complex level layouts found in later levels.