Hi everyone, I'm the guy who made the new Solstice map. I wish I would have been able to talk here sooner, but I had problems registering on the forums. The system kept telling me that "I was a spam", falsely, and I ultimately had to get Mr. Leung to create an account for me. He did it Tuesday actually, but I've been delayed by external events since then.
So, first, I'd like to say that I'm glad to hear good words from you people. Namely:
TerraEsperZ, I know you are an excellent mapper and you deserve my respect for these Solstice prototypes you posted 2 years ago. In fact, I am impressed by what you managed to do using only a raster graphics editor. I am kind of sorry I obsoleted your work, but I feel better now that you said that you are "far from sad". Also, that I managed to do more than what you hoped to do with your map makes me somewhat proud. Thank you.
Peardian, I saw what you did with Ocarina of Time and Super Mario RPG; your technical prowess is sound. To me, your good comments mean even more because they come from you. So, thank you as well.
and Mr. Leung, you told me by email that it was an "awesome submission". I know you have a lot you can compare with, so I humbly and gladly take your word for it.
Now, I'd like to say a few words about my approach.
Back in March 2005, I wondered why no isometric maps of Solstice existed. So I decided to give it a go and, to be honest, I failed (and understood why no isometric map existed
). I had just too many difficulties, especially with the inconsistent height of the game and rooms above others. Also, fitting it together was a puzzle incredibly too time-consuming. TerraEsperZ knows what I'm talking about because he is stuck like I was back then. (He did make it much further though).
I had mostly forgotten about this project until recently when a series of events led me to trying again. And with new scholarship and new software knowledge I acquired over the years, I knew that a Solstice map might have been possible. Actually, as you just saw by yourselves, I did manage to be successful this time.
What made this map possible is a vector editing software: Inkscape. Everything being "objets" makes the whole thing much easier to manage. My source file contains the equivalent of 1519 layers (because each object works like a layer). By grouping objects by rooms, I had 382 groups of objects (252 rooms + other elements). (I attached a small outline view of the map to show this.) Using an axonometric grid superimposed with a pixel grid and object snapping I was able to quickly iterate on the position of rooms. Also, with the translation tool, I could enter integer pixel values to move groups of rooms in certain directions.
I estimate the total amount of time it took to over 200 hours.
- ¼ to rip rooms from the game and draw transparency (because not all black should be transparent!).
- ¼ to arrange rooms in the densest configuration.
- ¼ for annotations and shadows.
- and ¼ for the rest (compass rose, item list, legend, area names and credits).
In this regard, if someone thinks it could be useful, I might make a small tutorial for similar maps.
One of the things I like about Solstice is how, after entering a room, you can understand how to solve it just by looking at it. I wanted my map to allow this too, but you lose temporal and gameplay information by taking frozen screenshots. So, I've put a lot of care into annotations so you know what exactly will happen in each room. The presence of such information improves the usefulness of this map a lot.
That's about what I wanted to say for now. I'll say a word about Equinox to conclude since you ask.
As much as Solstice is an excellent game, Equinox ruins everything about it. I hate Equinox as much as I love Solstice. In Equinox, your character moves painfully slow, the camera is too close, there is no in-game minimap, they abused the perspective so that way too many objects are hidden behind others, the perspective is sometimes impossible to understand and that makes jumps pure trial and error, some doors (not secrets, doors that are necessary to progress!) are invisible and you need to hug every wall to hope to find them, conveyor belts don't have a specific graphic so you never know when a block will move you and in which direction (at least Solstice shows an axis), conveyor belts are much faster it's almost unfair, jumps are often near impossible, combat is somewhat fun actually but farming bats in later areas gets really boring, your character moves too slowly to be able to react in boss battles so you have to learn their patterns by trial and error, beside a few tracks the music is generally much less memorable than Solstice (especially the EPIC 3min intro Solstice has), and if you thought Solstice was hard then you should know that Equinox is -frustratingly- hard...
For all the perspective problems, I have no idea how to make a map of Equinox look good. So I won't try at this time. Feel free to do it, but my opinion is that Equinox doesn't deserve to be immortalized with a map.
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. Converting takes time and is probably inefficient. I think you should have finished your current project with your current tools and learned GIMP later.
. GIMP does some of the functionality Inkscape/Fireworks does as well, so you can do fine using only GIMP, but you may add Inkscape/Fireworks to the mix in the future.
. What makes a map stand out is the little extras like the next stage criteria you included in your Little Samson maps. This shows how the finishing touch is very important. I think you understand.