Messages

I felt I should share a quaint, NES-esque game series from an indie studio stationed in Brazil, Galope Studios' Ravva.

Oh. I think not many of you in the VGMaps community heard of that fantasy-based platformer game series. Well, I'll give you the rundown and the word-of-mouth spreading about that.

It stars a young owl summoner, named Ravva, who is accompanied by 4 familiar-like companions, each with their own powers the summoner uses to defeat enemies and overcome obstacles across different stages to stop threats coming in that owl's way.

The games are clearly hi-bit in their own way; the graphics are NES based, but the music and sounds were mace with the YM2612 soundchip, a rather mix of flairs of 8-bit and 16-bit aesthetics.

The first game is "Ravva and the Cyclops Curse", where it started.



It puts Ravva on a quest to rescue the summoner's mother, who was put under a curse by a monster called the Cyclops Lord, and its up to the little one to save her by going to his castle and stop him.

The game has 3 stages, that are split into 3 levels; Swampomile Forest, Takenouchi Desert Wasteland, and the Cyclops Lord's Castle With No Name, but the last has 4, the 4th of which is the fight against the beast himself.

Traversing through the levels require good eyes, and keen senses to overcome the many dangers the levels are infested with, and using Ravva's companion powers will surely help the summoner to reach the castle.

There is a hidden ending in the game, but the requirements for it are quite tricky. And a few hidden surprises, too.

Here's some screenshots...







Here's the trailer for the first game, too...

The second game is "Ravva II and the Phantom Library".



In it, Ravva and the companions are thrown into a rather haunted library filled with worlds made of books, the kind that aren't for reading or show. They're portals to actual worlds, each holding a unique boss to face in the end. They're challenging, but fun to face!

After going through the first stage, The Forgotten Forest, you get to select the 6 stages that are all books with portals to their worlds.

The game features Ravva's companions being able to become combo forms to unleash incredible powers to blast away enemies and blockades. There's many to find and use!

The main villain herself can be fought after finishing off all the worlds, and like the previous game, it has a different ending, but the requirements are different.

There may be a few clever nods to select games you could find(one of the stages has a Bounce Man callback! its neat!).

Here's the sequel's screenshots...







And the trailer for its launch...

And now, here comes the third game in the series, "Ravva III and the Netherworld Train".



The new, upcoming sequel places Ravva on another new adventure; this time, to save the summoner's father by traveling through the land of the dead and its many deadly landscapes by using the one vessel that can help the little one around; the titular Netherworld Train itself!

Expect to seek out surprises and dangers beneath the new stages the game holds, because in this adventure, Ravva gains a new power, to merge with each of the 4 companions to inhibit new forms and utilize new abilities!

Here's Ravva III's screenshots...









And its recently made trailer...

That game's not yet released, but I have a feeling it will be very soon. The previous 2 games are out, so give these games a try!

The games are all made with Aseprite and Tiled, and they run in the engine, Unity, to let you know.

I also have a few behind-the-scenes images about the games' stages, enemies and bosses you should look...

































The first was made in paper, but the rest were made digitally, through Clip Studio Paint, as I've looked into.

There's another game Galope Studios' been on the bakc burner time and again; the long-awaited platformer Meawja. IT showcases a ninja cat overcoming many obstacles across different stages to take down evil.

I'll give you a screenshot of that game that has its title for proof. Here it is...



Bear in mind, that studio's only got very few people(fewer than I thought, actually), and yes, their games take quite long to release, because they only have very little full-time people brought in to work on them. Hopefully with more attention and people purchasing them, it will help bring in more full-timers to lighten their load.

Here's Galope Studios' website's and social channels' links for those who want to visit.

Galope Studios' website - https://galopestudios.crd.co/

Galope Studios' YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@GalopeStudios/featured

Galope Studios' Twitter/X Account - https://x.com/GalopeStudios

Galope Studios' BlueSky Profile - https://bsky.app/profile/galopestudios.bsky.social

For the mappers, should you purchase them, feel free to map their levels out, so more people can feel ready to traverse them.

If you're eager to play them, give them a go! I'm having some fun with them.

[single]

I've only played a little bit of Zero but wasn't it a remake only in terms of general story etc. It was a reimagining of the same events but with its own gameplay, levels etc. I think people are too quick to throw it in the pile of Starfox 64 remakes - to fit the narrative that Nintendo has kept making and remaking SF64. I'm not defending Zero - I don't like the gameplay and it's disappointing that it is the same story but I wouldn't group it with the 3DS game and this new Switch 2 game, which are actual SF64 remakes.

Well, the fact is Star Fox 64's story is still the one game that gets retold over and over again, yes, even Zero holds a sorta shared backstory, and not a single new Star Fox game has set in anything new and original for the series, not saying gameplay wise, including new stories that are supposed to bring new main villains, perhaps new ways to resurrect Andross so he can recommence his revenge on Fox McCloud entirely for his defeats, and even explore new solar systems with many new planets past the Lylat System that should guarantee new adventures for the team.

My thoughts have been that Nintendo has clearly no coherent vision on actually moving Star Fox forward with anything new and original after Star Fox Command and Star Fox 2, the only games that went forward from past games' events; they're obviously lacking actual creative thought in their devs' and their teams' outputs. They just keep cashing in remaking Star Fox 64's story over and over again. Nobody wants over-flooded same story re-tellings.

To be precise, from my memory of reading now and then, there's no actual true final boss and ending for Command, only multiple endings that don't actually set up anything for any new Star Fox game, regardless of outcome.

Regardless of how many positive reviews its got, less than negative, actually, disappointment is what so many people are feeling now after they were still expecting new entries, including me.

[George s]

George s has mapped the twelfth arcade game that I've requested - and it's Spider-Man: The Videogame!

It's a fun four-player beat-em-up that I don't hear many people talking about.

When I worked at Playdium at West Edmonton Mall, there was a cleaning checklist for the arcade machines. Whoever made it listed Spider-Man: The Videogame as "Spider-Man: The Best Game Of All Time" or something, I always thought that was funny.  It's a specific memory that probably not many people have, but, there we go, some of my requests are indeed personal.  But Spider-Man is popular... right?

Thanks again, George s!  You're the best!  Especially when it comes to mapping arcade games!

Might as well also point out that until June 14, Gravity Circuit is free to claim on Steam, so if you're a PC gamer, why not go for it?  It's an indie game that's 8-bit in style but plays much like Mega Man X.  It's free because the sequel was recently announced, so they want to build excitement for it by giving out the original for nothing.  Of course I bring it up because it's one of the games on my requests list, in the (long) PC section.

I wonder if one day I should split up the PC section into "retro-style indies" (usually platformers) and "point-and-click adventures" since most games there are one or the other... any thoughts about that?

Good story to share, and I like that Spider-Man arcade game's been mapped out. I haven't heard of it much. Looks real nice as a 4-player beat-em 'up. Wonder if Riot City(yes, its an arcade game, not the TurboGrafx-16 CD port, Riot Zone) may be up for being mapped.

I'd say this, do subsections to clear up clutter PC games and for "Retro-Style Indies". Would that help? There's loads of them, so they should at least have it.

SERIOUS?? Gravity Circuit 2?! Wow! Looks like Domesticated Ant Games really went into it in creating the sequel to that hit Mega Man-inspired robo-fisticuffed game, and it is Cable, the Power Circuit, one of the former renegade Circuits, partnered up with Kai for the adventure? I thought for sure he and the other Rebel Circuits were kaput in the first game. Oh, why worry? They're all robots; of course, they can be rebuilt and reprogrammed to be cleaned of any corrupt coding and influence.

This had me into a brief thought. I had thought that when a game is a success, the company and team responsible for it would take the chance to utilize its momentum to create a sequel, as it was with the case of Ratchet and Clank 2, though, in Gravity Circuit's case, the time was spent doing many updates to smooth things, especially the tiniest of cosmetics.

I mean, I have no problem with them, but its the rather absurd, slow pace of them is what bothers me, and stalling time to create its sequel while the success momentum's still hot and rolling. A few more onboard would've at least kept the pace for updates steady while the sequel gets made.

If anything, I'm still really expecting the sequel's stages to be longer and have actual unique mid-bosses in them, including the opening stage, at least a minimum of one, I have no problem with some having more than one as mid-stage mid-bosses, and they don't have to be fought in one stage more than once with slight difficulty increases in their destined arenas(yes, I do know Mega Man does it in their games; I've been though them, but that doesn't mean Gravity Circuit should do that same bit, and it shouldn't), before facing its end-stage boss, with actual health gauges and battle themes of their own, and its finale not having a set of less than 4 stages, at least. Slightly above 4, maybe. I can handle any great challenge, and lately, I just feel like I want to be challenged on these kind of games, past and present; 2D Sonic, Mega Man Classic, Gunvolt, whichever.

I do remember seeing a Twitter post as a request of the rest of the game's stages needing to have mid-bosses in them, because it only had 2(Trace and Bit's stages, actually), one user, @JunyangLiu_Math, posted that to Domesticated Ant Games' account, but the reply was they unfortunately didn't do so, because it would have taken a bunch of time to retrofit one for each stage that doesn't have them. I formerly thought that would be done by updates, but they do have a point. I felt that would rather be used for the sequel. Hope anyone can send a line about that to them, if given time. I'm all up for thrashing loads more of them.

Here's the reply post's link from Domesticated Ant Games' Twitter account to look at - https://x.com/GravityCircuit/status/1674094880501399553#m

At least, its continuing its own hi-bit pixel art style, but now with more free moving parallax background layers. That's what many games and companies should keep on doing, because pixel art still shares it unique universal appeal to a lot of people, especially us, since we grew up with them. Anyone trying to dissuade, demoralize, and discourage us for it and downplaying that is plainly calling cop-outs, and its a big time-waster on their end.

Unusually, letting the original become free of charge, on Steam? I find it odd for that choice to be made... Actually, its made that for a limited-time, so, yeah. Also, have more people bought that game on consoles besides Steam?

Very astute you figured that out. I was astounded about that discovery, I'll admit.

To be honest, upon watching Strafefox's videos about how past video games were made before the vast tech upgrades, the tileset amounts, then-expensive memory amounts for in-house dev workstation computers, and memory bank switching were very minimal and common in their time, and the NES carts were quite minimal in space, even with expansion chips to up its capabilities by notches, never very close to even half of a Gigabyte for a game, it is justifiable to see such bypasses had to be compromised to meet within the very tight limits of the NES then.

Still, your boundary breaking to gather the whole view of the maps in that game were rather impressive.

I can leave such videos for you to watch later, if you want. Maybe you'll learn much about those limits and bypasses people utilized then.

How Video Games Were Made, Part 1: Graphics(revised in 2018) - Narration: Chase McCaskill -

How Video Games Were Made, Part 2: Workflow - Narration: Steven Kelly -

Video Game Development Throughout the 80s - Narration: Steven Kelly -

This was the first anime I watched with subtitles when I got my hands on a VHS tape (eps 13-16) back in early 2000. I liked it so much that used one of the bad guys for my online name.

The SNES version was already on vgmaps but I definitely wanted to map all the other Rayearth games, including this. Saturn emulation wasn't quite perfect yet so this was a bit of a challenge. The emulator used was Yabause because I couldn't get BizHawk to take 1:1 screenshots of Saturn games. Despite all this, the only map that I think needs to be touched up in the future is Crimson Underpass.

Was Yabause successful in doing 1:1 screenshots while you were mapping Magic Knight Rayearth after BizHawk couldn't? If so, that's good you made that choice. Perhaps many more Saturn games could be mapped with that emulator.

Really love its vibrant pre-rendered graphics, though. I can only guess Softimage 3D, Lightwave 3D and Alias Power Animator did the work for that amazing style. Makes me think of how such an aesthetic as that could be recreated, but only for the foregrounds, of course. For graphical styles, I enjoy different palettes and tastes; can't stick to just one alone.

Really nice to see that game receive the Maps of the Month honor, and I'm very sorry it didn't sell well for the GBA version.

It's a very nice game, even though the maps are very... well, short and small, not that I'm complaining, because I'm well fond of long/large maps, and try to gradually adapt as I find and play through another one when able.

Guess the staff didn't utilize some more extra size space in it to make them reasonably long or large, even with their hardware already more than strong enough to create such large stage maps.

Perhaps when more people buy it, thanks to LRG's re-release, and look up on its maps to get by, maybe they'll understand and appreciate it more to warrant a sequel with more longer stages and plenty more challenges to overcome... at least, we can hope.

Well, at least, Spanettone put effort into mapping that underappreciated game, and that mapper has our thanks.

[zagato blackfist]

Call today's update "From Zero (Wing) To H.E.R.O."...
Or, "Lots Of Periods"...

zagato blackfist has taken on four of my requests: E.T. and H.E.R.O. for the Atari 2600, Mario Bros. (Classic Serie) (E) for the NES, and Zero Wing (E) for the Genesis (technically, Mega Drive).  What a haul!  (Sorry that I didn't get these up yesterday...)

E.T. is infamous for being one of the worst games ever, often cited as THE example of the low-quality games that led to the video game crash of the early '80s. So I figure its infamy means that we should have maps of it! 

H.E.R.O., also just capital letters and periods, is one of the better games on the Atari 2600, nice to have it here at the same time, to balance it out, ha!

Mario Bros. (Classic Serie) is a European (perhaps even just German) rerelease, with graphics that resemble the arcade version better.  Makes you wonder why they just didn't do that in the first place... anyway, there's more confidence that we've got all of Mario on the NES now... right? About time... (but to be fair, despite Mario's name, this is a little obscure.)

Zero Wing (E) is infamous for being the impetus of the "All Your Base Are Belong To Us" meme, so it's super surprising (to me) that we haven't gotten it mapped yet.  When I requested it, I insisted that the intro cutscene be included, which zagato obliged, by splitting it up over the eight stage maps.

Thanks, zagato!
Nice of you to have quickly knocked out one of the 24 requests that I mentioned the day after VGMaps.com's 24th birthday!

Well, that's quite a surprise.

One of Atari's infamous games that helped spearhead the Game Crash of 1983, and zagato is the one that really maps it! I'm amazed it was already done. Maybe it'll be much easier for E.T. to go home in that game now.

Heh... Aside from throwing one in, I also see Zero Wing has been mapped. It is rather a bit funny that game churned those humorously improper grammar and apostrophe placements via bad translations, including that line, "All Your Base Are Belong To Us".

Little info about Zero Wing quoting; in Spider-Man 2, the 2004 game, one of my best favorites, the super-villain, Mysterio, quoted a line from Zero Wing, "You have no chance to survive! Make your time!" after all endangered citizens, including the few hanging in time, and destroying his alien robots in the auditorium.

A bit inline with said quoting, and from TV, even an animated show, but, from a Ben 10 2016 Reboot episode(yeah, not many of you have seen nor heard it, but thought you should know), "Buktu the Future", Phil Jr., a one-time villain that is a sentient program system gone haywire, thanks to Tim Buktu, a fame-seeking louse, finding and misusing an experimental top-secret government project hidden in Area 55, a suit that commences time-travel by a very short amount of a second, and being integrated with it, quoted lines from Zero Wing, from when it was using Tim to fight Ben Tennyson, and spoke more improper sentencing as it was being internally diminished by Phil Billings(the 2016 Reboot self), its creator, using its secret backdoor terminal to cut off the defense protocols, remove the suit from Tim, and send it to his backup drive to stop it from commencing its self-driven plans to decimate humanity at any capacity.

Guess that game's infamous, yet humorous, improper grammar isn't limited to games alone.

Other than that, I'm hopeful the other games form your group will be covered before VGMaps becomes 25 years young.

[NOT]

OK, I guess I may as well provide context about using the Hatch Game Engine, to those wanting to grasp its capabilities, be it anyone new or haven't been using it in a while.

First, the build system is needed after downloading the source code, and it is major. You need to use CMake or Visual Studio, preferably VS Code, with knowledge of C++ needed for use. You can download CMake for Windows to start for those who have it.

Once done, know the importance of dependency management, which needs vcpkg for CMake to find such dependencies.

After that, open your project in Visual Studio using the CmakeLists.txt file, but NOT the VisualC/HatchGameEngine.sln file. It won't work at all if you do the latter.

Once Visual Studio loads, it should "Configure" the project, but the dependencies aren't there; they need to be created and/or implemented into it.

Then, you can download SDL2, the dependency necessary for it. First, open up Powershell Terminal or Command Prompt in Visual Studio, and to into the terminal and type vcpkg install sdl2 to install SDL2 so CMake can detect the dependencies.

That should get anyone going for building game projects on it.

And now, to the steps and programs and tools needed to create a framework within Hatch Game Engine, be it from and based on Sonic games, the first Freedom Planet game, or even Spark the Electric Jester, or even custom ones harnessing familiar mechanics, such as seamless stage to stage map seguing in the likes of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and more.

What's necessary is the code editor, such as Visual Studio Code, for writing engine scripts.

For sprite editing and creating, Aseprite is the good way to go.

Level editing, Tiled Map Editor. Highly a great choice. Support towards its .tsx tileset and .tmx map formats are needed, too.

Audio editing, Audacity for editing WAV(frequency, 44100Hz, 16-bit) and OGG files.

Then, the Hatch Repository Tools, the Tools folder provided in the engine's source code.

To create a new framework the steps are needed to follow...

1. Setting up your own development environment. Clone the downloaded Hatch repository and set up a C++ development environment to compile the engine and your framework.

2. Analyze existing frameworks. Examine frameworks already built for Hatch, such as OpenMania(used and adjusted for Sonic Galactic), or Gateway Sonic(not yet released publicly) to understand structure.

3. Define core systems. There's a multi-step procedure to it.

  1 - Object Hierarchy. Establish how objects(such as the player, rings, crystals, enemies, bosses) are spawned and managed.
  2 - Input Management. Define inputs in the framework that corresponds to Hatch's input systems.
  3 - Graphics and Palettes. Set up how 2D sprites are indexed, animated, and rendered.
  4 - Audio Control. Differentiate between music (OGG) and sound effects (WAV)

4. Creating custom objects/scripts. Program unique gameplay elements(such as new physics, stage gimmicks, and so on) in C++. The imagination behind them is up to you.

5. Develop level loading. Configure Tiled to load maps into the Hatch Game Engine by using tools from the tools directory.

6. Test and refine. Use the engine to test the movement, collision, and object interaction, iterating on the framework until the behavior's accurate and consistent with the desired game style.

Well, that's all anyone needs to know or remember about using Hatch Game Engine. And, being open source, its very flexible for integration in its repository.

Allow me to show you a few demo YouTube videos that feature the Hatch Game Engine.

OpenMania Framework and Hatch Engine Demonstration -

Sonic CDX Test Video -

Sonic Megamix Mania Hatch Engine Test -

Hope you find it very useful.

I already know so many played and enjoyed Star Fox 64, the 3DS remake, but Star Fox Zero gave another retelling of the same story again, and what really gave me ire is this...

ANOTHER Star Fox 64 Remake.   No direct continuations of any Star Fox game; not to Assault, not to Star Fox Zero, not even Star Fox 2. No. Just Star Fox 64, remade again, and again, and again.

The newest Star Fox game from Nintendo is, what else another remake to Star Fox 64; another reliving of the same old story, Andross seeks conquest of the Lylat System, General Pepper calls Star Fox to stop Andross, defeat his forces, destroy the heart of his operations, save the Lylat System, all the same.

As an individual, and a gamer who actually enjoys sequels a lot more than remakes, I have to say this, I am completely sick and tired of Nintendo redoing that one same game from the Nintendo 64, which was a redoing of the SNES original, over and over and OVER again! I truly think in my perspective, I'm beginning to question the direction Shigeru Miyamoto and the staff at Nintendo's putting through the Star Fox series right now.

It leads me to think they've got no actual fresh ideas for any future Star Fox game, that is to say actually continuing the story without redoing the same game again; no ideas for new main villains, no new different solar systems and planets, no new original bosses, no new rivals, nothing. All they can do with their genius is this, "Remake Star Fox 64 again, get people to play Star Fox more with this! Pure genius!". I feel its already gotten too old as rotten, curdled milk, doused with aged mildew to sour the appetites and taste a lot.

They think and believe its going to make the Switch's successor sell more, but anyone with actual intelligence(in gaming, that is) that has had enough of remakes of one same game needs to see that they're trying the same old blueprint, and understand that doing it again is not going to work anymore. All that'll do is drive away the audience a lot more rather than attract more.

Not to mention that there's already been too much re-quoting of Star Fox 64's lines, "Do a Barrel Roll!" - Peppy Hare, "I've been waiting for you, Star Fox." - Andross, and, of course, "You've become so strong, Fox." - James McCloud, and more'll keep on repeating said quotes when people act and imitate said quotes even more with that remake they want to play. I feel I've had enough of it already. We really need to, and have to, move forward, and so does Nintendo.

I'm not saying this to deprive anyone from playing the games, even though there's very little, but to actually garner some common sense to see through the old bait and tackle blueprint from Nintendo. I've kept having thoughts on NEW Star Fox games for long, not more remakes of Star Fox 64.

What do you think of what Nintendo's doing with the franchise itself? I think, unless something changes with their plans by actual initiative to move on and forward, never to go back and repeat over and over again, it'll head downward towards less interest in the series for people, and place it into a bleak, directionless future.

And, what will you endure when you actually play the remake on the Switch's successor system? I say to those willing to play, good luck enduring more of the same again. You'll need it.

Don't worry about me, though; just had some frustration I needed to vent out. I know you really love Star Fox, but we need to think and consider about its well-being more.

I have but one query that didn't get answered yet, even though we have 50,000 maps in VGMaps thus far...

Which map from what game got labelled as the 25,000th map in VGMaps history?

With all the excitement, I almost let that one slip from my mind.

It does look really nice for that SNES emulator to have an overhaul, and widescreen support does help with plenty, too.

I'm not well-versed in SNES games, because I was close to Sega Genesis a lot, but not moreso than Saturn and others then, but that's still good for those that have been with SNES quite more.

Of course, we do also have Genesis Plus GX that does widescreen, and it broadened the vision of regular, past games in wider sizes, helps people with a lot of situations, too, but that's not the point.

Those upgrades will surely ease up SNES mapping and ramp up game mapping more! I wonder how these kind of games may do on 480x272 resolution size alongside 424x240?

Maybe GBA emulators, or others, should have the same kind of upgrades, too. Sure, they're really neat, but there's still so much in need of improving, but that's for a later time.

I would like to let you know that SNK's Metal Slug series is celebrating its 30th anniversary right now!

From the first game where it started, we've witnessed great run and gunning action and loads of bullets fly against numerous warmongering enemies and threats through the always beautifully pixel made games the series has provided!

Though it started from the Neo Geo brand arcade and consoles, the series went to other systems, too, and even though it retains the look and feel from past games, they're no longer bound to tech constraints of said past systems.

My real hopes for the series is to retain the same gameplay for Metal Slug 8, which a lot of people really wanted time and again, but go straight into putting health systems for players instead of one-hit only(but can become an unlockable for those wanting the original challenge's fidelity), become hi-bit to retain the beloved pixel art style, go for the actual widescreen resolution of 424x240, and perhaps 480x270/2, and have actual health indicators for ALL bosses, as well as plenty of additional side content to have and some good unlockables, including bestiaries, art galleries, sound tests, and more!

This retrospective video SNK just made commemorates the series and its amazing installments so far! Give it a watch!

SNK's come that far, let's keep that series going!

For those of you who played the games, what are your favorite entries and bosses in the series so far?

Well, given that so far, nobody's gathered information, maybe I may partake, after finding some information, and perhaps educate those that may want to do some map ripping from these games.

I think the tools for ripping Clickteam Fusion game maps requires NebulaFD(Fusion Decompiler) to unpack the game's files and access the mfa or mfa_level files, that's where the maps are formatted to. To use it, though, NET 6.0 is required to download.

For extraction, CTF's "Clone Object" is needed to identify the object behaviors or special tools in order to extract backgrounds/backdrops and active objects. Some may use specialized Level Viewers to capture the maps' layouts in their entirety.

May take effort, but the whole process is worth it.

After finding the level's tilesets, its necessary to capture them and export them into PNGs, then capture the layout's backdrop/active object positions into CSV, JSON, however, raw data conversion to Tiled's .tmx format is a must for that.

To make a tileset for easier and more extreme flexibility, use an image editor that does the job, such as GIMP, paint.net, or whichever, to create the "Master Tileset" from the level's own extracted CTF tiles, then load into Tiled.

Once done, anyone familiar with Tiled may know what to use; create new map, set tile size to match the originals', 16x16, 32x32, so on, then place extracted tiles into Tiled to recreate the layouts, and of course, use the Object Layer to place all the essentials; items, such as power-ups, shields, enemy spawn points, and hazard objects, and converting the CTF active object properties into Tiled custom properties.

For more complex stages, however, its important to write a custom parser(likely using Python as a requirement, for instance, or very similar, maybe C++) to read the CTF map data and export it directly to to the .tmx format, allowing to parse tile grids.

To decompile and convert them all for easier import into another game engine with greater flexibility, such as Hatch Game Engine, that's a whole different story, but saving them and refining collision shapes and data is very important, just as it is for these steps I've talked about.

That, and converting the maps into Hatch's Scene stage structure to ensure they're 100% compatible for importing, such as Stage 1, Act 1, Scene 1, then to Scene 2, Act 2, Scene 1, and so on, for games that have large, multi-map stages, like many of Freedom Planet's stage's Acts that does the exact thing, for instance.

Hope I covered a lot for this.

What Nintendo left for a lot of people, we grew up with the real true dedicated gaming handhelds that gave us great games, even the dual-screen DS and 3DS games. The smartphone mobile games have since been alienating and mentally reconforming many of their minds to think and believe their purpose and history doesn't exist to them, and that brings sadness in my heart, as well as others' out there that still crave for the exact experiences they grew up with in their childhoods. Even they are not educated on their proper history and creation beneath them.

Yes, I haven't forgotten Sony's PSP and Vita, too. They were, and still are, neat.

Not only that, but they gave developers more work to create games when they got unique SDKs for them, and that gave them joy to work on them alongside home console games and see gamers buy and play them to see their work in fruition.

I'm very worried that there's no way to really preserve these kind of games for current and new players to truly enjoy and cherish for later generations, both physically and digitally. When some people try to speak about that to others, they just scoff at them and constantly tell them to only get mobile, hybrids, and PC-made devices over and over, because they think they're all they want and need for gaming, when in truth, it's not. They really don't fit in pockets, period.

They don't fill the void at all, and it really puts the future of that kind of gaming outlet into question. They are not, nay, never, inevitably destined to be worthless junk heaps, nor their games to be delisted, unplayable, and unobtainable. They have real charm.

What a true dedicated handheld gaming system needs, even a dual-screen in the lines of 3DS, is to take improved fidelity and tech capabilities into account, even matching both screens' sizes to be wide, add a few new features to give them extra distinction, and make them future-proof, especially to stand out against mobile games that don't have the same experiences. It's never that difficult to say, ask, and do. It does take work, yes, but doing it is not impossible.

I really hope and pray(which helps in any situation, per say) for such new systems to be made to more than accomplish such goals for gamers and preservationists.

420000 screenshots is no so scary as it might seem at first glance. All images was captured, distributed to folders, imported in Photoshop automatic and compressed too, then their manual stitching took about 1 second per image

Maybe, but, that sure was a lot of screenshots to capture for a much bigger map, especially if its a Metroidvania. A great accomplishment, I say! I was astounded when I read how many screenshots you used to put that together! Its size almost reached the JPEG maximum pixel size limit in both directions!

Where The Embraced One, who did Hallownest's map mostly alone for years(which, of course, I still appreciate such efforts, to say), accomplished such a task, you actually focused on it so very well, you took almost 2 months to chart Pharloom, all the way from bottom to the very top, by comparison!

I would be that surprised if another map would reach beyond that limit for JPEG. Perhaps using JPEG XL, if VGMaps supports it(Uh... does it?), would be substantial; otherwise, PNG's a very good choice, too.

Wonder how much RAM it would take for any browser to handle decompressing it to view it up-close. Quite much, depending on the amount anyone's PC has.

Of course, the game's already got DLC plans, so I would presume more work's inbound for revising it later on.

Congratulations, by the way! My compliments!