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Recent Posts
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Map Gab / VGMaps.com now has over 50,000 maps!
« Last post by JonLeung on March 21, 2026, 08:42:47 pm »%20-%2050,000%20Maps.png){kind=logo}
As of 5:36 PM today, when ozderya submitted maps for Pop Breaker (J) for the Game Gear over on the VGMaps Discord server, its "Stage 08" became the 50,000th map here on VGMaps.com!
-Stage08.png)
We knew this was coming; Cyartog959 asked about this in November 2024 and started a topic about it. Earlier on in the year (January 6), I counted 48,189 maps, and based on the rate of maps we'd been getting over the past four years, I estimated that the remaining ~1811 maps would probably take another eight months, so, probably late September. (Though apparently I didn't actually say that in the topic thread, hmmm.) However, instead of the start of autumn, we got to 50,000 by today... spring literally just started!
Why was my estimate off by half a year? Because, just shortly after we were talking about it in that topic in January, map submissions shot up through the roof! Guard Master began regularly submitting maps from his massive hoard that he'd created before, though originally for GameFAQs. Along with submissions from others, there was (probably?) a record made or broken here, as there were 17 consecutive days of submissions between January 19 to February 4. As you can see from the news page on the front, the submissions have been very constant this year, including loads from MP83, gymzatan, VGCartography, and zagato blackfist. And several other mappers, too, but those ones in particular stood out this year. (I love your work, guys, and I shouldn't complain, but... maybe space things out a bit more? Were you racing to 50k?)
The congratulations aren't just for ozderya, or just any of the recent mappers. Because to get to 50,000, we of course need all the maps that came before. Every single one of them. So if you've ever submitted a map to VGMaps.com, and it's still up, it all counts towards this total (which is actually 50,042 now, since Pop Breaker has 50 stages).
I'd love to put up some more stats and interesting facts and pie charts and whatnot, but this will take a bit longer.
While I have a lot of data on hand, with some neat trivia (did you know that the PC section ALONE takes up ⅓ of the whole site in terms of file mass? Or that the NES section is largest by quantity as it has 8615 maps, the most of any section, but by mass, it only accounts for 1.8% of the actual bytes?) but I'd like to take some time to get things sorted and checked, including an audit on the games to make sure the number of game title image files equals the number of games actually mapped (a few might still be missing title images, some are linked offsite that I probably don't need to keep, etc.).
Maybe G.E.R. could do another count to see who's contributed how many maps?
Anyway, I should go mention this on social media before the day is over, look forward to some stats in this topic thread soon (if you're into that kind of thing).
But yeah, congratulations and thanks to everyone that's ever submitted a map to VGMaps.com: The Video Game Atlas! (Now over 1/20th of the way to a million!)
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Maps In Progress / Re: The Pirates of Dark Water(Genesis)
« Last post by JonasReisner on March 19, 2026, 03:26:14 am »
Good for you to map that game based on that mostly forgotten original Hanna-Barbera TV show! I briefly had thoughts on who would do it, but, now, I already know. Take your time to finish. I have confidence in you.
Just to say, as a small heads-up, I feel quite disappointed after reading that David Kirschner's TV series didn't get its proper conclusion that should've ended with Ren finally obtaining all Thirteen Tresures of Rule, extinguish Mer's long-time oceanic threat, the Dark Water, defeating and ending the Dark Dweller and the evil pirate lord, Bloth, in the formerly thought of final battle, and saving the world once and for all.
I mean, for the fans, they never got to see the actual conclusion because of budget cost underestimations(the half-hours were costly priced at $500,000 then, and the cel frames' amount for them was 12,000 each were twice as much as a Saturday morning show at the time), quality decline and channel moving that struck a nasty blow to its run, and left with only eight of the Thirteen Treasures collected.
If anything, I still hope one of these days, the show will finally get the conclusion it should have had all those years ago. It may take a miracle, even.
Actually I knew little about this game in my childhood; I didn’t speak English (still not so good now) back then, so I couldn’t understand what the game was about. It wasn’t until 2013 that I finally clear the game on Gens emulator and learned that it was based on an animated TV series.
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Maps In Progress / Re: The Pirates of Dark Water(Genesis)
« Last post by JonasReisner on March 19, 2026, 12:38:46 am »Some drafts. JUNGLE-1 needs to be remade because I messed up with Photoshop's Magic Wand at beginning. JUNGLE-2 and PORT-2 are much bigger and are not complete yet.
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Gaming / Re: "10 Games To Get To Know Me..."
« Last post by mechaskrom on March 17, 2026, 11:03:38 pm »A friend of mine gave this to me back in the 1990s, when we were in highschool, and showed me the basics of how this game works. The graphics and sound are pathetic for an SNES game, and while the story is okay there isn't anything too special about it.That was a nice story about how even bad games can entertain and influence you.
What really sold us was all the stuff you can do outside of storyline progress. You can just forget about your mission and screw around for years of in-game time. I wanted to explore all of Japan and find the towns that you have no real reason to go to. My friend liked recruiting all the generic characters just to sell their stuff and kick them out of the party. We both liked tracking down the characters that are hostile towards the hero, so we could challenge them to a duel and beat the CRAP out of them. Later on in the game I found out you could take spying and sabotage missions, and even help out in wars between provinces. I tried to turn the entire mini-map of Japan yellow (for Tokugawa Ieyatsu) but only conquered half of it before my generals were stretched too thin.
If I had made a list of games that influenced me, it would probably only have been a bunch of NES games. One I could think of right now is Swords and Serpents, a not so great NES game. Borrowed it from a friend at school, he hated it, but I really liked it despite its many flaws. Just this thing about exploring a big mysterious dungeon, building characters and having to draw maps by hand. So it's a game that strongly contributed to my interest in RPGs and game maps today.
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Maps Of The Month / Re: 2026/03: Marvelous: Mouhitotsu no Takarajima (J) (Super NES) - Guard Master
« Last post by Guard Master on March 15, 2026, 04:14:44 am »Absolutely marvelous these maps made it to the Maps of the Month hall of fame so quickly! Quite unfortunate the game never got much recognition despite using a similar engine. I certainly didn't know its existence until recently! Hopefully these maps can help draw a little more attention to the game considering the graphics are quite attractive for a SFC game especially to those who played LoZ back in the day.
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Maps In Progress / Re: The Pirates of Dark Water(Genesis)
« Last post by Cyartog959 on March 15, 2026, 02:17:45 am »Greetings!
For many years, I've been hoping someone would make a map for The Pirates of Dark Water on Genesis, and now I have decided to complete it myself.
I have only just learned the basic ripping techniques and begun to experiment with it, so progress may be very slow(just finished the first jungle level). And I still trying to find a more efficient way to complete this.
Good for you to map that game based on that mostly forgotten original Hanna-Barbera TV show! I briefly had thoughts on who would do it, but, now, I already know. Take your time to finish. I have confidence in you.
Just to say, as a small heads-up, I feel quite disappointed after reading that David Kirschner's TV series didn't get its proper conclusion that should've ended with Ren finally obtaining all Thirteen Tresures of Rule, extinguish Mer's long-time oceanic threat, the Dark Water, defeating and ending the Dark Dweller and the evil pirate lord, Bloth, in the formerly thought of final battle, and saving the world once and for all.
I mean, for the fans, they never got to see the actual conclusion because of budget cost underestimations(the half-hours were costly priced at $500,000 then, and the cel frames' amount for them was 12,000 each were twice as much as a Saturday morning show at the time), quality decline and channel moving that struck a nasty blow to its run, and left with only eight of the Thirteen Treasures collected.
If anything, I still hope one of these days, the show will finally get the conclusion it should have had all those years ago. It may take a miracle, even.
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Maps In Progress / The Pirates of Dark Water(Genesis)
« Last post by JonasReisner on March 15, 2026, 01:21:27 am »Greetings!
For many years, I've been hoping someone would make a map for The Pirates of Dark Water on Genesis, and now I have decided to complete it myself.
I have only just learned the basic ripping techniques and begun to experiment with it, so progress may be very slow(just finished the first jungle level). And I still trying to find a more efficient way to complete this.
Progress:
JUNGLE-1 80% need remake
JUNGLE-2 80% need remake
PORT-1 100%
PORT-2 50%
PORT-3 50%
KONK BOSS 100%
CITADEL-1 100%
CITADEL-2 100%
CITADEL-3 100%
CITADEL-4 100%
CITADEL-5 50%
CITADEL-6 100%
CITADEL-7 not started
CITADEL-8 100%
CITADEL-9 not started
CITADEL-10 not started
CITADEL-11 not started
CITADEL-12 100%
MAELSTROM-LOWER-3-100%
others not started
For many years, I've been hoping someone would make a map for The Pirates of Dark Water on Genesis, and now I have decided to complete it myself.
I have only just learned the basic ripping techniques and begun to experiment with it, so progress may be very slow(just finished the first jungle level). And I still trying to find a more efficient way to complete this.
Progress:
JUNGLE-1 80% need remake
JUNGLE-2 80% need remake
PORT-1 100%
PORT-2 50%
PORT-3 50%
KONK BOSS 100%
CITADEL-1 100%
CITADEL-2 100%
CITADEL-3 100%
CITADEL-4 100%
CITADEL-5 50%
CITADEL-6 100%
CITADEL-7 not started
CITADEL-8 100%
CITADEL-9 not started
CITADEL-10 not started
CITADEL-11 not started
CITADEL-12 100%
MAELSTROM-LOWER-3-100%
others not started
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Gaming / Re: "10 Games To Get To Know Me..."
« Last post by dark_lord_zagato on March 14, 2026, 05:44:27 pm »Zagato, why did you pick Inindo: Way of the Ninja? I haven't played it, but it has really mixed reviews online and doesn't seem very good. Plus, it's made by Koei.
Is it worth playing anyway?
No, it's really not. This falls under the category of bad games that we like for personal reasons.
A friend of mine gave this to me back in the 1990s, when we were in highschool, and showed me the basics of how this game works. The graphics and sound are pathetic for an SNES game, and while the story is okay there isn't anything too special about it.
What really sold us was all the stuff you can do outside of storyline progress. You can just forget about your mission and screw around for years of in-game time. I wanted to explore all of Japan and find the towns that you have no real reason to go to. My friend liked recruiting all the generic characters just to sell their stuff and kick them out of the party. We both liked tracking down the characters that are hostile towards the hero, so we could challenge them to a duel and beat the CRAP out of them. Later on in the game I found out you could take spying and sabotage missions, and even help out in wars between provinces. I tried to turn the entire mini-map of Japan yellow (for Tokugawa Ieyatsu) but only conquered half of it before my generals were stretched too thin.
So that was pretty fun, but I always wished I could have a world map of this game to make it easier to navigate. VGmaps came along some time later, and then after waiting silently for a few years I finally realized that if I ever wanted these maps I would just have to make them myself.
You know what that means. Inindo is the game that got me into mapping in the first place. If this is a list of games that had a big influence on us then Inindo really should be on my list.
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Maps Of The Month / A Word about the Game's Nod from The Chaotix Casefiles...
« Last post by Cyartog959 on March 14, 2026, 04:32:01 pm »Apologies for bringing this back after inactivity, but, I really want to say this game got a good mention from Sonic's recent audio show, "The Chaotix Casefiles", the first episode.
Before leaving Angel Island, Vector the Crocodile tried to plea to Knuckles for help on their latest investigation by bringing up a rather distant memory he actually remembered.
That distant memory was the final battle against Dr. Robotnik(yes, still alternatively called Eggman) and Metal Sonic's form, powered by a captured Giant Ring that he turned into a crystallized Dark Battery Ring, Metal Sonic Kai, which he piloted from the inside, and how they were victorious against him in the central structural depths of the Newtrogic High Zone, his main base that was another attempt to conquer the world and build his own park, Robotnikland(or Eggmanland), stationed on the island they were all in, right after Knuckles and his then-newly founded allies got all the Chaos Rings.
Surely, with utilization of Sling Rings(clever name, though; not from me), the ring tethers used throughout the game, that gave them the upper hand to Robotnik's plans.
My heart felt a little down for Vector, though. Even as Angel Island's guardian, you think Knuckles could've been a bit more on-par with his memory when Vector brought the end of their first adventure up to him. I mean, he was involved.
I know, the game wasn't quite well-received because that Sling Ring gameplay mechanic dragged the game on a bit too long, among other reasons, but bear in mind that game was kinda rushed for its launch in 1995, and SEGA tried to get a Sonic game into the 32X before the Saturn became the focus at the time. The least we can do is appreciate their efforts.
I would be elated to think and see the game get a second chance by having it redone under the Retro Engine, with proper care, that is, and be given a more finely thorough polished work effort to it and loads of tiny cosmetics that were missed before the original launch day, especially having the Good Ending fleshed out quite more, to give it good closure to the game's story with the Chaos Rings.
If you haven't listened to that, give it a go.
Before leaving Angel Island, Vector the Crocodile tried to plea to Knuckles for help on their latest investigation by bringing up a rather distant memory he actually remembered.
That distant memory was the final battle against Dr. Robotnik(yes, still alternatively called Eggman) and Metal Sonic's form, powered by a captured Giant Ring that he turned into a crystallized Dark Battery Ring, Metal Sonic Kai, which he piloted from the inside, and how they were victorious against him in the central structural depths of the Newtrogic High Zone, his main base that was another attempt to conquer the world and build his own park, Robotnikland(or Eggmanland), stationed on the island they were all in, right after Knuckles and his then-newly founded allies got all the Chaos Rings.
Surely, with utilization of Sling Rings(clever name, though; not from me), the ring tethers used throughout the game, that gave them the upper hand to Robotnik's plans.
My heart felt a little down for Vector, though. Even as Angel Island's guardian, you think Knuckles could've been a bit more on-par with his memory when Vector brought the end of their first adventure up to him. I mean, he was involved.
I know, the game wasn't quite well-received because that Sling Ring gameplay mechanic dragged the game on a bit too long, among other reasons, but bear in mind that game was kinda rushed for its launch in 1995, and SEGA tried to get a Sonic game into the 32X before the Saturn became the focus at the time. The least we can do is appreciate their efforts.
I would be elated to think and see the game get a second chance by having it redone under the Retro Engine, with proper care, that is, and be given a more finely thorough polished work effort to it and loads of tiny cosmetics that were missed before the original launch day, especially having the Good Ending fleshed out quite more, to give it good closure to the game's story with the Chaos Rings.
If you haven't listened to that, give it a go.