Topic: 2009/12: Paper Mario (N64) - Peardian

[JonLeung]

Paper Mario

For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to Peardian's Paper Mario (N64) maps.

Bowser, equipped with the Star Rod, captures Princess Peach and attempts to take over the Mushroom Kingdom.  Yep, it's the standard Mario game plot, with or without cosmic artifacts.  But Paper Mario on the Nintendo 64 is an RPG, so the journey is full of new characters and areas, even if both ends of the narrative are what anyone would expect.  Traditionally turn-based RPG battles are injected with skillful button pressing, first seen in the previous Mario RPG game, Super Mario RPG: Legend Of The Seven Stars on the Super NES.  But Paper Mario would go on to become a distinct series with the "paper"-style as a neat effect, and also a gameplay element, in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door on the GameCube and the return to platforming in Super Paper Mario on the Wii.

Peardian, our resident Mario fan, has mapped several Mario games before, and has received the Maps Of The Month honour multiple times for them.  But mapping Paper Mario is a particularly amazing feat, because of the 3rd dimension.  3D!  There are vectors and polygons to contend with, and scale and optimal camera positions to figure out.  This isn't the same as screenshot-stitching, folks.  This is hardcore cartography.

And hey, it's the first N64 game to be honoured, too.  And it's an RPG, which Peardian handles with the kind of care strategy guide writers take; a full bestiary with stats, shop catalogues, chest contents and hidden items revealed, and helpful strategies.  That alone is good enough for the Maps Of The Month honour, 3D or otherwise.  But this set of maps proves that VGMaps.com can still be relevant for the fifth generation of video games and onward!

So to recognize the effort put into the first complete set of maps for a 3D console game, Peardian's Paper Mario maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for December 2009.

[The Ultimate Koopa]

Wait you uploaded this 2 hours early (according to your local time, according to your profile)?
Well I added it to the table on the Wikipedia article none the less. As for the maps, if I chose the maps of the month, I'd have probably picked one that Peardian done, as well

[Revned]

It's December already? Wow.

[JonLeung]

Wait you uploaded this 2 hours early (according to your local time, according to your profile)?

It's not an automated process (surprise, surprise), so I do it before I go to bed, which is usually about 10 PM.  I think that's how I've often done it.

Peardian always does good work, and while I shouldn't honour the same people over and over, it's hard to deny the awesomeness of the first full set of N64 maps.

[The Ultimate Koopa]

The last few months I've always known it to be uploaded somewhere in the middle of the 1st day, not like just before it. I know it's not automated. I think once you were slightly late, and didn't put it up until the 2nd or something.

[JonLeung]

Pretty sure I haven't ever been that late, I may have once put off the description until later on in the first day but I have a VGMaps.com-shirt-wearing teddy bear (from the old, probably defunct VGMaps.com store) that I throw onto my bed on the last day of the month as a reminder to get the MotM changed before I go to sleep.  This I know.  If you're not seeing it right away by then or even the next morning, maybe you're seeing files from your cache and haven't refreshed the related page(s).

In any case, if Peardian really is considering teaching others the process of mapping 3D N64 games, this might not be the only N64 game to be honoured.  It would be sweet to see the two Zelda games in this style, but as there's more actual 3D movement involved I'm guessing there will have to be some tricky angles to be able to really capture it well.

[snesmaster]

Great job on the maps, and I thought mapping some of the SNES games with multiple layers and weird lighting effects was tricky.  Just out of curiosity, what tools do you use to map the 3D N64 games?  Is there any programming required, or can you just use tools to get those views kind of like vSNES lets you grab stuff from SNES games that may not be visible on the screen?  Or like vSNES lets you get a top down view of games like Mario Kart.

[Peardian]

How to do it and what to use is exactly the kind of thing I plan on teaching everyone. It's neither a result of programming or a special emulator tool. I'll tell you everything you need to know when the time comes.


And thanks again for the honor. I worked hard on this game for well over a year.