Topic: ( NES ) - Hudson's Adventure Island 1

[vorpal86]

The first time I played this game was back in 1988 at a friends place that another buddy and I hung out with. We started taking turns, alternating between the three of us. The host of our stay over was a guy who had issues. Still does... Haven't seen him in over 15 years but the other buddy and he lived together and now they might hate each other...  Anyway we started playing about 5pm at night... When someone died, or passed a level we would relay off the controller. It was now about 4:30 am and we just got to level 8-1! =D Damn hard game.

We were all hype.. The friend with issues was at play.. He was so frustrated at the difficulty, as was myself and our other buddy but not the way he was... I thought for sure we were gonna beat the game... Heck no.. The next thing you know, he got a wild hair when he killed off Master Higgins! He then slung the controller across the room plugged in and it hit the wall, console and all! We had no power.. then we had blinking.. DAMN IT! That was very upsetting I literally almost cried.. HEH.. What a baby.. Stupid guy.

Anyway that is the story of Adventure Island and my good ol days! That was the last time I played Adventure Island until last year around this time when I thought about mapping it. I never did. There are no maps for AI anywhere on the web.. Guess the game is too frustrating. Only with Game Genie codes will it be possible to relax and map the game. I'll use Game Genie codes up until level 8 to get back the levels we lost a long time ago in a galaxy far... farrrr away!

Here is the first Round and First Secret Round of Adventure Island. I'll be trying to make minimal maps mapping just the basic and filled maps.

The "minimal" maps will include just a clean mapout of the actual areas of the game that you see with no objects etc.., just the tileset landscape. No spoilers perhaps you could call it.

The "full/filled" version will have extra mapping filling in the areas you can't see and will include rocks, eggs, secret areas.. Similar to what Will and Blublu did with Duck Tales.

One good thing I've noticed is that there are some levels that by design are pretty much exactly the same level but with slight alterations. The forest levels for example and the cave levels. This makes things a lot easier than having to remapp the entire level. I can just change it's colors and add or remove the rock and fire and platform objects.. Stage 1-1 and 4-1 have the exact same forest level just that the placement of rocks, fires and platforms are altered! Easy... Er... Considering the fact that these levels are quite long.

Area 1 Round 1 - Min


Area 1 Round 1 - Full


Area 1 Secret Bonus Area - Min


Area 1 Secret Bonus Area - Full


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Updated Post

[TerraEsperZ]

Wow, do these maps bring back some old memories!

When I was a kid, there was someone in my neighborhood who always had access to all the cool NES games. Maybe he was renting them, I'm not sure, but in any case, Adventure Island was one of those early games that I saw at his house. I remember seeing him make it to something like the 6th or 7th level.

It's funny looking back on it now how primitive it was. It's not really fun to play, the fruit time limit is annoying as hell and it relies on finding invisible eggs to get some much needed power-ups. And the funny thing is that the 2nd and 3rd games are a bit better, but not by much. Only the 4th went farther with a large overworld with permanent power-ups and items.

But getting back to your maps, I personally feel that the filled maps overall don't look as good as the minimal ones in terms of shape, especially since the very restricted scrolling makes it impossible to see anything beyond what's in the minimal maps. Personally, I would keep the "unfilled" aspect for both maps, but that's a personal choice. In purely technical terms, everything you've done so far is very good.

Also, you have the patience of a saint. You couldn't pay me to map this game .

[vorpal86]

Yeah the minimal maps are good for me too as this keeps everything clean. When you start adding in objects, enemies and a lot of other stuff that could be included the maps start to look cluttered and hard to understand. But since all the levels in AI are straight forward there's no real need for the maps other than being able to look at the whole level at once, and seeing where all the hidden goodies are.

This is why two versions of the maps are a nice thing. The minimal maps are a bit tougher to get accurate due to the... as Terra said - restricted scrolling. Gotta take it slow or you will need to start again since you can't go back. That's a bit hard to do in this game since the health meter steadily decreases and fruits that keep your life filled disappear. Luckily with the aid of GG codes this isn't an issue. Heh But some games simply have no need to be mapped. I mean ya only need a map iffin' yur gonna get lost.

This is an update. After thinking the maps were complete the Filled version of area 1-1 had some item adjustments I fixed. Some eggs give a different item depending on what you already got and the axes only appear in a certain spot if you die and have to start over. This changes the placement of certain items inside the eggs. I think I fixed this. Should be able to get whichever the egg represents when the time is right. Some items are in the same place all the time however, but only a few secret ones.

I'll be playing through each level checking the accuracy of the maps each time I complete one to make sure. Alright... I'll post more later. The new maps were updated over at dropbox.

[dark_lord_zagato@yahoo.co]

I like how you put all the hidden stuff in the ground. Yeah it's impossible to get lost in this game but these maps would still be good as treasure maps. Personally, i always forget where the damn eggplants are so it would be nice to know in advance.

[vorpal86]

Here is an update. I changed the names of the files in the first post and now I have 1-2, 1-3 and 14 complete now. Will start on Area 2xxx now.

Here is a few more maps


Area 1-2 - Full


Area 1-2 - Min


Area 1-3 Full


Area 1-3 Min


Area 1-3 - Secret Full


Area 1-3 - Secret Min


Area 1-4 Full


Area 1-4 Min


It's a bit hard to hide the secrets underground when you need to see them to know where they are.. Heh I'll wait till I get at least tw more complete areas mapped (2-x to 3-x) These should at least give placement to this game's map thread.

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I'll post again in a while. I'll make the outline edges of the minimal maps a bit cleaner by adding outlines.

BTW Happy New Year! =D

[vorpal86]

Howdy folks! - Sorry for being absent a while. I started a new position at work and my hours changed and blahh blahh excuses excuses I know!

I have an update finally after 8 months! I'm not dead... (yet..) For the last few weeks however, I have been working every day as much as I can and I am now starting on the maps for Area 7-1 (7-2, 7-3...4 etc..) and then the last area 8. That's only 8 more maps left! Yay! Since a few weeks ago I've managed to speed through the map making process and of course get them as accurate as possible. It's kinda difficult mapping this game since the scrolling restrictions. So basically I have completed about 40 or so new maps! =D

I noticed after area 4-1 most of the stages are just duplicate maps with a different color scheme and different object and enemy placement. By area 4 map making started to become quicker since the maps were/are the same. I just use the base empty map and changed the color and ran through to see the placement of things. This makes things a lot easier for sure! Thank goodness.

I should be done pretty soon.

PS:
As a bonus I have also fully mapped out Amagon for NES and it's 12 stages which was actually pretty easy to map and will be adding it to my list of completed maps. I'll send those in right away.

[vorpal86]

I'm sending all the maps in for this game now! Finally after a while this game is completely mapped.

[TerraEsperZ]

I'm eager to see the maps for the later levels. Somehow I expect that they won't look anywhere as interesting as I remember them to be from... wait, let me do the math... 28 years ago!?