Topic: Super NES Game Atlas (a "continuation" of the original NES Game Atlas)

[JonLeung]

And Sander has added some more of World 3 of Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island.



(Peardian also states he wants to resume mapping that...hopefully you guys can work it out nicely...)

[ZanderZ]

I contacted Peardian about it, and we worked something out

[Will]

Out of curiosity, what exactly are you going to do ZanderZ with Peardian? I'm thinking you'll do half the remaining levels and Peardian will do the other half. Teamwork is more fun than solo, but we all do one of each.

[JonLeung]

Whether one person does it or more doesn't matter much to me, what should matter is consistency.  Which is a lot easier if one person's doing it, obviously.  (But if you look at Mega Man: The Wily Wars, the two Oracle GBC Zelda games, Super Mario Bros. 3, and the topic about Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night, you can see it is possible if there is room for discussion.)



Right now we've got a number of Yoshi's Island maps but they're from different mappers.  We've got some broken up in pieces and some as a single image per stage, some that are JPEGs and some that are PNGs, some that don't have backgrounds and some that do...



(Ideally they should be single-image PNGs with backgrounds...hint hint...)



Then you have things like whether or not or how exactly to place enemies and/or items and/or dynamic elements like moving platforms, whether the "blank"/"unreachable" areas are filled in and how, how the "rooms" are arranged and connected (and if they fit on a grid), what background colour is used for any non-gameplay/"outside" area of the image, how copyright/title/etc. information is presented if they are at all...so on and so forth.

[ZanderZ]

@Will: Peardian said he wants to remap ALL levels again, including his own. But he has some other projects so it might take up to two years before he finishes everything.



@Jon: ofcourse I'll do them as PNG. Making JPEGs of it makes no sense because the files will be bigger in size and the compression ruins everything.

However, I will not add the backgrounds to my images. I feel it's very distracting and does not give any advantages over not having a background.



So the way it is now, I will finish up all remaining levels (I just realised all worlds also have 1 bonus level, which means I will have to finish each level at 100%, so these levels will probably be done last) and when Peardian does his new take, Jon can decide which version to keep.

I guess Peardian will include the background, so probably his new versions will replace mine but that's fine with me when the time comes.

[JonLeung]

Didn't mention that Rick Bruns started on Donkey Kong Country, which had been discussed earlier though not part of the list, going strictly with the series only in the original NES Game Atlas.  But they're still pretty sweet.  Knowing Rick Bruns we'll eventually have the whole game, and hopefully he'll want to do the whole trilogy as well.



I'm excited to see that Yoshi's Island will be taken care of...now how about some Super Castlevania IV?  Didn't Terra start that?  >_>

[TerraEsperZ]

Nope. That map was more of a "proof of concept", mostly because I liked the game and had never really mapped a SNES game before (except for Prince Of Persia which I dropped midway through).



I never had any intention of mapping past the first stage, the famous "black-on-black" layer separation problem being the biggest obstacles.



Besides, I'm trying to complete some of the maps I've started before doing anything else, and my signature is proof that I'm really, *really* far behind.



---

Current projects: Metal Storm (NES), Clock Tower (SNES), Ristar-The Shooting Star (Gen), Sonic The Hedgehog (Gen), Sonic CD (Sega CD), Mega Man Zero (GBA), Battletoads (NES), Bucky O'Hare (NES)

[marioman]

ZanderZ said:

I feel it's very distracting and does not give any advantages over not having a background.

Strangely enough, I feel exactly the opposite about backgrounds.  Maps without backgrounds look empty to me.  The backgrounds make the maps look more like environments than mere diagrams.

[Will]

I've completed the remaing Turtles in Time stage maps. All except for Scene 3 and Scene 8 which are bonus levels. Scene 3 is a long, long extending level which is beyond my attempt to map and Scene 8 is a 3D mode moving map. Do you think mapping the bonus levels is nessecary to complete the chapter or do you think the chapter is completed well enough?

[JonLeung]

Sure, Will, I guess we could say that you're done with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles In Time.  And on that note, Chapter 7: Turtles In Trouble is done!  And I guess unless someone does find a way to map those two stages, that chapter is entirely yours...good work!

[Will]

Regarding Bonkers, I've got the Hollywood Map and I just finished the Downtown stage. That stage is bigger than the first two. The only thing missing is the Boss name, except I can't get appropriate letters. "It's called Toon Helicopter & Rat-Bat. The Letters I'm missing are 'H', 'C', 'P', 'T' and 'A'. Can anyone provide these letters in the font Geminiman used?

[JonLeung]

I put up your two maps for Bonkers, Will.  Hopefully you worked it out with Geminiman if he still had intention of mapping it.



Regarding the font, I swear I've seen it in other Capcom Super NES games.  Try Disney's Magical Quest: Starring Mickey Mouse, maybe it has those letters in that font?  I guess you just need them to once say the word "patch" and you'll have it covered.  



I swear, every game should have a pangram in it.  Like "Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud" or "Jack, love my big wad of sphinx quartz" so that we can rip the font easily.  

[Maxim]

Most emulators ought to let you see all the tiles loaded into video memory/CHR ROM, from which you can generally grab an entire alphabet. Else, hack the game text yourself. Title screens often have an incomplete alphabet but game text usually has a whole one.



This is good for hacking the game text.

[ZanderZ]

Just to let you all know, I'm not dead I've been very busy with school lately, so I hardly had any time to work on the YI maps. That, and my sister bought a Wii which is very time-consuming...

I can probably do some maps the next week, so hopefully I finish some of them in time for next weeks update.

[Will]

I have completed the rest of Bonkers. All six stages will be up and showing.