In Italy, the weirdest (and funniest to map) parts are:
1) Stage 3-5: The tall blue tower. This part automatically scrolls up as the whole thing sways from left to right with Medusa heads attacking from both sides.
To map it, I took screenshots when the tower was fully upright to get the right tiles. Then I took several screenshots to get the general position of all the platforms and candles. Finally, I assembled the tower's background and added in the platforms and candles, aligning them all to the 8 x 8 pixels grid (since most screenshots showed the tower while leaning to one side or another, all the platforms/candles were slightly off by a few pixels).
2) Stage 3-7: The floating platforms in the purple sky. Another area with automatic scrolling that was difficult to map. At first, the map scrolls diagonally upward to the left, with the Tower of Pisa slowly comnig into view in the background until you've reached the end of the platforms. Then it starts to scroll upward as two different sets of platforms start floating down at different speeds, until you reach the last series of platforms and the whole thing starts scrolling diagonally to the right. This time, the Tower of Pisa stays into view and another series of platforms is seen behind the Tower, giving the impression that you're actually climbing around the tower this time.
To map this, I basically counted the number of platforms on both diagonal series, and noted that the Tower in the background scrolled down at the same speed as those platforms (this told me how much height there was between the two).
After this, I started mapping the platforms that were coming down in the vertical part, separating them in two sets depending on their speeds.
I chose to show the Tower only in the vertical part since it's where it would be the most visible, and I added the little platforms in the background because I thought it looked good. I also made the Tower fully upright since in the game it's tilted by a few pixels but it doesn't really look good enough to keep the effect.
As for both sets of falling platforms, they were much taller than the vertical part (since they came down faster than scrolling) so I just pasted one over the other in the same order as the game and centered the resulting section vertically over the vertical area. That meant that many platforms were cut off at the top and bottom, but that's how it looked best in my opinion.
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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
