First post, by Malik
- Rank
- l33t
Mapping out the game worlds, especially in RPGs and Adventure games is a lost form of art nowadays. Newer games started having automaps even during the DOS era itself. Good automaps are a welcome addition to a much needed aspect of these gaming. It saves a lot of time.
Latest games have "radars" replacing the on-screen superimposed automaps, where the maps are no more hidden or fogged to-be-revealed later once the player reaches that area. But these are mostly action games anyway, and the so called maps will come in handy. These "radars" already have all the doors, pathways and enemies laid out for the player.
Nevertheless, self-mapping the game worlds, in old Dos games especially, even though it is time consuming, is ultimately very rewarding too. It also make one to be familiar with the game worlds.
It also possible to guess where are the secret pathway and halls and helps to look for secret switches or triggers, especially in RPG games, once one starts to map out the area. This also makes the player to be much more involved in the game world.
Adventure games tend to include mazes, (and sometimes they are included too many, much to the discomfort of an Adventure game player) mainly to prolong the gameplay. I never liked mazes to be included in Adventure or RPG games. Mapping out these mazes somewhat alleviates the frustrations.
Anyone remember the desert in King's Quest V? Or the caverns in Legend of Kyrandia? These are games that will punish the player if not mapped.
I did make another thread about map making here, but I thought I would just write again to bring back the good old memories, trials and tribulations, and the fun in making maps for Dos games.
I find this Square Dots template to be very helpful for map making. I customized the spaces from a free graph printing site, to suit for this purpose.
Here's the Eye of the Beholder level 1 dungeon I mapped last night :
And the Waxworks pyramid level from my previous thread :