Mapstalgia - video game maps drawn from memory

January 13, 2012 1:02 PM

Mapstalgia - video game maps drawn from memory [via mefi projects, MetaTalk, and Cortex]
posted by The Devil Tesla (10 comments total)

This made me think of Radar Rat Race, an early 1980s video game. I remember that after playing it for 10 minutes I always began conflating the game map with the store layout in a K-Mart. Some parts of the map were the clothing section, some parts were hardware, some parts were records & tapes. Naturally the game began here in the checkout lanes. What I learned from that is when the game map is overly abstract, the brain likes to add context.
posted by crapmatic at 1:22 PM on January 13, 2012 [2 favorites]

Also, you might be spending too much time at K-Mart.
posted by box at 1:29 PM on January 13, 2012 [4 favorites]

Im 90% sure I could draw the world map from Dragon Quest IV from memory.

And that Baldur's Gate 2 map makes me want to reinstall it and play through it yet again, even though I have 4-5 other games still unbeaten.
posted by T.D. Strange at 1:59 PM on January 13, 2012

Yeah, I just bought the Ultima 7 pack from Good Old Games (even though I have it on disc, because my #$@% netbook doesn't have a CD drive) so I could play it again after sketching that map.
posted by restless_nomad at 2:36 PM on January 13, 2012 [1 favorite]

Heh, these are great. I could probably do a few Mario Kart tracks from memory, though Mega Man II probably would escape me.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 7:49 PM on January 13, 2012

Radar Rat Race was my favorite VIC-20 cartridge.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 8:37 PM on January 13, 2012

You enter idiopath's faint recollection of the Valley of the Dead --more--

------
|>.+^|
---|.|
   |^-------------
   |...|.........|-----------
   --|^|.|..|.|.||..........|-------------
------.|..||..|..|................^......|
|....+.|.|...-----..-----------------.|..|
|.._.|--............|               |.----
|..@......----..-----               |.|--------
|....|..........|       ----------  |.|.......|
----------^|....|       |........----.|.......|
|..|..|.||.|---^|       |.....................|
||.|.|.|.|.|  |.|       |......----.......-----
|...|.----.|  |.|       --------  |...|...|
|..........|  |.|                 |...|..--
------------  |.|                 |......|
      --------|.|                 |......|
      |..|.|.||^|       -------   |......|
      |.||..|.|.|       |.....-----......|
      |.......|.|       |.||.............|
      |....----.|       |..|..-----......-----
      |.........|       -------   |..........|
      -----------  ------------   |.......----
                   |..........|   |...<...|
                   |.|..|..|..|   |.......|
                   |..|..|.|..-----..------
                   |.................|
                   -------------------

this is after someone decided to adept divination by casting light all over the map (the map is a bit more legible that way I think).

And yeah this is definitely way wrong - the real thing is not nearly so narrow, so widen it with wider graveyards with more gravestones in them (also gravestones never look like walls to me anymore while playing, but while drawing a map they suddenly look like misplaced walls again).
posted by idiopath at 9:42 PM on January 13, 2012 [2 favorites]

I am learning many new things about tumblr thanks to trying to make this blog work, most of them not particularly positive.

And yeah this is definitely way wrong

I sat down to try and knock out a full Hyrule map from the original Zelda today and I think I physically hurt my brain. I know most of the pieces, I know mostly how they relate to each other, but putting it all together is seriously hard. Fudging it is easier when I can't remember the strict confines of the grid itself, which is why I was able to draw a (terrible) Bionic Commando map in two minutes flat.
posted by cortex at 11:18 PM on January 13, 2012

Yeah, I also thought doing the Zelda:ALTTP map would be way easier than it was. It was easier to remember specific landmarks e.g. the location of the medals, rather than the location of some of the screens.
posted by ersatz at 3:38 AM on January 14, 2012

I was just a year or two too old to care about Pokemon when it blew up in the 90's. The internet is a strange place for me now.
posted by Toby Dammit X at 12:50 PM on January 14, 2012