A Spectrum, a couple of felt tip pens and a lot of free time on Sunday afternoons...
In my opinion the best part of having a Spectrum was drawing a game map of the latest Ultimate game in the back page of my geography text book thereby failing most of the exams I ever took at school.
Surely this is a lost art now? I blame those stupid walk through guides you can now buy at the same time, sometimes before, the actual game.
Grumble, grumble.
Surely this is a lost art now? I blame those stupid walk through guides you can now buy at the same time, sometimes before, the actual game.
Grumble, grumble.
Post edited by AndyHerbert on
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Atleast you were using the geography lesson correctly by drawing maps....
Download the latest version of Bomb Munchies Ver2210 4th July 2020
I wish I kept my school books now instead of burning them outside the school gates.
Buy? I've got about 40 PC game guides and I downloaded all of them for free, the majority from GameSpot.
I remember writing down the cheat code and numbers for the screens on manic miner in the back of my history book during the lesson but the best for me was copying the colour inlay card for jet set willy during maths using felt tip pens and all the time my maths teacher thought i was doing some bloody trigonomotry...hahaha i fooled her!!
:D
Bytes:Chuntey - Spectrum tech blog.
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/pub/sinclair/games-maps/b/Bubbler.jpg
drawn on paper (between A3 and A2 sized) pinched from the Technical Drawing class - we were allowed to take plenty of sheets for our homework. Once done, hand delivered to the Your Sinclair stall at the next Microfair along with the pokes and the 'Jing It Baby' cheat for Chronos.
The last map I made was during summer 2015 for the DS version of Kim Possible, so that I could collect all the pickups and complete the levels in the fastest time possible to achieve the Super Spy rating.
Download the latest version of Bomb Munchies Ver2210 4th July 2020
Nothing up to Mr Gubbins' standard though. Props!
Download the latest version of Bomb Munchies Ver2210 4th July 2020
Ashkeron - finished game, map seems mostly done, 7 pages (2 crossed out)
Atic Atac - finished, a quite neat pencilled map on 6 pages
Avalon - unfinished, 4 pages, lots of crossings out
Basil the Great Mouse Detective - unfinished fragment, 1 page
Batman - nearly finished, 4 reasonably tidy pages
Book of the Dead - unfinished fragment, 1 page
Bride of Frankenstein - unfinished fragment, 1 page (but see below)
Colour of Magic - unfinished, 2 pages
Damned Forest - unfinished, map mostly done, 1 page (unidentifed map on reverse)
If you want to try identifying the unidentified map, here's some of my notes which might prompt a memory :
* gate house (gas main lever, matches, hmmm...)
* vegetable plot (carrots - from seeds)
* greenhouse (watering can, seeds, hmmm...)
* garden + flowers
* wood + log (*silver bar*, planks)
* bedroom + bed (whistle) - blow whistle
* room (pantry) *brooch*
* room + table (lamp)
* study + safe
* room + shadow + hole -> rope + shovel
* alcove + stone -> cavern + stalactite -> acid pool + plug
* beggar (*gold coin*)
* top of cliff (*onyx sculpture*)
* beach -> harbour + ship -> net
* ravine + bridge (use rope + planks)
Dungeon Master - finished, 10 pages, lots of crossings out
Future Knight - unfinished, 6 pages, reasonably neat
Gyron - mapped all three games, but didn't quite finish Necropolis (1 page each)
Heartland - finished, 5 pages
Heavy on the Magick - finished, 11 pages, quite a neat effort
Hobbit - finished game, but map's an awful mess
Oh, I've found a letter from "Homeground - The International KATE BUSH Fanzine" in amongst the maps, overwritten with tips from Mountains of Ket. "Hello, Sorry it's late again. All the best for '85. Dave".
Neverending Story - unfinished, messy map across 4 pages
Price of Magik - finished, map published by Michael Bruhn with his DID fanzine
Riddler's Den - just some notes and a small map with a dozen or so locations
Runes of Zendos - finished, but I seem to have lost the map
Sherlock - messy map on 3 pages, got nowhere with that one
Souls of Darkon - finished, but just a map fragment & notes on 1 page
Spellbound - 3 pages, mostly notes, unfinished
Stifflip & Co - 1 page, ditto
Storm - unfinished, 3 pages
Tir Na Nog - finished, 9 pages, quite a neat map
Treasure Island Dizzy - just some notes
Underwurlde - not quite finished, map with lots of tiny rooms across 4 pages
Zzzz - I think I finished this, but I just have some notes, no map
That's the end of the Spectrum maps that I've still got; the remainder of the pile is for PC games. I did a few nice maps on the PC for Spectrum games which are on-line; mostly on The Tipshop, I think. These are: 5th Quadrant, Here Comes the Sun, Trailblazer, Twin Kingdom Valley, Bride of Frankenstein, Crusoe, Last Sunset for Lattica, Wiz.
I'm kind of obsessed with this game. Is your map available somewhere?
I guess there aren't really any games that warrant hand drawn maps these days, the internet killed graph paper, and the endless pursuit of finer and finer point felt pens :D - that and procedural roguelikes seem to be the only type of 2D games we see these days.
It's funny, but I have yet to find a better use for graph paper than game mapping or development... I use it all the time, it's ideal for planning things for games, of course - but my point is that I don't use it for anything else. Then there's isometric graph paper, which seems to have only been invented for mapping isometric games :D - I remember the first time I saw that, my head nearly exploded, ohh the speccy game mapping possibilities that could have been!
Of course, I already have maps from WOS and TS.
Please, please, please, scan your work, or at least do a photo! Maybe one day I release HOTM extensions promised by GG, then you will be mentioned somewhere. ;)
Is this something you're working on Bedazzle? Or is it a wish / dream?
That would be fun to see.
It's funny how when I was a bairn taking notes and drawing maps was just an accepted part of playing computer games. Nowadays, as an old curmudgeon, I rile at the idea!
It's a shame that it seems to be something long since lost though. It certainly helped games 'leap from the telly' into the real world with homemade real life material articles tied to a virtual world. The tangible and intangible together if you want to get faffy about it. :)
It's something that I'd like to see come back - at least in some form or other. I mean, companies could mechandise the crud out of official stationary and the like.
Like this you mean...
It is a dream, but I'm working on it with small steps.
Like was mentioned earlier, several months ago I tried to contact GG, but they didn't gave blessing because of current work "with big software house". Unfortunately, active agreement covers all their past work, even old Speccy.
So I'm just "playing" with game in text editor, sjasm and emulator. :)
Would you like some help?
I think, not at this moment. :) But I will keep you in mind. ;)
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~jg27paw4/pourri/hotmmaps.zip
There was some text in green on the first page which didn't scan, so I overtyped the area. It was supposed to be black bold text but Paintshop did it in outline; I couldn't see how to fix that.
The unidentified map was for Golden Apple.