A few years back, I picked up an issue of British gaming rag NGamer because a) it had the Nights sequel on the cover — Nights is awesome — and b) it came with a poster. A lot of game magazines come with posters, but this one was particularly sweet. One side was a complete map of Hyrule, exactly as it appears in A Link to the Past, and on the other, a complete map of Zebes from Super Metroid. These weren’t artist’s interpretations, these were the actual games printed on paper. Super Metroid was especially beautiful. Anyone familiar with the game could lean in and pick out particular rooms, places where the game itself is especially thrilling or well-constructed. But seeing the game as a whole was eye-opening.
After years of looking at game maps in strategy guides, I’d gotten numb to how they can give you a far greater appreciation and understanding of a game’s design than when you’re actually playing it. You can see just how carefully timed each obstacle in Sonic & Knuckles is or how vast Strider’s levels are despite being short to play through. The map also let’s you appreciate a game by transforming it into something you can’t have in the game itself. Taken as a whole, the map changed Super Metroid into something else entirely from the game I was so familiar with: an intricate, beautiful work of visual art as alluring in the macro as it was nuanced in the micro.
revolvingdork’s new laptop is another example of how a sidescroller is transformed when seen all at once. He had all of Super Mario Land laser-etched into his computer and the result is dramatic. It’s in paragraph form, starting in the upper left corner and ending in the bottom right, and retains the game’s linearity as a result. It also shows off just how dense and layered Super Mario Land is. Not too shabby for a black and white launch title. Follow the link to get a look.
(Link: Geekologie via GameLife. Image provided by Gavin Ward)
Related links:
Metroid Prime Trilogy Retrospective
Fun Fact: Metroid Meets Metronome
Metroid: Wishful Thinking
For Love of the Game: Metroid II Remakes
What's in my MP3 Player: Super Metroid “Jade Catacombs”
