/vr/ - Retro Games

Solution: don't play bad designed games.

>>6317260
Quarantine, eh?

Well, I recommend you make those physical maps. I like it that way exactly because of how rough and weird it can get.

>>6317276
I have physical fine motor problems that make it hard for me to make maps properly, sadly. Also I don't have the paper and I don't want to go out to get it / order it in

>>6317308
Sorry to hear that, anon. I don't have a solution for you, but when you find one, make sure it lets you take notes on it.

>>6317260
I've been used this before (https://www.zerker . ca/home/dungeon-mapper.html), but it's pretty rudimentary. Grid Cartographer seems to be popular (at least on RPG Codex), but I've never been willing to part with the cash for it. There's also Where Are We which tracks everything from your map to available spells and party inventory, but it only works with a handful of the most popular series (Wizardry, Bard's Tale, Might & Magic).

>>6317326
"I've used," I suppose that's what I get for rewriting half of a sentence.

>>6317260
For the Eye of the Beholder series, there is a program called "All-Seeing Eye" that gives you an automap.

>>6317348
And Gold Box Companion, totally forgot about both of those.

Spreadsheets are functional but kind of slow to use
I like Grid Cartographer

>>6317356
Second on Gold Box Companion.

Unlimited Adventures has/had a pretty robust community that I think still has custom modules out there.

It's a fight to get it working from what I remember, but worth it if you can get everything to run smoothly.

do I need to get huge ass desk spanning grid paper for physical maps, or what? does graph paper work? or should I print out a bunch of grids?

how do I even map the shit, what space do I start mapping from and how do I know the orientation?

>>6317432
Not knowing is part of the experience. One map might go through a few drafts, especially after the trickery starts in the game.
But it might be worthwhile to know the dimensions ahead of time. Like, 20x20 or whatever the levels might be in the game you're playing.

>>6317432
It depends on the game, many of them have fixed maps
Wizardry 1-3 have 20x20 dungeons, M&M1 has 16x16, Bard's Tale 1&2 22x22.
All those games give you spells to know your position and direction. Typically you will start your first dungeon at 0,0.
More complex case are Wizardry V where dungeons grow huge and you have no idea in which direction they'll expand. Wizardry VI doesn't have DUMAPIC or similar and the dungeons are connected to each other.
I made myself a LaTeX template that can be adjusted to different sizes and have 1, 2 or 6 maps per page.

how the fuck do people use excel? making walls with borders is such a pain

>>6317419
>It's a fight to get it working
not really, the new installer for GBC is super easy to set up and syncs with gog as well
pretty much all the FRUA modules are on rosedragon

>>6317432
you can use excel or another spreadsheet to make easy maps if you don't want to draw them out

>>6317601
Oh shit really? I might get back into that while in lockdown. I didn't even bother to look desu.

There was a great module series that pulled no punches.

>>6317605
How do you do that? I don't use excel, I don't know how to draw on it

>>6317260
Just play without maps, man. The games without built in mapping always have small levels that are hard to get lost in. Maps are the biggest waste of time 905% of the time. I meant to type 95 there, but I'm sticking with the ridiculous three digit number because I am confident enough in my claim.

>>6320127
>The games without built in mapping always have small levels that are hard to get lost in.
You have no clue.

>>6320141
Looping hallways and a few dickish spinners? That the scariest exeption to the rule you can come up with? Looks easy peasy unless those speech bubbles represent something I don't understand.

>>6320204
It's not the worst, it's simply one of the most memorable because of how early in the game it happens.
For somebody talking so big, you don't sound like you have a lot of experience with the series.

>>6320224
Saying 'you don't need maps for most games' is hardly big guy talk.
> you don't sound like you have a lot of experience with the series.
Must have missed the part where we were talking solely about a single series and not dungeon crawler games in general. I took a stab in the dark and found out that your pic is a Wizardry 1 level. Turns out that is the one Wizardry game I've actually played through, though I didn't recognise the map never having seen it from the top down. Goes to show that you can blunder through something like that without commiting it to memory, or record.

>>6320283
Now you are just flat out lying.
If you actually reached that floor you would instantly recognize the pattern on the map. Bumbling around is simply going to get you killed from the encounters and pits.

>>6317260
You could just use already finished maps from walkthroughs without the annotations. Some of the fun of making a map from scratch gets lost, yes, but as long as you don't know what awaits you at each corner, it can still be lots of fun.

>>6320292
>If you actually reached that floor you would instantly recognize straight hallways no matter how many decades ago you went through said straight hallways
Oh, get off your high horse. You're wrong, why are you so insistant on trying to shoot down the idea of navigating a small play area without using maps? Well, I'm not going to convince you, so keep thinking that I'm lying about succeeding at simple tasks.

>>6320356
20x20 maps are hardly small. Even 16x16 maps are large. Add in spinners, teleporters, darkness etc and you won't be able to know where you are and where to go. Add to that that getting your party killed doesn't just return you to a previous state and spells for quick exit aren't feasible.

>>6317362
Can't find a torrent anywhere.

>>6320403
Why would you torrent? That's illegal

>>6320127
I can't, my memory is really shitty. I tried playing Pools of Radiance without a map and got lost real fast

>>6321276
this, I'm a retard, you can't expect me to memorize a map

>>6317269
>>6320127
Whenever this subject comes up, people with no interest/experience in the topic are always the fastest to step in with their thoughts

>>6317362
>Grid Cartographer
I remember actually buying the full version years ago. Then I wanted to play M&M and discovered there was a new version, sweet right? Except I had to pay again for the new version.
I just used pen and paper instead.
I mean, I'm all for supporting small devs but not when they act like fucking Adobe.

>>6317260
what game is that?

>>6321940
not to mention that he's not linking to the last free version anymore

How do you guys use pen and paper? I have notebooks with grid paper, but they're usually way too small to actually use. Do you guys just have gigantic fucking desks, or big ass boards you draw these on? I don't have space to hold multiple games worth of large desk sized grid maps in my tiny ass apartment

>>6322000
You're not playing a real game if your living space doesn't look like a tv detectives that's investigating a serial killer.

>>6321276
Oh? Pool of Radiance does have an automap that works in most locations, you know. (Press A for Area.) Though there are some where you'd have to do without it. Every single map in that particular game is tiny as, I never had any trouble until the third game in the series, Secret of the Silver Blades, which has one huge repeatative mazelike area just outside town which for some reason they decided to not let you use the automap for (while tiny easy to navigate dungeons where I never wanted a map do allow it, how frustrating.)

>>6322645
I found the automap completely unhelpful, doors were sometimes not marked and walls just sometime randomly shown up as there or not there, it was really bad

>>6321979
ishar 3

>>6322919
whoshar what?

>>6322919
ty

>>6317260
you don't really need to draw maps. you can usually get by with just memorization and the left hand rule unless you're playing wizardry 4 or something

>>6323990
I've tried it before, I just can't do it. My memory is super shitty

>>6324430
Nobody telling you not to draw maps (let alone "left hand rule") actually plays these games

>>6324834
Why can't you fathom people doing shit differently than you? I'm playing through some of 'these games' right now and doing so without maps. I've taken a party from Pools of Radiance all the way through to Pools of Darkness without touching a pencil (and employed the 'left hand rule' quite extensively in Secret of the Silver Blades, for that matter). It's just not that bloody hard and absolutley not something anybody would bother to lie about.

All I am hearing is 'your fun is wrong'. You can do it both ways.

>>6324834
Keep telling that to yourself