68
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$3,870
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Funding Successful
This project successfully raised its funding goal on April 7, 2010.
Pledge $10 or more
POSTCARD: A postcard from the lovely land of 8-bit New York.
Pledge $30 or more
Postcard + PUT YOURSELF ON THE MAP: Add a marker to the map in any of the cities that we expand to (or on the current NYC map). You tell me the street address where the marker should go, along with a few words to appear next to it. A special icon design will be used to make backer-submitted markers stand out from others on the map. Add your house, your company, or maybe just your favorite spot in the city. (Note: you cannot replace major landmarks, anywhere else is fair game.)
Pledge $60 or more
Postcard + Put Yourself On the Map + LIMITED EDITION POSTER: A limited edition of 100 posters of the 8-bit New York City map, printed on high quality matte paper. Each poster will be hand numbered.
Pledge $200 or more
Postcard + Put Yourself On the Map + Limited Edition Poster + BUY A CITY: Voting is nice, but sometimes you need to grease the wheels a little. If you have a city that you're just dying to see in 8-bit, reserve it here. You'll be crowned as the Mayor in the credits for that city. (Or if you just want to be the mayor / patron saint of one of the 8 cities I've already reserved, you can do that too.) Note: this is in addition to the 15 cities already planned, so the top 7 voted cities will still be created.
Project By
Connected as Brett Camper (139 friends)
I'm interested in the intersection of computers + media: games, user interfaces, maps, graphics, etc. I made the 8-Bit NYC map and the Trees Near You iPhone app. I work at Kickstarter!
Thank-you, Brett. My limited edition map arrived today and it couldn't be neater. Great project!
1. So could this be made into an app for iPhone/Android? Perhaps with a Link character representing your location?
2. Also, could that app be developed into a geocaching game, such that treasure is placed across the city and must be found...upon finding the treasure, the user must submit a photo for approval & points. It could be complete with custom 8-bit avatars and an online ranking system.
While there may be copyright issues (not that any IP holder would likely enforce their rights), it would be awesome to implement support for different tilesets so that users could view the maps in the flavor of their preferred game. To successfully do so you'd need to implement an algorithm that would examine adjacent tile types (land, water, road, etc.) and use the appropriate interconnecting tile, as not all old games use "static" tile sets.
To demonstrate this difference, here are a couple of maps. The first is from the IBM PC port of Ultima IV. The second is from the IBM PC port of Ultima V. While both are beautiful, the difference is pretty profound.
http://www.eightvirtues.com/misc/ultima_4_4096x4096.png
http://www.eightvirtues.com/misc/ultima_5_overworld_4096x4096.png
As you can see the Ultima IV map more closely resembles the images you've provided of your project so far, while the Ultima V map makes use of interconnecting tiles for a more realistic representation. This should be relatively easy to implement (I did it way back in the day using QuickBASIC 4.5 in DOS).
Some examples of old games that used tiles like Ultima V are the original The Legend of Zelda, Dragon Quest/Warrior, Final Fantasy and the third Ultima, all NES titles.
Since part of the premise seems to be satisfying gamers' yearnings for the days of old with respect to video games, it may be important to acknowledge that different people loved different games at the time, and that the distinctive tilesets used by each game were an important part of those nostalgic memories.
Can't wait to get my poster!
Brett, I'm so impressed and excited about the prospect of getting the $60 rewards. Can't wait to see Seattle in 8-bit map.
Brett you keep coming up with amazing projects...it's a fun brain you got there!
Look out ESRI, this thing is pretty fast
Brett lots of fun ideas with this.
nice)
I pledged 200.00 and I'd like Amsterdam
I would love to see Austin.
I would like to see Nijmegen, The Netherlands :)
AMAZING
I LOVE IT
I live here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/theredproject/4418825132/sizes/l/
In between Grand Army Plaza of Zelda, and Contra Heights.
LOL
awesome
I pledged $200 and want to see New Orleans!
AWESOME! I just pledged $201 and would like you to make Detroit, Michigan. I'm also interested in using the map in a somewhat video game-inspired project I'm working on in Detroit called LOVELAND: http://makeloveland.com (which I've been using Kickstarter for as well). In fact, I'd like the map credited to LOVELAND's inchvestors. :D
Keep it up! These are hot!
very interesting an original idea...hats off to you!
This is fantastic!! Makes me want to explore urban dungeons, collect Rupees etc.
You rock, this is great.