An Old-School Dungeon Mapping Tool?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 6, 2013

In the modern era, in-game “automatic” mapping in RPGs is pretty much a given (no matter how much of a pain they might be to implement on the developer’s side… *grin*). But in older RPGs, prior to around the mid-90s, they were far more rare and of very limited utility. You were expected to play with a graph paper and a pencil next to your keyboard. (As a side benefit, years later you could be cleaning out your old desk and rediscover those old maps and enjoy a brief wave of nostalgia and fond memories…)

Now, people who play older RPGs that don’t have modern amenities are a pretty niche bunch. One of the cool things about indie-dom is that there are people out there willing to address the niches. In this case, a utility to create maps for old-school, tile-based dungeons:

Grid Cartographer

I don’t envy his chances of getting more than a super-sized meal out of his profits for this, but I appreciate him trying! This really just stemmed from his own love of old-school dungeons and making a utility for his own use, and then going out and making it available for others.

This is cool. He (David Walters) has added some nifty little things like animation effects for turntable or rotating tiles, special icons so you can note where you last saved, or where your next goal might be, and several different “themes.”

Okay, you know what else might be cool? I don’t expect it will ever really happen, BUT… what if he provided an API or something into his tool such that indie games using that tile-based approach (There are a couple of ’em out there) could output tile-based data? I know, most indie titles still provide their own automaps (as they should), but I didn’t say it was a great idea, just a cool one.

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