Superman (Atari 2600) alternate map Romhacks, part 4

I had one more idea for an interesting map. This time I wanted to emphasize the importance of the Bridge to the map. So I thought, I would split the map into two halves, and put the bridge between them, as the only way to get from one side of the map to the other.

This was my prototype:

The prototype was shaped like an H.

I thought that this map had interesting potential, but I also had some concerns. I wanted to make sure that the traffic flow would still work, and that by splitting the map in this way, I didn’t make it likely that random movement would tend to collect everybody in one area of the map, and I wanted the random distribution of characters to not be unevenly distributed between east and west ends of town. I also wanted to ensure that the subway system would be evenly distributed, both in terms of entrances and exits, and that the subway provided useful shortcuts.

As I walked through this map, I quickly decided that a less obvioulsy symmetric map would be more interesting. I re-arranged screens and quickly came up with this:

A masterpiece of design!

The connections between the screens are a bit different from my previous versions. Moving horizontally, the map wraps, shifting up a row if you’re at the east edge, and down if you’re at the west edge. Vertically, the columns wrap around without shifting. The Bridge screen is different, when moving vertically it wraps around back to itself. This serves to keep the Bridge screen isolated, so bridge pieces will be somewhat protected from the helicopter when placed here.

Finally, the extreme corners of the map, the northeast and southwest corner screens, are connected to each other horizontally, creating a second junction between the two halves of the map. This helps provide a route for Clark Kent to walk to the Daily Planet at the end of the game, without being forced to use the Subway system, although this overworld walking route is very long.

The subway exits are again unchanged, and the subways provide several routes for traversing from one side of the map to the other. I arranged the subway system so that each colored subway screen has two exits on the opposite side of the map, and one exit on the same side of the map.

Thus, despite the broken bridge in the center, this map has very nice traffic flow between both halves of the map, many interesting shortcuts, and a challenging layout to learn, without the confusing one-way vertical borders on the Phonebooth and Bridge screens that vexed many beginner players of the original. After playing this map a few times, I think it’s every bit as good as the original, and might even be more fun to play. And aesthetically, I love that the Bridge is now the centerpiece of the map, and truly joins the two halves of Metropolis together.

Here’s the map again, with the wrap routes indicated:

I don’t think there’s much more I can do with the map after this. So I think this is where I will leave the evolution of the map variations.

I would still like to introduce randomized bridge piece starting screens, but to figure that out will require more understanding of the source code than I currently have.

I also think it would be neat to make a super-rom that includes all of the map variations in one file, switchable via the Game Select switch. Again, this is beyond my current capabilities with my very limited understanding of the source code and 6502 asm.

You can download the entire collection of romhacks here:

Updated: 2020-Nov-13 — 2:23 am

Leave a Reply