The Map Screen | Super Metroid

This series of videos will look at the design and function of maps in videogames through a cartographic lens. In this episode-Super Metroid. Released in 1994 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, it introduced a robust mapping system to a franchise built on exploration and wayfinding, and would go on to help define an entire subgenre of videogames in Metroidvanias.
Acknowledgments and links:
Intro sound effects: ZapSplat: www.zapsplat.com/license-type...
PlayChoice-10 Ad: Flyer Fever: www.flyerfever.com/playchoice...
PlayChoice-10 Metroid screenshot: Wikitroid: metroid.fandom.com/wiki/PlayC...
Hand-drawn map: Phil Summers: sites.google.com/view/handdra...
Nintendo Power scans: Internet Archive: archive.org/details/NintendoP...
Nintendo Player's Guide scans: Internet Archive: archive.org/details/The_Offic...

[@seventysue8090]

Great video! I'm been in a Metroid mood lately and scratched that itch!

[@evasiveupgrade]

You have the best voice for making stuff like this. It's not demanding or overly energetic. It fits the informative yet still happy mood. Keep up the great vids

[@AaronKoelker]

Hey thanks, I appreciate it!

[@meropolis]

Ohhh man, I remember being absent from school and staying home sick a few days when I was in elementary school. I was playing og NES Metroid and eventually the game slipped into my fever dreams and I was having nightmares about being lost in Norfair. 😂😅

[@ShinkouMakurayami]

Super Metroid best Metroid

[@svankensen]

Checked the rest of your channel and it's... ArcGIS tutorials. I may as well partake in those, my GIS game is rusty as hell.

[@AaronKoelker]

Surprise! I do have more Map Screen videos in the works though, the next shouldn't be too far off

[@AC-cb1oe]

i dont even agree that it was one of the "strongest early iterations of automapping".. Ultima Underworld came out in 92 and the automap in that game was god tier

[@AaronKoelker]

Sure, that's a great example too. Super Metroid wasn't the first, and it had been around in RPGs and a few shooters like Doom the year before. But I do think it was a good early example, and I don't know of another side-scrolling platformer that had implemented it yet.