I figured I'd show where I'm at after doing one more dump run (31 hours in total, 3 dumps running in parallel) The faded back areas are the parts of the map that still need to be determined. The bright areas are the parts I have successfully mapped.
If you look closely, there are a few black spots that are not correct. Spoiler alert!Spoiler warning again, the entire map is just belowĪfter a few days of dumping, I have determined this much of the map Determined areas are bright, and yet to be discovered are faded back. If you watch, you'll see most are unsuccessful (no pink square), but there are a few successes in the middle window. Thankfully I have another computer as well so the laptop just sits in the corner chugging along. And finally, I can run three dumps at once, since my laptop has four cores. Also, once I know a bit, I can skip examining that bit in future runs. I also don't need to do a dump from all 20 save rooms, I can strategically pick rooms based on how much of the map they can reveal. I let the dump do its thing while I work on other parts of the website in parallel. Ah well, not a huge deal.īut, this really isn't as bad as it sounds. The bsnes core does give you that access, but it is unfortunately much slower. But the Snes9x core doesn't give you access to the save file memory, making it a dead end. I could probably capture each screenshot in less than a second. If I use Snes9x, the emulator runs extremely fast. So a single dump takes about 31 hours to complete.Ī tale of two coresBizHawk lets you choose which SNES emulator core to use. Each run of the Lua script takes about 11 seconds on my laptop. There are 1,284 bytes in the map section of the save file, meaning there are 10,272 bits that could each mean one cell of the map. So when I do a dump run, I can only get the bits that correspond to whatever region I have placed Samus in.
There are 20 save rooms in the game, and it's simple to place Samus at one room by altering the save file. So in other words, if you are currently in Crateria, then the in-game map won't show you Tourian or any other regions of the world. When you look at the in-game map, it will only show you parts of the map that are in the area you are currently in. Super Metroid's world is divided into different areas, such as Crateria (where you first start the game) or Tourian (where you find the final boss). This second script dumps all the positive hits it gets into a JavaScript array, for example here is Wrecked Ship. To do this, I wrote another script which analyzes the screenshot and figures out the pink square's location relative to the white square. Since I know Samus's location, I can then figure out the global location of that cell of the map. BizHawk allows me to alter the emulator's memory, so I use this to set up the save file exactly how I need it. The pink area is the bit of the map that was discovered, and the white box is Samus's current location, which will be one of the 20 save rooms in the game. Here is one of the screenshots A single cell of the map discovered with the dump script I wrote a Lua script that sets a single map bit to 1, starts the game, presses the start button until the map is displayed, takes a screenshot, then moves onto the next bit. I used this scripting capability to brute force dump the entire map of the game. By writing a Lua script, you can control every aspect of the emulator. A TAS beating a Mario level incredibly quickly and accuratelyīizHawk has a Lua scripting engine embedded in it to aid in TAS creation. Since each input is precisely crafted, a TAS can often do amazing things. A TAS is a script that enters in game inputs as if a human was playing the game, with the goal of beating the game as fast as possible. The BizHawk emulatorīizHawk is an emulator that is targeted at creating tool-assisted speedruns, commonly called a "TAS". So, I needed to know which part of the map each of these bits corresponds to. I am building a Super Metroid website where you load your save file, and it will show you where you have been, and offer hints for things you have missed. If Samus has visited 10 screens in the game, 10 bits will get flipped to 1.
This section of the save is about 1kb in size, and each individual bit tracks one cell of the map. The areas you have visited are stored in the game's save file. The map on the pause screen showing where you have been (pink) and where you have not (blue) The game helps you out by mapping your progress automatically as you explore. Super Metroid is an adventure game where you are tasked with exploring a giant, interconnected world. Spoiler alert!This article shows the entire Super Metroid map, including all secret areas.
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