The Cartographer

I. Why I Map

Old Stuff: Mapping is a great way to learn about games. That way you come to find out:

• The terrain and units of the game
• The limitations of the game engine
• New possibilities and ways of implementing levels
• How to make more challenging and fun missions
• Having fun testing and playing the level

Mapping is also fun, especially when you get feedback about your work. It makes one feel good when somebody likes the level you have made. I map because it's there. I map when I have a solid Idea in my mind. I just don't map for the sake of making a map. Thus so few maps.... And I've lost a lot of maps through the passage of times and hard disks.

Update: There are long stretches where I have an obsolete computer and none of the new games work on it. So, I just twiddle my thumbs and start up the map editor, hoping to entertain myself (and in case of Heroes 3 & Q2, my friends as well) for some more time.

II. What I Map

Map editing has not been supported by many games, but those which do have maps made by me. They include:

• Stunts (Broderbund Software, 1990(!))
• Civilization II (Microprose, 1996(!))
• Warcraft II (Blizzard, 1995-6(?))
• Quake II (ID Software, 1998-9(?))
• Starcraft / Broodwar (Blizzard, 1998-9)
• Age of Empires II (Microsoft, 1999)
• Heroes of Might And Magic III (3do, 2000-1(?))
• Counter-Strike (Gooseman(!), 2001-2)
• Warcraft III (Blizzard, 2003-4)
• Dawn of War (Relic, 2005)

III. Feedback, suggestions, critiques and praise

Mail me at syddhant at gmail dot com. Please put a sensible Subject line, or just put 'Mapping' or something. Otherwise, I'll delete it assuming it to be part of the 1001 spam messages I get.