GamesRPGGraph paper mapping my way through a 37-year-old RPG reminded me how rarely I give games 100% of my attention, and how much more fun I have when I doWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesRPGGraph paper mapping my way through a 37-year-old RPG reminded me how rarely I give games 100% of my attention, and how much more fun I have when I doWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
Pasokon Retrois our regular look back at the early years of Japanese PC gaming, encompassing everything from specialist ’80s computers to the happy days of Windows XP.
Developer:Humming Bird SoftReleased:1987-1990Japanese PCs:PC-88, PC-98, MSX2, X68000(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
I’ve been spoiled. The modern RPGs I spend my time with are filled with waypoints, automaps, and quest markers, all designed to keep me on task and pushing forward. The old ones I choose to play today are rarely more than a decent emulator away from having instant-access save states and handy turbo features on tap, able to compress all that grinding and walking around into easily digested chunks.
And why shouldn’t I use these features if they’re available? Why spend hours walking in circles when typing “[Game Name] maps” into a search engine can show me where I need to go in an instant? Why jot down my own notes when the internet’s filled with FAQs and videos?
Because I’ve taken it too far.
The intent of these modern tools is to be helpful, flexible, convenient. But all too often the reality is I end up thoughtlessly sanding games down into smooth, efficient, samey experiences. I don’t invest myself as fully as these games deserve. And when that happens, I miss out on the chance to make an adventure of my own, to takemyroute through a game and come away from a game with a personal story to tell instead of a tidy checklist of completed tasks, the same as everyone else’s.
So I’m going to fix that—for one game, at least. I’m going to play Laplace no Ma, a brilliantly unsettling 1920s-themed dungeon crawler that lets me send a team of detectives, psychic mediums, and journalists into a spooky mansion, the old fashioned way. Thereallyold fashioned way. I’ve printed out copies of the game’s official graph paper, I’ve got the pointiest pencil in the house to unleash upon it, and I’m ready to go.
Venturing forth
The rewards for the daunting amount of effort I’m about to put into this game turn up much faster than I expected.
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And what about the unfinished corridor leading deeper into the mansion behind the stairs, where does that go?Is it spooky?(Surely it’s going to be spooky).
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
Because of that I noticed how precisely my first view inside the mansion matched up perfectly with the map. The stairs were right where I expected them to be, and I started off next to the door leading to the room with the fireplace, just as expected.
Although “accurate” is kind of open to interpretation when it comes to my wobbly lines. The scrappy notes I’ve been making down one side of the first floor’s sheet now overlap a room’s western edge, and there’s a ghostly outline of a mistake lingering around on the opposite side of the paper. I did think it was strange that two rooms right next to each other had the exact same layout, not realising that between swigs of coffee I’d turned myself around and accidentally wandered into the same place twice.
To make matters worse, running away from many potentially life-ending random battlesliterallymoves my team several tiles away and facing a different direction. It makes sense, in theory—if I was running away from flesh eating monsters I wouldn’t pay too much attention to where I was going or how I got there either. But as there’s always a real chance I’ll end up completely lost in a different room and facing a blank wall it almost makes dying to a small army of zombies and being forced to start over feel like the superior choice.
Image1of6(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
Image1of6(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
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(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
I could give in. Find a map online. Nobody would bat an eye at someone FAQing their way through an old dungeon crawler. So why make things more difficult for myself? IfDigital Eclipse’s Wizardry remakecan include an automap and still receive hundreds of positive reviews, who am I to argue? It’s not 1990 anymore and I don’t have to pretend it is.
I let the question stew for a bit as I direct my team, one of them driven mad through MP loss, to continue poking around in the dark. I’m making things more difficult for myself because I’m enjoying it. It’s fun, like… like getting smacked around and kicked off a cliff in Elden Ring is fun. I want to shout and swear and chew straight through this damned pencil, but I know I’m coming back for more. Because this isn’t Humming Bird Soft’s game now, it’s mine. My team. My experiences—good, bad, and plain embarrassing.
Dear diary
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
I love this imperfect mess I’ve made. I’m drawing over my own notes. Marking secrets. Scribbling little half-formed thoughts down as odd bits of dialogue come my way. Writing ENFORCED GHOUL ENCOUNTER in the margins and then underlining it because I don’t want to get caught out next time.
Just below that is another helpful note for future me: KEY INSIDE, a happy memory of finding something useful, safely stored forever on paper. Not evenEtrian Odyssey’s mapmaking features can match how personal it is to create something like this, the sequential numbers I’ve used to mark various points of interest forming a sort of diary of my path through the game as I go.
Image1of3(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
Image1of3(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
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(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
(Image credit: Humming Bird Soft)
I don’t need to be so hard on myself. I don’t need to make tangible progress, just to explore. I need to doodle little cartoon skulls in the margins of my maps. I need to spend more time having fun than counting down the hours until I can move onto the next game.
I need to take this attitude into the next game I boot up, no matter how new or old it is. I’m tired of winning—I just want toplay.
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