Comments on: You're gonna go up the street 12 pixels, hang a left, then straight 44 pixels to 77th street...

You're gonna go up the street 12 pixels, hang a left, then straight 44 pixels to 77th street...

BeerFilter — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 16:30:33 -0800

8bit Cities: Amsterdam - Austin - Berlin - Detroit - London - New York - Paris - San Francisco - Seattle - Washington, D.C.

By: bwg

bwg — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 16:35:36 -0800

New York, London, Paris, Munich Everybody talk about pop musik Talk about, pop musik Talk about, pop musik Pop pop pop pop musik Bet that will stick in your head the rest of the day.

By: vorfeed

vorfeed — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 16:36:17 -0800

GO NORTH, WEST, SOUTH, WEST TO THE FOREST OF ~~MAZE~~ CENTRAL PARK

By: Some1

Some1 — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 16:36:21 -0800

It's been so long since I've thought about King's Quest 2!

By: mhz

mhz — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 16:36:39 -0800

Previously, although then it was NYC only.

By: gurple

gurple — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 16:38:31 -0800

Neat, but the businesses that are chosen for appearance on the map are really seem really oddly chosen, at least for Seattle. I wonder if there's an advertising angle there? The sushi place across the street from where I work is visible at a pretty low zoom level, but almost nothing in the downtown core of my neighborhood is shown at all.

By: BeerFilter

BeerFilter — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 16:42:40 -0800

Previously, although then it was NYC only. The domain has changed, but that shouldn't have mattered. Descriptive tags are important!

By: The Whelk

The Whelk — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 16:44:29 -0800

You know this is useless to me unless you can project it into the upper right corner of my glasses like an overworld map, right?

By: bearwife

bearwife — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 17:05:12 -0800

Call me pixelated [sic] but I love these. Especially Seattle!

By: filthy light thief

filthy light thief — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 17:07:34 -0800

Copied from the site, for your information:

How? This web map was created using a custom rendering engine, with help from several excellent open source software and data packages. The underlying geometry for map features such as roads & parks comes from OpenStreetMap, © by contributors, CC-BY-SA. The snazzy pixel fonts are by the artist Miffies (some have been modified). The map graphics are assembled in Python: for each 16x16 pixel tile, a series of spatial tests are performed via SQL/PostGIS. Based on the results (what's here: a road, a park, a lake?), the appropriate bitmap tile is selected. The bitmaps are then tesselated into larger 256x256 pixel tiles, and served to your browser. Why? The 8-Bit Cities project, which started with 8-Bit NYC, is an attempt to make the city feel foreign yet familiar, smashing together two culturally common models of space: the lo-fi overhead world maps of 1980s role-playing and adventure games, and the geographically accurate data that drives today's web maps and GPS navigation. I hope to evoke the same urge for exploration, abstract sense of scale, and perhaps most importantly unbounded excitement that many of us remember experiencing on the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Commodore 64, or any other number of 8-bit microcomputers. Maps offer us visual architectures of the world, encouraging us to think about and interact with space in particularly constrained ways. Take some time to think about your surroundings a little differently. Set out on a quest. Be an adventurer.

I kind of wish he used other tiles, something to give a more urban feel. As it is, it's as if there are no buildings, just different sorts of grasses, trees and water. Also, I feel like there should be some monsters wandering around.

By: oinopaponton

oinopaponton — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 17:21:16 -0800

I wish there were little minigames scattered around. Like a version of Pipes where you could make subway connections.

By: joe lisboa

joe lisboa — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 17:40:48 -0800

HAR HAR DETROIT IZ ALREADY 8-BIT

By: ormondsacker

ormondsacker — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 18:41:17 -0800

HAR HAR DETROIT IZ ALREADY 8-BIT [Cue title screen, terrible MIDI of "Lose Yourself"]

By: joe lisboa

joe lisboa — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 19:50:37 -0800

Well played!

By: yhbc

yhbc — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 21:32:59 -0800

Okay, I found the Statue of Liberty, but I still can't see it.

By: mrnutty

mrnutty — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 00:25:17 -0800

Medina Park in the Seattle map is in the wrong place (says the only person who will notice that).

By: bjrn

bjrn — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 01:33:00 -0800

Wow. You have to zoom in on Amsterdam really far before it starts to make any kind of sense. Guess us dutchies are too sophisticated to be captured in 8 bit!

By: mippy

mippy — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 06:56:24 -0800

My road in London is on there! As is where I work - even the local Wasabi is marked off.