These maps cover every level (excluding bonus levels, at least currently). UPDATE: Bonus and warp levels are now covered! They currently only cover terrain (i.e. background tiles), not sprites, but I'm slowly working on researching sprite data in the games. Even though they only currently cover terrain, I still think this is a huge step forward, considering that before, the only option was to take multiple screenshots, and then do some hacking to get to normally inaccessible terrain.
Other notes:
- For all three games, GB and SGB formats are included. I personally like the SGB palettes, but I know people who don't like them, hence why GB versions of maps are also included. For DKL3J, naturally the GBC format is used.
- For any levels that contain terrain or other non-sprite differences in the Japanese version, these are also included. There are no such terrain differences in the Japanese version of DKL, but in DKL2, Kreepy Krow is different. (Bramble Blast and Parrot Chute Panic also have fewer Zingers, so once I have sprites figured out, I'll include those maps too!) In DKL3, since all levels are in color, maps of both English and Japanese versions are included.
- Similarly, for Tundra Blunda in DKL3, the map for English v1.0 and the one for English v1.1 (the level was extended with an added pit) are both included. (If you're curious, the Japanese version has the same layout as English v1.1, but in color.)
- All prototype maps for DKL3 are included as well (some of them are identical to English v1.0, though, and other versions too).
- In DKL2 and DKL3, normally you can't see the uppermost or leftmost 32 pixels in-game, but they're shown in these extracted maps.
- Some levels in the DKL series have some incomplete off-screen terrain. In DKL, this includes Riggin' Rumble and all three temple levels. In DKL2, this includes the volcano levels (since the uppermost 32 pixels can't be seen in-game). In DKL3, this includes the mill levels. This is not due to a flaw in the map extracting job, but rather oddities in the games themselves.
- In Skyscraper Caper and Oil Drum Slum, the ropes look a bit glitchy (namely, the downward ropes, and shadows of all ropes). This is due to a bug in the game itself: before the tiles start to animate, two of the tiles are swapped by accident. The animation starts while the screen is blank, at which point the glitch fixes itself. If these maps bug people, I can rip them again with tiles in their proper locations.
- In Lockjaw's Locker, Lava Lagoon, and Glimmer's Galleon, the water looks different from how it looks in-game. This is because before the water animates, it uses different tiles which are not seen in-game. (I guess the programmers originally intended to use different tiles here?) If you want to see these odd water tiles for yourself in-game, open a DKL2 ROM in a hex editor, go to offset 0x7CF21, and change it from 01 to 00. Then, enter one of these three levels. (More information here!)
- In Tyre Trail, there are some glitchy tree graphics above one tree. This is also a bug in the game itself -- if you hack to force the game to scroll up, you can see these glitchy graphics. It has no effect on the gameplay anyway, as you can walk through them and they're never visible normally. Spoiler!
- Various bonus stages in Donkey Kong Land use the same layouts, but with different sprites and Super Game Boy palettes. It seems that Rare was really tight on space in the first DKL, so they reused the same maps over and over. This is exemplified with the Kong Token bonus stage, where other unrelated bonus stages use this same terrain. There are also eight levels that have the Kong Token bonus stage, with 4 different SGB color palettes, so some of these palettes are used more than once. (In particular, Simian Swing's second bonus is 100% identical to Tyre Trail's first bonus, as well as Fast Barrel Blast's first bonus. Also, Rope Ravine's first bonus is 100% identical to Congo Carnage's second bonus, as well as Collapsing Clouds's second bonus. Fascinating!)
- Similarly, a few bonus stages share the same terrain as boss stages. (Specifically, Pot Hole Panic's second bonus shares terrain with Wild Sting Fling, Skyscraper Caper's bonus has the same terrain as Seabed Showdown, and Collapsing Clouds's first bonus has the same terrain as K. Rool's Kingdom.)
- This is more obvious, but in DKL2, Pirate Panic's warp stage is identical to that of Gangplank Galley's, and Mainbrace Mayhem's warp stage is identical to Topsail Trouble's (which is obvious from the No Animal Sign at the beginning).
- There are many bonus stages in DKL (and Mad Mole Holes) whose maps are padded with empty, black space on the top and/or bottom. This is a quirk in the game itself, not something that I did. My guess is that Rareware intended to make these bonus stages longer, but filled them with black spaces, either because of lack of time, or lack of space.
And finally, the links (files updated May 10, 2013 with bonuses and warps!):
http://www.mediafire.com/file/jkho3od8j ... L_maps.zip
http://www.mediafire.com/file/idw9pbe4x ... 2_maps.zip
http://www.mediafire.com/file/g6f5bapm9 ... 3_maps.zip
That's a long list, but I hope you enjoy these maps! Like I said, I do plan on supporting sprites sometime in the future.
It's much easier to extract maps like Donkey Kong's treehouse and such.
