Google maps 8bit quest mode. A setup for 4/1 perhaps? | Hacker News Reader

Google maps 8bit quest mode. A setup for 4/1 perhaps?

maps.google.com

455 pointsloucal105 comments

Open articleView on HN

Try going to 0.00,0.00 and zoom in.

(spoilers warning)

This is what you get: http://i.imgur.com/JJxGn.png

There's also another one in a deeper zoom level.

Direct link: http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&sll=0,0&t=8. Zoom out to see the alternate view.

Thank you, Google, for creating a world where a spoiler warning might be necessary before a link to your mainstream product.

Notice the map data for that location is copyright Square Enix.

There's something similar if you look for area 51 http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=37.235983,-115.8090...

Madison, Wisconsin (http://g.co/maps/pnsev) has an imagined Monona Terrace as well as some kids with silly hats.

The region around MIT in Cambridge, MA shows similar detail: https://maps.google.com/maps?q=cambridge+ma&hl=en&ll...

I believe those denote locations of Google offices. There's also some in Mountain View.

Hahaha, the Dragonlord transformation is awesome!!

Youtube announcement:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rznYifPHxDg

Interesting, if you look at Pyongyang (North Korea), it has a bunch of labels that don't show if you use their regular maps. They're quite detailed too, it shows "Statue 2 of 'The Newly Freed Proletariat Thanks To The Grat Leader Kim Il-Sung'", schools and such. They must have hidden map data they don't show normally that leaked into this map. http://g.co/maps/tg9jy

A nice little detail for Pittsburghers: http://i.imgur.com/fQR4u.png

I wonder how many cities they made landmarks for?

Here's a tumblelog of easter eggs, open for submissions: http://gmaps8biteastereggs.tumblr.com/

Tokyo, Japan:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Tokyo,+Japan&hl=en&ll=...

Sky Tree (recently huge Tower built in Tokyo) here: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Tokyo,+Japan&hl=en&ll=...

Japan is full of stuff, also check Osaka, Kyoto, Mt Fuji, Miyajima, etc

No buildings in Stockholm, but they appear to have marked their office with figures wearing propeller beanies: http://g.co/maps/hjpgu

San Francisco got a few little landmarks...

Sutro Tower: http://i.imgur.com/1CUY1.png

Ferry Building and (I think) the Google SF headquarters: http://i.imgur.com/VmC2D.png

Alcatraz: http://i.imgur.com/FkFf1.png

I wonder how many cities they made landmarks for?

It looks like landmarks are a feature of big cities only - no love for the Basketball Hall of Fame or Springfield Armory.

Zoom in on London and you'll find a bunch of landmarks

Nothing for Baltimore, as far as I could find :(

I was saddened by that, too. No Wire reference at least? But hey, they didn't even give Niagara Falls special treatment.

It's a pretty impressive map for an April Fool's joke. Particularly like the 2d rendered buildings for landmarks like the Eiffel Tower, Sutro Tower in SF, etc. Presumably somewhat inspired by Brett Camper's 2010 project 8bitNYC. http://8bitcity.com/map?New%20York

The YouTube video is hilarious.

Google is finally going to support the NES: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rznYifPHxDg

Resisting every hacker temptation to look into making this a real NES cartridge.

Development: http://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/Nesdev_Wiki

Modem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famicom_Modem

Microphone: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Entertainment_System#H...

How long before April 1st?

Even though I think this is great, it still kind of annoys me that they keep calling it a NES when they're clearly using a Famicom. I suspect that's actually going to confuse a lot of people.

It looks like the video was made by Japanese, but they probably used the name "NES" because it's more familiar to English-speaking audiences who're likely to make up the majority of video views.

This was probably made by their Google Japan branch, that's why they only had regular Famicom available.

Drag the hero on to the map somewhere and he will land somewhere with streetview, which gets turned into 8bit, hilarious.

That's pretty great. I've wanted for a while to find a way to layer image effects onto Google Street View, to be able to move around the world in a sort of alternate processed reality. But afaik, there's no straightfoward way to add a filter like that unless you're Google. There's an image API, but the resolution is only 640x480. There's an undocumented image API with higher-res images, but you'll get banned if you make more than occasional usage of it. Perhaps it'd be possible to do it via a browser extension that renders the effects locally?

[edit: Just thought of one possible route. There's a WebGL beta for Street View; perhaps you could add effects by injecting some WebGL shader code, given appropriate local security permissions?]

So far I've been just experimenting with grabbing a few hundred images from the undocumented API and applying effects locally. This is the result of one experiment (hit [reload] at the top/right for new images): http://www.kmjn.org/projects/cyanocph/

nice! I really like that. Thanks for posting this.

This is fun for looking at street art: http://g.co/maps/ary5t

screenshot: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7188/6886373098_84a16330a1_o.p...

Nice! This reminded me of the murals in SF: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=3481+16th+Street,+San+Francisc...

Just figured that out. You have to disable MapsGL for that to work.

Dragon Warrior! Man, I loved that game, despite its flaws. The gameplay was really slow-paced, and the random battles were kind of annoying. But it was unabashedly itself, and I guess I fell in love with the world and the good ol’ swords-and-sorcery style. It helps that the NES is just an excellent system—mine’s still in perfect working order.

Yeah the music in the video really brought me back for a second. I was just thinking about my old NES wondering where in my parents house it could be and if I could play earthbound.

8bit city with map tiles have been for awhile now using Openstreetmap as the source. An example that has been arou d for years is this http://8bitcity.com/map?New%20York

Seriously, more casual maps can work well in presenting information. http://sh.edushi.com/

That's gorgeous! I found more info here if anyone's interested (I can't read Chinese): http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-06/edushis-3-d-pi...

WOW! Incredible. I love the floating balloon advertisements. I could see that getting annoying, but a great way to get your attention

You can use these 8bit tiles in your own project, its quite easy to switch the tile layer of any google maps site: http://blog.bn.ee/2012/03/31/how-to-use-google-maps-8-bit-ti...

I updated walksy.com to use these tiles: http://walksy.com/?8bit

You show Nob Hill, San Francisco as a part of the Presidio:

"Nob Hill California and Mason, SF Tags: neighborhood, architecture, history, parks 34 reviews on http://www.yelp.com/biz/felicia-gelardi-skin-care-san-franci... StreetView"

That's very much the wrong neighborhood.

This is fixed - thanks for pointing that issue out!

Google offices are apparently marked with surprisingly-unpixelated propellerheads. There's also some custom art for SF landmarks.

I was so hoping I could see the propellerheads in closer detail with the Street View, but alas...

Funny, I met Brett of http://8bitcity.com/map this week ;)

Google Streetview is also available in 8 bit mode:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=googleplex&hl=en&ll=37...

...only in the Flash viewer though: not on WebGL (to save anyone clicking the link who's opted into the WebGL beta).

I was wondering what everyone was talking about. Thanks for the tip.

Incognito mode to the rescue!

a possible word of warning: I disabled MapsGL to see it. In the past there has always been a button to get back into GL mode, but I can't find it anymore so I am now stuck in Flash.

Yes, me too. I assume it will be coming back post April 1st...

As of an hour and a half ago, it's April 1 in Japan.

My first instinct was to look under the hood for some sprites I could use for a map based game. No luck, all the cool building/characters seem embedded in the the actual tiles.

Is there any way Google would try to make an actual game out of this? I know there are other successful online 8-bit-ish RPGs that use the Google Maps as a base...

Can anyone identify this strange object?

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=queens,+ny&hl=en&ll=39...

Looks like a druinlord.

Cool they did the montreal Biosphere and the Habitat 67 building but no Olympic stadium :(

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Biosph%C3%A8re,+Montreal,+QC,+...

A troll or something near Mount Rainier: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=47.04299,-122.051239&hl=en...

Just look on the copyright message in bottom right: SQUARE ENIX. Final fantasy.

Actually Dragon Warrior not FF, which was an Enix property pre-merger.

Monster: http://goo.gl/ER97T

I tried dragging the street view dude onto the monster, but unfortunately no battle ensued ;(

I created a tumblr to collect all the monsters!

http://map-monster.tumblr.com/

Found a monster? Leave a link into the comments.

Try:

Volgograd

Pogradec

Randazzo

Paceco

Balfour, Mpumalanga, South Africa (zoom out)

Makasa, Northern, Zambia (zoom out)

Goch

Mallow, Ireland

Just found them by searching around. Not sure if there's any logic to where they're placed, besides on land.

I came across one south of Washington, DC:

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=38.585747,-76.65847...

There's one at Fuji mountain in Japan.

Reims, France

HaHa! Google is awesome! Other outlets are just running bizarre news stories today, but Google actually developed and released something so cool!

Discussion on reddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/rmfr1/browse_goo...

If you try to replicate the route from Los Angeles to New York on Google Maps 8-bit Quest mode, it's not nearly the same route as the one in the video. Curious they missed that.

It’s been April Fools Day in New Zealand for 14 hours, so I guess rather than it being setup in advance, they just launched it in time for the first country to hit 1/4.

It was created by the Tokyo office, so was launched on time for them. :)

There's a :P monster lurking at 35.371205,138.639039. He alludes you despite zooming in. There are some interesting images all over this area of the map.

Try searching for something, then specify the time range. Check the last option (changes on reload) :)

If it is possible post links to images not to google map links because they do not work for everyone

Somehow I got the map to split-screen with street view, and all the street view's in 8-bit, too.

Damn google, I don't want to look at it, I want to play it!!!

Haha, they're insane.. I love this. Great April fools'

Reminds me of Ultima II. Or was that Ultima ][ ?

Specifically it is the original Dragon Quest (Dragon Warrior in the US).

Yes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dragon_quest_battle_2.png

This looks like an early April's fool to me.

Why early? It's already April 1st in eastern part of the world.

Everyone knows the Internet only work in California.

This service is developed by GoogleJapan. So, April's fool is earlier than the US'.

I'm curious how this was found?

There's a quest button in the top right when using Maps, as of a hour or so ago I guess.

Matt Cutts tweeting is how I found out.

Try Street View! Awesome.

Good lord, nothing's made me miss Zelda and SimCity as much as this. Kudos Google.

Oh god the world is SimCity Classic...

Launching these changes couldn't be quick, easy, or cheap, especially when accompanied by the polished intro video, and while incredibly cute, I wonder how many here would have preferred for Code Search to continue life in exchange for not expending resources on feel-good projects like this, or e.g. the frequent doodles, the novelty of which has long since worn off.

True, but—a happy employee is a productive employee. If you get to build something a bit silly, a bit cheeky, a bit different every now and again—wouldn't you like your job just that little bit more?

This feature actually came together very quickly and in large part due to volunteer after hours efforts.

I miss code search too, but it's not fair to compare the upkeep of a production service to small one-off art projects.

Does anyone else see these projects, the always changing Google logo, and G+ as proof that Google just has way too much talent and not enough useful ideas?

I think Google likes to have fun.

Further, if your job is somewhere that you have fun and are free to occasionally make interesting-but-useless things, you're less likely to quit.

What a great way to demonstrate that talent in unique ways and keep employees happy with an awesome atmosphere!

These projects and the changing Google logo can be thought of as marketing expenses to maintain Google's brand, which helps them continue to attract users and developers.

G+ is built for strategic reasons (and not something they're just doing because they don't know have 'enough useful ideas'.) You can debate whether G+ is the right thing for them to do, but they're building it because Google leadership thinks they should.

You are right. However, successfully selling products to people isn't fun. See Apple. If some Google homies got together in their spare or 20% time (does that still exist?) and utilized the Google tools to make this, then sweet. But, if some engineers getting paid $80k+ used their work time to build this, doesn't that suggest Google has too much talent?

I like fun (and Google), but investors like profits.

No. Keeping the system from visually stagnating, and having fun with your users, is one of those useful ideas... Besides, I doubt the artists are taking resources from feature developers. If anything, they're probably sitting idle between roll-outs.

This looks... erm ... neat. A "sophomore OpenGL term project" kind of neat. Baidu on the other hand does the maps right [0], which hardly surprising given their 20 years of head start. On a more general note, this reminds me of old Microsoft's tactics. Google should really stick to the search, but instead they throw together something that mimics competitor's feature. Something that looks more featureful and which is free, but upon closer inspection is effectively a half-ass effort, because it's an entirely different domain that's not their specialty.

[0] http://map.baidu.com/?newmap=1&l=15&tn=B_DIMENSIONAL...

And now I'm left wondering how this comment relates to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3777709 from yesterday...

The same comment, from two different accounts. Both related to Google products. Is this the 2012 version of "Netcraft confirms that BSD is dying"?

solsenNet 32 minutes ago | link This looks... erm ... neat. A "sophomore OpenGL term project" kind of neat. Baidu on the other hand does the maps right [0], which hardly surprising given their 20 years of head start. On a more general note, this reminds me of old Microsoft's tactics. Google should really stick to the search, but instead they throw together something that mimics competitor's feature. Something that looks more featureful and which is free, but upon closer inspection is effectively a half-ass effort, because it's an entirely different domain that's not their specialty. [0] http://map.baidu.com/?newmap=1&l=15&tn=B_DIMENSIONAL....

huhtenberg 23 hours ago | link | parent | flag This looks... erm ... neat. A "sophomore OpenGL term project" kind of neat. Wolfram on the other hand does the graphs right [0], which hardly surprising given their 20 years of head start. On a more general note, this reminds me of old Microsoft's tactics. Google should really stick to the search, but instead they throw together something that mimics competitor's feature. Something that looks more featureful and which is free, but upon closer inspection is effectively a half-ass effort, because it's an entirely different domain that's not their specialty. [0] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=sqrt%28x*x%2By*y%29%2B3....

Haha what are these some weird PR-bots? (or in this case bad PR-bots)

Or astroturfing...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com