Try going to 0.00,0.00 and zoom in.<p>(spoilers warning)<p>This is what you get: <a href="http://i.imgur.com/JJxGn.png" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/JJxGn.png</a><p>There's also another one in a deeper zoom level.
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. <a href="http://g.co/maps/tg9jy" rel="nofollow">http://g.co/maps/tg9jy</a>
A nice little detail for Pittsburghers: <a href="http://i.imgur.com/fQR4u.png" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/fQR4u.png</a><p>I wonder how many cities they made landmarks for?
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. <a href="http://8bitcity.com/map?New%20York" rel="nofollow">http://8bitcity.com/map?New%20York</a><p>The YouTube video is hilarious.
Google is finally going to support the NES: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rznYifPHxDg" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rznYifPHxDg</a>
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.
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 <a href="http://8bitcity.com/map?New%20York" rel="nofollow">http://8bitcity.com/map?New%20York</a>
You can use these 8bit tiles in your own project, its quite easy to switch the tile layer of any google maps site: <a href="http://blog.bn.ee/2012/03/31/how-to-use-google-maps-8-bit-tiles-in-your-own-project/" rel="nofollow">http://blog.bn.ee/2012/03/31/how-to-use-google-maps-8-bit-ti...</a><p>I updated walksy.com to use these tiles: <a href="http://walksy.com/?8bit" rel="nofollow">http://walksy.com/?8bit</a>
Google Streetview is also available in 8 bit mode:<p><a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?q=googleplex&hl=en&ll=37.421725,-122.083747&spn=0.012611,0.023217&sll=52.531887,13.434992&sspn=0.038428,0.092869&t=8&hq=googleplex&radius=15000&z=16&layer=c&cbll=37.420836,-122.084885&panoid=tLjwO4QEuljVhPL1ERQ8lw&cbp=12,0,,0,0" rel="nofollow">http://maps.google.com/maps?q=googleplex&hl=en&ll=37...</a>
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.<p>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?<p><a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?q=queens,+ny&hl=en&ll=39.741102,-75.322115&spn=0.005956,0.010697&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=40.188298,71.630859&t=8&hnear=Queens,+New+York&z=17" rel="nofollow">http://maps.google.com/maps?q=queens,+ny&hl=en&ll=39...</a>
Cool they did the montreal Biosphere and the Habitat 67 building but no Olympic stadium :(<p><a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Biosph%C3%A8re,+Montreal,+QC,+Canada&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=45.507974,-73.532529&spn=0.030406,0.066047&sll=46.104145,-74.299193&sspn=3.850534,8.453979&oq=biosphere+&t=9&hq=Biosph%C3%A8re,+Montreal,+QC,+Canada&z=15" rel="nofollow">http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Biosph%C3%A8re,+Montreal,+QC,+...</a>
A troll or something near Mount Rainier: <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?q=47.04299,-122.051239&hl=en&ll=47.040211,-122.036251&spn=0.005111,0.011362&sll=47.042054,-121.784821&sspn=0.658835,0.553436&t=8&z=173436&t=8&z=10" rel="nofollow">http://maps.google.com/maps?q=47.04299,-122.051239&hl=en...</a>
Discussion on reddit:<p><a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/rmfr1/browse_google_maps_in_8bit/" rel="nofollow">http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/rmfr1/browse_goo...</a>
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.<p>[0] <a href="http://map.baidu.com/?newmap=1&l=15&tn=B_DIMENSIONAL_MAP&c=1070242,8946925&cc=sh&s=cur%26curtp%3D0%26wd%3D%E4%B8%8A%E6%B5%B7&sc=0" rel="nofollow">http://map.baidu.com/?newmap=1&l=15&tn=B_DIMENSIONAL...</a>