8-Bit City’s Pixelated Video Game Maps of New York, Paris, and Other Cities

New York, as seen through the eyes of a 1980’s teenager.

8-Bit City maps look like 80’s video game maps: blocky, pixelated, and uniformly colored. But that’s totally the point, says creator Brett Camper. He explains on his Kickstarter page that he got the idea from his childhood love of adventure video games. The Brooklynite has now transferred this passion to his interest in cities. He hopes that these maps will “evoke the same urge for exploration and abstract sense of scale that many of us remember experiencing on the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Commodore 64, or any other number of 8-bit microcomputers.”

Don’t underestimate the detail of these maps based on their low resolution; they contain surprisingly accurate placements of city locations, attractions, streets, etc. You can even search for any address, and the map will refresh and zoom right to it.

Washington, D.C.

Paris, France

Since 2010, Camper has surpassed his promise of mapping just fifteen global cities. His website includes eighteen of these 8-bit maps, including populous cities like Washington, D.C., London, and Paris, but also some curve balls like Oklahoma City, Kyoto, and Nijmegan (the Netherlands’ oldest city).

The city-state of Singapore

Camper tells us he isn’t working on this project anymore, so don’t expect to see your city mapped if it isn’t already up. However, he is planning to make an indie video game that players to explore these 8-Bit City maps!

Get in touch with the author @YiinYangYale.