I actually memorized the entire map of Sorpigal by heart just by looking at one for a few a seconds. (Though I still walked around while I mapped out the one I showed, to be sure) This was due to it being rather simple, as the entire area of Sorpigal is essentially just one big circle with a few areas off to the side and the Inn/Stores in the middle.

I do like that the maps in MM1 are relatively simple, as compared to my background in Bard's Tale, Wizardry. After all, there are a lot of them.

However, now that I've gotten the teleport spell, i'm wasting lots of time checking to see if there's anything interesting in the inaccessible areas of places. So far, nope.

I'm glad you're enjoying the mapping! If you don't want to draw by hand but want something a little more robust than OpenOffice, I've heard good things about Grid Cartographer, which has a free version:

http://www.davidwaltersdevelopment.com/tools/gridcart/

I haven't actually tried it myself, though. And if you're satisfied with Open Office, by all means continue to use it.

I'm fine thanks, it works fine with me :D

I think a user-extensible tool is in some ways superior to a specialized tool like grid cartographer.

Darpaw: Some things you might want to think about how to represent.

Walls that only exist from one side (the other way you can walk through AND cannot see them).
Walls that cannot be seen.
Walls that can only be seen from one side (but block from both sides).

This game, IMO, has a few too many mapping tricks.. :-O

I decided I didn't really have to care to correctly represent:

* Doors that are locked in one direction, but not in the other direction.
* Squares that prevent casting AND dispell current spells independently from square that prevent casting.
* Squares that cannot be teleported into. (I marked a couple important ones with numbered note, but I'm not going to develop symbols or whatever).

It's probably not, in practice, important to identify locked doors in general, unless it helps with visually recognizing them.

SPOILER! There is at least one thing that matters which isn't on your map yet. ( I think really only one.)

If you're talking about the "hidden eighth statue" that the cluebook mentioned, I admit I haven't found it.

FWIW, my strategy is to try bumping into every single wall. I don't mark a square "done" until i've tried facing all directions on it and tried moving to every adjacent square.

It's a little anal retentive, but the game has wonky stuff like events that only happen if you're facing in a certain direction. (Mostly the level design avoids this problem, but not 100%)

I found a statue hidden inside a random wall. Though I marked it on the map, so there is still one more somewhere...

Really? I see 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 on your map posted above, none of which I think are behind walls, so I think you found all 8 now.

Oddly I numbered them exactly the same way.

Hmmm, you're right, I must have forgotten to mark it. So I must have found it :3

I envy you.

That is how I am as well. I love MM2!

There are many maps available online if you don't want to make them yourself... most are already annotated unlike the maps in the cluebook. But, in my opinion, exploration and mapping is a big part of the appeal of MM1. Still, if it really bothers you then maybe some of the online maps will help you enjoy the game.

Yes. MM1 barely has any graphics at all (after all, it was released back in 1986!). So special encounters like shopkeepers and statues are done entirely via text. MM2 has improved graphics compared to MM1 and sometimes has graphics for special encounters like these. MM3 and onwards have more graphics for everything (and I think they still look quite good).