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- Hacker News
- Once upon a time, people worked on making imaginary maps https://www2.cs.arizona.edu/~kobourov/PROJECTS/maps.html to visualize datasets like TV and music recommendations. It was fun. In a 2026 context, one might use AI to post process the maps and make them even better.by graphviz
- https://mapofmetal.com/ was always one of my favorite (and I don't even listen to metal).by mankyd
- The card deck procedure is the most interesting part to me. It makes the map feel less like a drawing and more like a system Jerry is observing over decades. Maybe i need to follow his rules for a map of my own.by rode1974
- The rules make it feel oddly real
- If you're interesting in something similar with a specifically made deck, check out The Story Engine's "Deck of Worlds", which is how I was introduced to map crafting via a rule system. Another alternative is a system called "The Quiet Year" which uses a standard deck of cards and written rules for generating a world and events with an eye toward using it for collaborative story telling.by drakythe
- The most Borgesian thing to ever be posted on HN.by wanderer2323
- Whoa.
In my grade school years, I made many maps of my imaginary world. By high school, I was putting them into my computer, one 16x16 grid at a time. Had to make sure the edges matched up. Then I wrote code to print them on the Epson MX-80 dot matrix. The poster-board I tiled them on was still in the basement, though many of the squares were falling off.
It was easier after I coded a moving 64x64 buffer.
by FarmerPotato - Oh that is a blast from the past - I had an Epson MX-80 printer as a kid connected to my first PC. Many fond memories of trying to make muti-page prints from it... And the dot-matrix sound is still embedded deep in my brain.by meatCube
- First found out about Jerry’s Map over 10 years ago thanks to this video on Vimeo and it really stuck with me. Glad to see the project continue. Also I miss finding these smaller documentaries on the site, so many neat subjects covered before Youtube became the home of all things video.by DannyPage
- The revision process makes it look like a satellite image, painstakingly updated by a single satellite, which can only cover so much per pass.
I have this recurring dream of a city - it's a mix of various places I've been to and it's surprisingly consistent. It bears the closest resemblance to Riga, Latvia - only thing is I've never been there. Funny how that works.
by Tade0 - In grade school I kept meticulous, tedious logbooks of ships entering and leaving an imaginary port for tax purposes.by fapjacks
- What is your profession now? Accountant? Ship's Captain?
Do your D&D campaigns track gold coin weight?
Either way, this sounds like it would have been weirdly fun as a kid. Very imaginative even if it doesn't sound like it at first glance.
by Guthwine - > The entire process is driven by instructions on a card drawn from a special deck created by the artist.
I like this. I like that his system pushes the creative process forward without relinquishing the actual creative part of it (making the map tile).
by wxw - It's very similar to styles of generating lairs/dungeons in many TTRPGs. A lot of them come with various tables/dice rolls to help build a layout and then subsequent tables to give a general prompt for what goes in said rooms. It's an extremely satisfying routine, as you're not 100% beholden to every dice roll, but the dice rolls help prime the creative juices and give constructive constraints to the process.
I highly recommend trying it out for yourself!
by strifey - I know Jerry Map (I hope that someday will be a exposition in Spain) because I love it, I love the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsider_art. The people who maybe mad and they built a world with own rules.
I remember the book of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Darger or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_Fortress or Cataclysm DDA .
And weird games as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic .
by mdtrooper - It's a weird coincidence to me I just remembered Henry Darger again today, within the last hour actually. I had watched "In the Realms of the Unreal" (2004 documentary) in the theater when it came out. (I know it's only a coincidence because it's something I'm interested in thinking about, but it feels meaningful anyway.)by drivers99
- I used to do things like this when I was a kid (less extreme, never more than a single sheet of paper), where I would create some natural features: a lake shore or river, maybe a freeway or two or a railroad and then start platting out a subdivision in the open spaces. It was a delightfully meditative practice and maybe I should start doing it again.by dhosek
- you might enjoy cities: skylinesby fredsters_s
- Same here. Was so bored I started drawing maps and inventing little stories in my head.
I think what inspired this was the LOTR in paperback that my sister had, because it had maps inside the cover.
by INTPenis - There's a good People Make Games video about this from a few days agoby archermarks
- You know, it'd have been amazing if TFA has not opened with that video. So instead of clicking the link to view TFA, you went off and dug up the exact same link in TFA???by dylan604
- This one of my most favourite youtube documentaries i've seen in a whileby oliyoung
- It's funny that I watched this less than an hour ago, and I click on hackernews and bam it's #1 on the front page.
Probably someone else must've also watched this in the past few hours or days.
by lynguist - You guys are welcome: https://marcmajcher.github.io/jerrysmap/by Fraterkes