Wilderness Map (DARKLAND.MAP)

Contains the entire Darklands wilderness map. The map is rendered from tiles stored in two PIC files: MAPICONS.PIC and MAPICON2.PIC.

Extension: DARKLAND.MAP
Location: Game root
Byte order: Mixed — dimension words (0x00–0x03) are big-endian; row offsets (dword[]) and tile bytes are little-endian
Size: Variable — 4-byte header + 0x3A3 row-offset dwords + RLE tile stream
Compression: Bit-packed RLE — 3-bit repeat count + 1-bit palette set + 4-bit tile row per byte
Magic: None — dimensions: max_x=0x0147 (BE), max_y=0x03A3 (BE)
Status: Partial
Source: Wendigo — darkland.map.xml

Partial. The RLE encoding and row-offset structure are confirmed. Tile column derivation from adjacent tiles is documented but does not fully reproduce in-game results — exact adjacency logic is unresolved. The hex-grid odd-row offset is confirmed.

Canonical source: darkland.map.xml (Wendigo’s Darklands repo)

File Layout

Offset 0x00:  word          max_x_coord   = 0x0147  (big-endian)
Offset 0x02:  word          max_y_coord   = 0x03a3  (big-endian)
Offset 0x04:  dword[0x3a3]  row_offsets   — file offset to each row's data
              byte[]        map_data      — RLE-compressed tile data

Both dimension words are stored big-endian, unlike most other fields in Darklands which are little-endian.

The map is 0x148 × 0x3a4 tiles (328 × 932). row_offsets has one dword per row pointing into map_data; rows are variable-length due to RLE compression.

RLE Tile Encoding

Each byte in map_data encodes 1–7 identical tiles:

  Bit 7–5  (3 bits): repeat count — always ≥ 1 (minimum 001 = 1 tile)
  Bit 4    (1 bit):  palette set — 0 = MAPICONS.PIC, 1 = MAPICON2.PIC
  Bit 3–0  (4 bits): tile row within the palette set

The tile column within the palette is derived from the four diagonally adjacent tiles:

Bit	Source
bit 0	Northwest tile’s row, bit 3
bit 1	Northeast tile’s row, bit 2
bit 2	Southwest tile’s row, bit 1
bit 3	Southeast tile’s row, bit 0

Community note: The exact adjacency recipe doesn’t fully reproduce in-game results. In practice, column selection appears driven by tile “similarity”: tiles of the same palette+row set the bit. Certain tile types bind across rows — river connects to bridge, “wet” tiles group together, etc.

Hex Grid — Odd Row Offset

The map uses a hex-style offset grid: odd rows (y % 2 == 1) are shifted half a tile to the right.

For even y: north neighbours are at (x-1, y-1) and (x, y-1)
For odd y: north neighbours are at (x, y-1) and (x+1, y-1)

Related Files

File	Role
`DARKLAND.MAP`	This file — wilderness tile data
`PICS\MAPICONS.PIC`	Tile palette set 0
`PICS\MAPICON2.PIC`	Tile palette set 1
`DARKLAND.LOC`	Location data overlaid on the map