Hello all, and Merry Christmas! This mod packs over 3 months' worth of work, so I hope you find it useful. There's still a ton coming before New Year's, and a roadmap of voteable features is linked on the mod page.

Endorse if this enhances your playthrough, and drop feedback—your input and support shapes the roadmap.

Check the description for crowdsourcing details—we're mapping Pharloom together.

Happy Hornet hunting!

Pharloom Atlas (PAtlas) vs. Interactive Map (IMap)
I was asked for the differences between our mods.

• PAtlas integrates directly with the in-game map for seamless progression tracking.
• IMap uses a separate overlay mode.

Feature Comparison

Full Icon Tracking
PAtlas: ✅ Collection status • Unlock requirements (hide until accessible; 95% done) • Objective/wish progress (marks off in sidebar; 95% done) • Community crowdsourcing via Saved Values window
IMap:   ❌ Claims collection tracking (inconsistent) • No requirements or progress marking
Note: I put in tons of work to build this data set and make it possible for the community to help me finish it.

Input Support
PAtlas: ✅ Full controller + mouse + keyboard (all UIs except search and marker label typing)
IMap:   ❌ Controller-only unusable (no entry into map [at least on my xbox 360 controller]; cancel partial freezes screen)

Map Integration
PAtlas: ✅ Optional progress based auto-reveal rooms • Personal markers • Natural panning • Optional forced Hornet compass
IMap:   ❌ Separate mode • Full map visible from start • No markers • Forced compass

Zoom Behavior
PAtlas: ✅ Zooms around focus (mouse/marker/icon/screen center)
IMap:   ❌ Always upper-right corner

Category Toggles
PAtlas: ✅ 3 modes (Show All / Normal / None) – fast & intuitive from sidebar
IMap:   ❌ 2 modes • Slow to find and select categories in a separate mode

Pharloom Atlas Exclusives

Icons

• Customizable icon sets [2 already implemented]
• Search window
• Icon selection chain (like undo/redo, helps for quest progress)
• Saved Values window + data submission
• Hornet pin (*optional forced visibility + 5 *animations)
• Adjustable icon/marker sizes

Markers

• Mouse placement/selection
• Marker labels (per-save backups)
• *Up to 99 of each type
• Always available

Map

• *Auto-reveal rooms
• *Unlock options (maps/markers/A****)

UI

• Color customization
• Per-save configs w/ automatic backups [required for marker labels and hero mode]
• 20-language translations

* There are other mods that do all or some of this.

Full open source coming soon.

Full details on the mod page. Feedback always welcome!

The Chain System: Curios linked together Also: Categories, Static Links, Chain Links, and Stores Curios

Curios represent something of interest on the map, visualized by an icon. They can represent anything: Monsters, unique or collectable in-game-items, events, achievements, you name it.

They can have 3 important fields that chain links them to other curios:

• Requirements
  • Things required for the curio to become available, and therefore visible on the map.
  • Examples: Double jump, Epona the horse, Act 2
  • An objective that follows another objective should be a Requirement as we don’t want it to show until the first objective is complete.
• Needs
  • Things that will be needed to complete the curio. If there are no needs, simply defeating the enemy or finding the item are generally inferred.
  • Examples: 420 Nuka Cola caps, 3 power stars, defeat Kefka
• Rewards
  • What you’ll get once all the needs for an curio have been met.
  • Examples: 2 Chaos Emeralds, unlocks master pokeballs, the BFG 9000
  • Rewards should be immediately received upon curio completion. It’s better to set something as a reward than a need if it fits.
  • Non-store rewards are also one to one relationships (1 reward for 1 need).
  • An item that a player might want to know about, for example, the “Drifter’s Cloak” for the “Flexile Spines” quest should be a reward, so the player can see it on the map and know it’s there.
    • Rewards do not show up for the player until their quest/objective has its requirements met (configurable).
• They also have 1 other very important field; The Save Value
  • These are what are used to truly mark a curio as complete.
  • These are gathered from save-game data, which are actively monitored.
  • These are found in SaveValues.json.

Curios have 3 display states on the map:

State                  Visibility       Description
Unavailable      Invisible       Requirements have not been met.
     Available      Visible         Requirements met but save value not yet marked, because needs have not yet finished.
      Finished       IsFound*      Save value marked as needs have been met
*Map icons may be set to partial or fully invisible, or different colors, to indicate the Finished/IsFound state.

Curios can also have stores:
Stores have a list of rewards that cost needs and may have requirements.

[ Note: This screenshot is unaltered, but the item metadata shown is fabricated for demonstration purposes ]

Other curio properties:

• Category: See below
• Position: Where on the map the curio is displayed
• Icon: The visual appearance on the map (Inherited from category it not set)
• Title: The name of the curio
• Other descriptive text fields: Where at, Notes, Effects, Tips
• Images: Pictures shown on the sidebar to help find the curio
• Links: Hyperlinks that open external programs (generally web browser URLs)

Chain Links

Both individual curios and their stores have the chain link list fields (requirements, needs, rewards).
These fields themselves are made up of boolean sets like: (Curio1 AND Curio2) OR (Curio1 AND StaticLink3) OR (Curio4 AND Curio5 AND StaticLink4)
So, for example, a store curio Imperial Sushi Set may look like this:

• Vendor: Bancho
• Reward: 2 Tako Sushi+3 Maguro Sashmi
• Needs: 4 Octopus+5 Tuna+9 seeweed+18 rice OR 4 Octopus+5 Tuna+9 sushi wraps
• Requirements: Level 20 Chef+STARTED Fit For a King [quest]

Note: Rewards cannot have OR operators.

Curios in a chain link list have optional flags:

• NOT                      (red)    — This curio must NOT be true for its list to succeed
• STARTED             (teal)     — The curio only needs to be started, not completed (E.g. a Quest)
• RECOMMENDED (plum) — Optional; not strictly required
• AMOUNT             (grey)   — The number acqired and required. (Color only affects the amount and not the rest of the link.)

These flags display to the left of their title, and change the link color. For more information and visuals, see the “Each link can display the following information” section on this page.

All chain links must also be reverse targeted on their targets:
The below list is in the format Linked_From.Field      → Linked_Target.Field

• Curio/Store.Requirements/Needs                        → Target Curio.Unlocks
• Curio/Store.Rewards                                            → Target Curio.Acquired From
• Store.Requirements/Needs for a Store.Reward  → Reward Target Curio.Requirements/Needs [respectively]

Categories

Categories are a list of curios. They are the main means by which you can choose which icons to show on the map.

Static Links

Static links are pregenerated groupings of curios, categories, and misc things not mapped to curios.
They are used as targets in the chain system for collections, curio abstraction, and other misc targets.

For example, some of the static links for Hollow Knight Silksong include:

• Currencies: Rosary, Shell Shards
• Cardinal Directions: North, South, East, West
• Major Game States: Act 2, Act 3
  • These are linked internally to the curios that cause these states to happen.
• Curios groupings: Mossberry, Silver Bell
• Categories: Wish, Journal Entries

Version 1.1.0 and VGAtlas Released This update focuses on:

• Richer item descriptions and interaction
• JSON data updates
• Better visual signaling
• Improved diagnostics
• Significant performance and data-pipeline improvements
• Fully featured web version (VGAtlas). No install—just upload your save file.
• Github Source Code and assets
• Bug fixes

Version 1.0 of the entire codebase had ~11,500 CLOC lines of hand-written code, comments, and documentation. This version adds another ~4,000 plus another ~7,750 for (VGAtlas).

JSON Data Updates
This update adds the following to the data sets:

• Updated metadata on 100 curios
• Added 30 new curios

So it turns out I’m completely oblivious and the Completionist Map mod already did all the work of linking the icons to save values, so in my next version I’ll be integrating their data. Unfortunately this means progress tracking isn’t quite usable yet, even though it is implemented. But it’s almost there.

Item Links in Descriptions
Item descriptions (both in the sidebar and the search window) now support **clickable links to other items**. Linked items can be clicked or activated directly from the description, with selected-item history preserved for forward/back navigation.

Cursor Color: Click, Previous Item, Next Item

Each link can display the following information:
Link Metadata

• Item title
• Flags                                      — shown as prefixes before the title and changes the link color
  • NOT                      (red)    — This curio must NOT be true for its list to succeed
  • STARTED             (teal)     — The curio only needs to be started, not completed (E.g. a Quest)
  • RECOMMENDED (plum) — Optional; not strictly required
• Progress counts
  • Shows amount gathered vs. amount required
  • Most useful for stores, but also applies to quests and wishes

Completion Indicators

• Solid strikethrough  — Item has been completed or found
• Wavy strikethrough — Item has a “STARTED” flag and has been started

Warning Labels

• Important or critical information is marked with animated warning highlights

[Note: These screenshots are unaltered, but the item metadata shown is fabricated for demonstration purposes**]**

The Chain System links now also appear on their targets. New item properties include “Unlocks” and “Acquired From”.

Live-Compiled JSON Data Files
All JSON data files are now compiled live from a database hosted on my domain. This allows faster iteration, easier corrections, and consistent data across versions.

Data Endpoints

• Icon data and relationships:                                    Items.json            Compact
• Icon categories (used for hiding/filtering):             Categories.json   Compact
• Item → save-value bindings (progress tracking): ItemFinder.json   Compact
• Category groupings and misc progress data:       Misc.json             Compact

New Error Logging & Sharing System
Errors generated by the mod are now written to “PAtlas-Error.log” (enabled by default; optional via config).

Key Features

• Logs can be uploaded directly from the configuration screen to help diagnose issues
• Duplicate errors are throttled to prevent log spam
• When running in debug mode (self-compiled), an additional debug log is generated

Web versions of Pharloom Atlas and mod pages and Github
I’m also happy to announce VGAtlas, the web version of Pharloom Atlas. It is feature-complete against the Mod version. After I get the data integrated from Completionist Map, you’ll be able to upload your save files to see what you’ve missed without the need to install a mod.

I plan on turning VGAtlas into a system that can handle any metroid-vania both inside and outside said games with more features than mapgenie.

I’ve also added mirrors of my mod pages here. And the Github is now live!

What’s Left
All that’s left really is finishing the Chain System, which includes:

• Combining Requirements, Needs, and Rewards into 1 set (I realized this one last minute right as I was preparing for the version release... and it’s going to be a doozy updating the data set)
• Detecting the state of Static Link chain items.
  • So while all inter-curio-linking is complete for navigation, they aren’t yet ready for determining which curio icons to show.
• Hiding icons until an area is mapped
• Hiding icons until they are accessible
• Integrating the data provided by Completionist Map

Most of this is functionally complete, but development is temporarily paused while I look for work. If anyone is in need of a Senior Full Stack developer, please reach out.

This is compounded by the fact that only ~29% of the database is currently filled in, and I still need to better distinguish needs vs. requirements.

Unfortunately, additional planned features (see “Planned poll options” on the main page) are also on hold. I had originally planned to tie them to endorsement goals, but was informed Nexus Mods does not allow this, and interest has been lower than expected.

Other Updates
UI

• Sidebar and Search
  • Added ItemID after Title
  • Exact ID matches are now prioritized in search results
  • Search is now internationalization-compatible (legacy Unity i18n tables). Example matches:
    • t̲h̷ē q̇ůïčk̄ b̂r̈őw̃n̄ ḟőx̄ j̇ům̈p̌s̄ ōv̇ër̄ t̲h̷ē l̲a̋z̈ȳ ḋo̊g
    • The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy doG
  • External Links (e.g. IGN)
    • Generalized beyond IGN-only
    • Removed from search results
    • URLs now open correctly via the OS
  • Renamed item description section “Tip” → “Tips”
• Map
  • Switching between selected items now has an animated pan
• Translations
  • Added Korean language (not sure how I missed that one originally)
  • Translation updates across multiple languages
  • Added translation support for help window controller / numpad text
    • Only Japanese currently translated (requires layout by hand)
• Added config option: Hornet Rainbow 1 Angle
• Modified default: Hornet Rainbow 1 Scale
• Changed all Nexus Mods bbcode formatted AboutMe files into Visual Studio markdown format (HTML included in zip files)

Performance & Technical Improvements

• Primary JSON file size reduced by ~33% via compaction
• Label link detection now uses GPU shaders instead of CPU, significantly improving performance
• Removed several cases of CPU-bound Texture2D usage in favor of GPU-resident data
• Reduced resource usage during search operations
• Generalized Image and External Link URL rewrites via regex from Misc.json
• 50+ additional minor optimizations and internal improvements

Bug Fixes

• Visual
  • Fixed window priority ordering so SilkDev “Extract Sprites” labels render above rectangles
  • Mostly fixed item locations being slightly off due to a weird location skew. They’ll become even more precise once I finish mapping the save values.
  • Search Window
    • Fixed search box focus issues (including auto-focus when made visible)
    • HTML tags are no longer parsed or colored
    • Item parts no longer merged, creating possible false search hits
    • “Description:” title no longer shown when text is absent
    • Title and Category are now properly rich-escaped in both search and display
• Exceptions
  • Fixed a bug causing excessive exceptions when right-clicking to place a marker when none available
    • Native Silksong exceptions may still occur but are harmless
  • Fixed null exception from failed mapgenie image downloads when object is Released
  • Fixed rare bug caused by GameMap being lost on game reload
  • Fixed rare bug in HornetIconAnimators on game reload
• Other
  • Fixed potential texture leaks via debug GC routines
  • Fixed “hasMarker” being grouped with “hasMarker_*”
  • Fixed multiple culture-invariant regex issues
  • Added UTF16/Unicode hardening against conflicting characters
    

As always, feedback and bug reports are appreciated.