Note that at least one EOB game (probably all of them) involve teleportation traps that you're supposed to have to catch by watching your compass as you move - an automapper would instantly reveal that you'd been teleported, spoiling the effect.
It's definitely a different experience playing with an automapper. I played the game with grid paper as a kid, sometimes memorizing the easier levels and sometimes laboriously mapping out the levels as I went. I played EOB2 with the maps in the official clue book, only referencing them when I was stuck.
When I played again with ASE, I found that I was mostly staring at the map the whole time - literally playing the game on the map itself. A lot of the magic was gone.
> When I played again with ASE, I found that I was mostly staring at the map the whole time - literally playing the game on the map itself. A lot of the magic was gone.
I find that with modern games a lot - I spend my time looking at the map and not the world in front of me.
