Game maps

What this element is

Game maps are the levels, environments, stages and settings of a game — and the navigational overviews players use to move through them. The spatial arrangement of a game world can promote or deter specific values.

Why it carries values

Honest finding first: maps were probably the least influential of the fifteen elements studied. Most serious games are built on budgets in the tens or low hundreds of thousands — not the millions that fund the sprawling commercial worlds that genuinely need maps. Small, linear worlds and tight budgets push designers towards focused tasks rather than open, navigable spaces. So the value signal here is quieter than for rewards or aesthetics — but it still exists. When a map appears, it usually expresses guidance and support; when it's deliberately absent, it usually expresses control, focus and a directed learning path.

Patterns from practice

No map

The learner driver game uses "the one large skid pan type environment" that "progressively builds towards more complex driving scenarios" (P4). Players "do not need to navigate" (P4) — they follow simple, directed instructions. The absence of a map reinforces procedural compliance, safety and instructor control over the learning path: the learner's job is to drive well, not to find their way. The space exploration game and others similarly omit maps because their worlds are small and singular, valuing linear progression over free exploration.

Absence, in other words, isn't neglect. For a directed training experience, a map would add cognitive load and invite wandering that serves nobody.

Map

Where maps are used, they express guidance and accessibility. The physiotherapy platform uses its central menu as a high-level map through which "users could access the various mini games, all made for slightly different audiences" (P2) — a signal of inclusivity and modularity. The same team tried an in-level map and cut it because it was "generally confusing and not useful" (P2): clarity and reduced cognitive load beat abstract spatial completeness.

The social services game includes a town map for the opposite of gatekeeping reasons: "for some people, the world is too big and they just do not know where to go, and so we use the map to guide them along the way. There's always a clue on the map to where you need to be going next" (P10). That's care and support built into the interface — the player retains the autonomy to explore, but is never abandoned.

Questions to ask your team

1. Does our game actually need a map — or are we adding one because games have maps?
2. If we omit a map, is that a deliberate choice about directed learning, or just budget? Would players benefit from more freedom to roam?
3. Who in our audience finds the world "too big"? What guides them when they're lost?
4. Does our map guide without dictating — leaving room for autonomy alongside the support?
5. Have we playtested the map itself? Would players describe it as helpful, or confusing and not useful?
6. Does the spatial structure (one linear space vs. an open world) match the kind of learning we claim to value?