This Week Was Maps Week

Fearless innovators that we are, we’re trying something new at Endless Mode: we’re introducing our latest theme week after it’s over. Actually we’re extending it beyond just a single week, by a whole two days even, because five days (for every theme week is actually a theme work week) just doesn’t cut it this time. Since last Monday our writers have picked apart maps and the roles they serve in games—both maps as a distinct object, like the internal or external maps used while playing games, and maps in a game design sense as the geography of an in-game world. They’re more than just a record of physical space (even if it’s virtual physical space in the case of games); maps show us where we are but also who we are, as well as who we want to be—or at least who we want others to think we are. 

Our editorial guidelines were simple: think of the spaces in which video games, tabletop games, anime, or theme parks are set. Think about why these spaces are designed the way they are. Or think about the decisions behind how that information is related to you, whether through in-game maps, physical maps, or what have you. And then, you know, write smart stuff about that. (“Write smart stuff” is pretty much my editorial advice to all writers.) And then, after writing all that smart stuff, kindly indulge me while I make a lot of irrelevant references to Swell Maps, one of the greatest bands of all time, whose name was the original inspiration for this week. (It’s Swell Maps Week—the week for swell maps.)

This semi-introduction that you’re reading was supposed to run a week ago today. A week ago today I was on a boat. This boat did have Wi-Fi, but it also had so much else: a pool, a spa, several bars, free drinks, free ice cream, a string quartet, a casino, comedy magician Peter Wardell, and shitty Wi-Fi were just a few of its pleasures. Between the distractions and the intermittent internet not everything that should’ve gotten done got done. Hence this paragraph. Hence this post-introduction. Sorry, friends.

That boat also had a lot of maps. Its library was full of travel books, obviously, but every single elevator lobby on every floor had a map of the boat with a guide to where every restaurant, lounge, store, or other amenity could be found. I spent two whole weeks looking at that map whenever I wanted a bite to eat, whenever I needed to find the gangway to go ashore, the one time I wanted to see what a cruise ship pickleball court looked like. (Curiously I never had to look at the map to remember where the bars were.) And the whole time that boat was in the goddamned Mediterranean Sea, which I’ve probably seen on more maps in my lifetime than any other sea. The outline of the Mediterranean is like the primordial map if you got too into history and classics bullshit as a kid, and since it’s a sea, yes, this map swells.

While I was using Google Maps to find that cool tiki bar / indie rock club in Athens, Greece, or looking at a barely sketched map of the ruins of Ephesus on the back of a map, the writers who actually make this site worthwhile were doing the work. They were mapping it up. They were writing all smart-like about so many maps. This dumb thing wouldn’t have happened without them making it not dumb. Thanks, team.

If you missed it, take a few minutes to look back on what they wrote. Wallace Truesdale discussed how Keep Driving uses its map not just as a tool but as a primary focus of its world. Willa Rowe explained how, despite being functionally useless, 1000xResist’s in-game map if a perfect reflection of the game’s characters and world. Marc Normandin charted the elegance of the original Command & Conquer’s map, and how it’s still a critical example of excellent strategy game design three decades later. Associate Editor Elijah Gonzalez explored how RPG overworld maps, largely a thing of the past, served a valuable and still relevant purpose that today’s games could learn from. Madeline Blondeau winged it sans map to explore how Hell Is Us’s rejection of a map furthers its horrific themes. And that’s not all: we’ll have more tomorrow.