Mental Mapping as Challenge

Words: 1712 Approximate Reading Time: 10-15 minutes

A while back I played a game called Chants of Sennaar which is a delightful puzzle game about deciphering a series of languages. It’s a combination of deductive logic via context clues and comprehension of linguistic structures that is interesting, though the overall systems do have some problems here and there.

But one thing that stuck out to me at a couple of points was navigation. I generally have a pretty good sense of direction – as I wander through a space my brain is building this representation of the world to allow me to navigate. The representation is never perfect, and it sometimes goes wrong. Very few people can truly build perfect maps in their heads based on limited information. But overall our brains do their best to make sure that we know where we are so we don’t get lost…or at least too lost.

With maps being such a common component of game design, it can be easy to overlook the ways in which the absence of a map can pose a challenge to the player. Being required to engage in this mental mapping, especially under some kind of pressure, is a way for the game to confront the player with an obstacle that relies on the player’s memory. While we normally think of “challenge” as being about execution – performing intricate sequences of button presses without error or reacting to events swiftly, this kind of navigation problem is as much a challenge as either of those. It is simply one that relies on your memory and spatial awareness.

Having a good sense of navigation can be helpful in games that do have maps, just because the process of checking a map can be a pause in gameplay that players can find annoying, especially if they find themselves constantly returning to the screen to get where they’re going. But at the same time, the mere existence of a map as an option can help to overcome the lack of this navigation.

I wanted to look at the choice to not include maps in some games because there are plenty of players who do not have that same sense of direction. There is some portion of players that will struggle to navigate the game’s world, and we should ask to what extent that is something that is “fine.” When should a game include or not include a map, and when might the decision to not include that map be a significant oversight in the design?

Level Design and Mental Mapping

Mental mapping at most levels does not take place in a vacuum. Our brains need there to be something to help orient us within the world. Landmarks, for example, are a useful way to keep track of where we’ve been and when we’ve reached a place we’ve been before. The more easily identifiable landmarks that exist in a space, the easier it is for us to place ourselves within that space.

The core of good level design is to help players maintain that sense of where they are. Ideally, any game that is going to have you do some amount of navigating should be arranged in a way that the player can effectively navigate it. There are plenty of rules about this within game design that experienced designers are familiar with. These facets of level design help direct players toward the main path, or look for secrets, or detect traps, and so on. Good navigation is helpful because you don’t want your players getting too lost. Getting lost is okay as long as the player gets back to “the path” relatively quickly, but the more time they spend trying to find something but not knowing where to go, the more likely they are to just quit.

But even with good level design, maps can still be useful. Maps can be as useful for the process of mental mapping as the world itself. If you want to know where you are in relation to your objective, having that option open to you at the press of a button removes uncertainty. If you venture into an unknown area, you can easily return to the comfort of the known. Or conversely, you can keep exploring that unknown territory with the reassurance that you can never be truly lost. A good map and good level design make for fun and engaging exploration.

But an area can obviously be poorly constructed from a navigational perspective. That doesn’t mean that the area is poorly designed in other aspects. Individual rooms might be fun to tackle, but getting from room to room may well be a pain.

As a couple of examples, a while back I had been interested in a game called Pseudoregalia. A three-dimensional platformer that operates much in the same way as a Metroidvania, the design of its platforming seemed fun and interesting. And, in fact, it was. The movements were generally fluid and responsive in a way that was surprising given its “retro” feel, and the various rooms are each neat challenges to get through. But as the game expands and asks you to explore, it becomes more and more frustrating. Because the game is divided into different zones, with each zone looking fairly monotonous – a series of walls and doors that all interlock into a contiguous space, but a space that is a struggle to navigate. The complete lack of landmarks and the fact that so many of the rooms are just “rooms” means that mental mapping is just shy of impossible. While the game is short, that shortness doesn’t really fix the underlying problem.

Or I could return to Sennaar, which I began this essay with. The game’s several “zones” are mostly interconnected rooms with interactable elements such as NPCs or objects. At the start there isn’t much to explore, allowing you to focus on the core gameplay. But the further you go, the bigger the zones get, and the easier it is to get lost. Because the game’s world isn’t really designed for that interconnected exploration, especially as it gets more and more sprawling. And the absence of a map (and in the few occasions when the game does supply directions, those directions are in a language you’ve yet to decipher) makes this all the more aggravating. Not having a good sense of where a doorway or stairway is going to lead you makes for an annoying experience.

There are definitely cases where the lack of a map could be seen as a part of the game’s design. Where perhaps you want the player to engage in this process of mapping things out in their head and remembering where they are in relation to everything else. Mental mapping should be seen as a challenge to the player, and assessed in terms of the value that challenge offers.

What I mean is that presenting a challenge is not sufficient simply because it’s a challenge. It should be a challenge that is relevant to the game itself.

Perhaps another example is in order. A puzzle game called Lingo was released a while back. Lingo provides the player with a series of words that the player needs to provide a “response” to based on various rules. Perhaps the game just wants you to type out the word, or its opposite, or a synonym, or a homonym, and so on. The challenge comes from deciphering the rules to figure out what response is needed.

But the game’s world is also designed in a way to disorient the player at every turn. Certain hallways can kick you right back to the starting room. Invisible teleporters can zip you throughout various parts of the sprawling buildings. Fake walls lie around just about every corner.

And yet, none of that navigation is really relevant to the fundamental task of deciphering the rules for the words. In fact, it gets in the way fairly quickly and becomes more and more aggravating as time goes on. I’ve mentioned before the idea of exploratory puzzle games running into problems of “where do I go next,” and Lingo distills that frustration down into its purest element.

By comparison, take another puzzle game which Lingo took inspiration from: Antichamber. Antichamber is a game specifically about the manipulation of space and the ways in which how we look at problems changes them. Sometimes the puzzles don’t fully partake in this idea, but at the very least a lot of the design of the world and its puzzles is centered around the disorienting nature of the levels. And, as you should expect, the game allows you to return to a hub room at any point to zip between different places you’ve already visited. This provides you with an in-game map to see how different rooms connect to one another, and what branches you’ve yet to explore.

And this difference between the two games encapsulates the core point: a game can be disorienting, but it needs to both make good use of that disorientation and provide the players with some solution to overcoming it. Either we need a world to be laid out in a way that we can avoid getting lost in if we’re keeping track of things, or we need a map to help us get around. When both are absent, then there’s a problem.

Because when both are absent, we just have a challenge posed to players with little reason for that challenge to exist. Often a challenge unrelated to the game’s underlying mechanics or themes.

Concluding Remarks

There are plenty of games that don’t have maps, and certainly not every game needs to have one. But we should be more skeptical about that decision. How much does the lack of a map really add to the game? How difficult would even a rudimentary map really be to provide to the player? To what extent has the developer helped the player get around the lack of a map, such as through world design or guidance in how to effectively explore?

The map/no map dichotomy seems inviting, but it’s more complicated. Instead, we should be seeing mental mapping as a challenge to the player and asking what role that challenge serves within a given game. Is the absence of a map really “justified” within this game?