Map & Navigation

What it is. The system that answers two questions at all times — where am I and how do I get there. Wayfinding (landmarks, breadcrumbs, the minimap) plus travel (walk, unlock, warp). The map is a promise about the space; navigation is how cheaply the player cashes it.

Player fantasy / why it’s fun. The world becomes legible. Early on you’re lost in a tangle; later you glance at the map and know the whole thing — that mastery-of-space feeling is the exploration reward. Getting there fast, on your own route, is the payoff for having learned it.

When to use / when NOT

Design it carefully when	Keep it minimal when
The space is large, connected, revisited (`genre-metroidvania`)	A single arena or linear level — no wayfinding needed
Backtracking is intended content, not padding	Every screen is new; you never return
Players choose their own route	The path is a corridor with one exit
Locking then re-opening a region is the core loop	A run resets the map every time (`genre-roguelike`)

The map exists to make a big space feel small in the mind. If it makes the space feel tediously large — long walks to nowhere new — you built a chore, not a tool. That’s the antipattern-backtracking-tax.

Variants

Variant	Player always knows	The pull is	Example
Full map	Whole layout from the start	Route optimization	strategy overworlds, `anchor-civilization` fog aside
Discovered map	Only what they’ve seen	Filling the blank	metroidvania, `anchor-terraria`
Landmarks only	What’s on screen + memory	Reading the world itself	`anchor-outer-wilds`, early Souls
Fog-of-war	Explored tiles; enemies hidden	Scouting the unknown	`anchor-age-of-empires`, `anchor-starcraft`
Diegetic map	An in-world object they read	Grounded, no HUD	`anchor-dark-souls` (none), sea charts
No map	Nothing — pure spatial memory	Earned mastery of place	`anchor-minecraft` vanilla, roguelites

Travel rules layer on top of any variant:

Travel	Cost	Feels like	Watch
Walk everywhere	Time	The world has weight	Return trips become tax
Fast-travel (free)	None	Convenience	Erodes the space’s meaning
Fast-travel (nodes)	Reach a beacon first	Earned shortcut	Node density is the whole tuning
One-way shortcuts	Unlock the door once	The map folding shut	`anchor-dark-souls` — a masterclass
Costed warp	Currency / risk	A decision, not a reflex	See the twist below

Tuning levers

Lever	Controls	Healthy rule
Map fidelity	How much the map tells you	Enough to plan, not so much it plays for you. Discovered > handed-over for exploration
Travel friction	Cost of a return trip	Match it to whether the trip is content. Zero friction only when the walk adds nothing
Breadcrumbs	How hard to get lost	A waypoint or objective marker rescues the lost; too many kill the wayfinding skill (`system-quests-and-objectives`)
Landmark distinctness	Self-location without a HUD	Every region needs a silhouette you’d recognize blind (`pattern-readability`)
Reveal grain	Room-at-a-time vs. wide	Fine grain rewards thoroughness; coarse keeps the mystery
Fast-travel unlock pace	When the map “opens up”	Gate it behind exploration so walking teaches the space first

Twist seams

Navigation but no map — landmarks only (constraint). Strip the minimap; make the world the map. Each region gets an unmistakable silhouette, a distant spire, a color grade — the player self-locates by looking, not by HUD. Forces memorable world-level-as-story and hard pattern-readability; punishes samey corridors. See anchor-outer-wilds: no waypoint, only a solar system you come to know by heart.
Fast-travel but each use ages the world (risk-reward). Warping is instant but costs the world — a day passes, a faction advances, a resource depletes, an enemy camp respawns tougher. Now travel is a pattern-risk-reward decision, not a menu reflex: is the shortcut worth the drift? Ties navigation to system-weather-and-time and the system-economy; walking becomes the conservative play again.

How it wires to Hayao

The map is discovered state, drawn as chrome. Which rooms are seen, which beacons unlocked — that lives in world state and belongs in the world hash. The minimap rendering is a pure view: cosmetic nodes / a showScreen() panel, out of world.hash() (CLAUDE.md invariants 4–5).
Connectivity is a graph — prove it. Model the space as rooms + edges (locked, one-way, warp). Treat traversability as pure logic and machine-verify every intended destination is reachable given the player’s gates — the same progression-as-graph spine the metroidvania flagship uses (see examples/ metroidvania worldgraph). A stranded region is the cruelest bug.
Prove no soft-locks. After any warp or one-way door, the player must still be able to reach every remaining objective. Sweep it across the ability set, not just the happy path (system-save-and-checkpoint for the resume side).
Determinism holds fast-travel honest. Warp resolves to a fixed spawn; any “world ages on travel” effect draws from world.rng, never wall-clock — so a replay warps identically (CLAUDE.md invariant 2).

Fails when…

Backtracking tax. The map sends you on long, empty return trips for a single pickup. If the walk teaches nothing new, it’s padding — antipattern-backtracking-tax.
Handed-over map. A full, marked, objective-arrowed map with zero fog turns exploration into following a line. The blank is the content.
Breadcrumb overload. A waypoint on everything trains the player to watch the marker, not the world — wayfinding as a skill dies (antipattern-boring-optimal).
Free warp everywhere from turn one. The space stops mattering; distance is meaningless, so world-level-as-story evaporates.
Sameness. No distinct landmarks → the player is lost even with a map, because nothing on it maps to what they see (antipattern-content-desert).
Stranded region. A locked door with no key on the reachable side — the unshippable soft-lock the connectivity sweep exists to catch.

Verify

Every intended destination is reachable given the gate set; no stranded region, no post-warp soft-lock — the metroidvania connectivity proof: [[FUN.md §3]].
Discovered-map and beacon state round-trips through save/hash: [[FUN.md law 7]].
Fast-travel and any world-aging effect are deterministic (same seed, same outcome): [[FUN.md law 6]].
The map is cosmetic — the view never enters the world hash: [[FUN.md law 6]].

Composes with

genre-metroidvania — the genre is map-as-progression; this is its nervous system.
antipattern-backtracking-tax — the failure mode navigation is built to prevent.
world-level-as-story — distinct places make the map readable and worth learning.
system-quests-and-objectives — objective markers are the breadcrumb dial.
system-weather-and-time — the substrate for a fast-travel-ages-the-world twist.
genre-exploration — discovery-first design where the blank map is the game.