How to Design Gameable Maps 

Kyle: "And don't worry, this is not the original map." Me, clutching his chest as soon as that fat black marker hit the page: "OH OF COURSE HA HA WHO WOULD THINK THAT?"

“Draw a map to get lost.” Yes! I understood and appreciated this video. Different people utilize different language to accomplish the same broad goal of having fun! That epigram could have been an epigraph.

"Recovering academic" got me. Incredible video Kyle, I absolutely loved it.

This reminds me a lot of Lord British (creator of the Ultima games) The game design guidelines are about tactile experiences, whether its every item that you see on screen must be able to be interacted with in some way, or down to including physical items like maps or trinkets in the game box

I appreciate the "that is not the original map" because I was immediately like "NO!" :D So pretty. Definitely want to find the statue's head to ring the bell.

I love that door idea! In the first draft, there was stuff you *could* do (dig around in the rocks, fight enemies, clamber up stuff), but seeing that door gives you a reason to do those things. And it could go in so many directions!

i subscribed from this video, and definitely need to look out for your more recent stuff. I dont even leave comments that often, but man, what you do is great. You put things into words in a beautiful way, and i think your thoughtful and academic approach is quite unique and has so much quality to it. You just make a lot of sense, yk. And it is stimulating and makes me think about my own approach to art and to games in a way that i love. Usually, when i get into things, i avoid research, i love diving into stuff headfirst and exploring and get lost, and then i take out what worked and what didn't from my experiences and i learn by myself. But getting into game making and maps, it's actually super nice to learn from you, to listen to you pov and not start blindly after :D thank you fr, and keep going!

Great crash course in map design and story telling!

I was surprised by "advenience" -- I think it sounds like a fun antonym for "convenience"!

This was way more academic than I originally expected. Still, interesting perspective that I'll try to keep in mind.

Summary: What makes a map "gameable"? They are *evocative* (materiality, sensoriality: GM should be able to pull information and feeling from the map itself) and *advenient* ("coming from without": the map should call the players towards adventure). Looking at the map, **verbs** should come to mind: many things you can *do* on this map (besides walk left/right forward/backward).

SUCH a great video! I feel like I've just audited college class.

Great episode thanks! :D Definitely giving this one another watch-through!

Great video! Love the Yoko Ono reference, those poems(?) by her are so wonderful. This advice is also going to help me out!

Excellent video! Thank you.

3:05 suddenly, the deleuze and guattari reference in the pointcrawl video seems less out of place

I'd love to be able to do a late pledge for the digital pledge :D

I'm really into the analysis you're bringing man. Don't apologize for speaking at the level you do; with enough clarity and passion your audience will rise to to meet you, and you have that in spades. I've liked your other videos but this one got a sub from me. Looking forward to seeing more.

Your academic approach puts so many feelings I've had as a player into beautiful words. There have been so many times I've said "this map needs something to do" and I couldn't explain why other than "because it's fun".

What a wonderful video! Very clear, and as somebody who suffers from chronic academia, I love the definition of nomenclature.

Thank you for making this video! You really made me think of how to build my own maps. Battle maps are fine and dandy, but exploration maps are really my jam. Thank you for allowing me to articulate the difference other than 'There's stuff to do'

It's really funny to me that the moment you start to explain that's not the original map was the same moment I'd finished realizing it was a print-out.

This is great. My brother and I co-gm a home brew game for our friends and have been taking a break to rethink how we can make it more interactive. I think this kind of thing is exactly the right direction for us.

Designing gameable maps by expanding your vocabulary and conceptual thinking? I'm down. Also, the Suits quote reminds me of Jim Morrison, from The Lords and The New Creatures. "All games contain the idea of death." Now I have more books to read. Thanks! (Great video too btw)

Started out a little dry, but I'm glad I hung on. You talking through the maps and all the stories that could happen there was excellent. Helpful for maps, helpful for room descriptions, helpful for imagining what your party might bump into in the wilderness. I really wanted to get out to that isolated little island and get that apple, and I could imagine that if the party was there to fight the orcs and saw that strange fruit tree out there...they might want to get to it as well. A little mystery goes a long way.

This is the exact kind of shamelessly nerdy shit I needed as a new DM. Instant sub!

Some of this seems to line up with "affordances" from design: affording the different verbs but also advenience is affording adventuring as a metaverb.

This is brilliant. As a learning designer who uses MURAL to engage learners and is beset with a call for “gamification” (which usually means ‘badges’), these ideas will help me design and explain my design choices for clients. Also, I will make more kick-ass battle maps. Thank you for putting in the time to do this thinking and for making it available through the video. I sincerely appreciate it.

"Adveniency" has a poignant reflexive specificity. (You started.) Good show.

What an interesting way to present this advice, well done. I just watched a handful of your videos and you certainly get a follow from me

I really love that you take a crooked angle on all your videos it’s refreshing! Crooked compared to what I usually see. It solves mang problems to me I’m like “yes!” when I hear those good words!

This video is great! I'm looking forward to hearing more of the design behind the grid, and also more studious overcomplication.

These kinds of maps are quite fun to draw.

I love how much thought is in this video. I watch it again and again every few months. Such good stuff.

This was so extraordinary. I was referred here by a friend. The contrast between the maps once you've shown us what to look for... The shift in perspective was impressive! Thank you so much for this! I don't intend to DM any time soon, but I'd like to apply these to future fiction writing. This was genuinely inspiring! Keep up the good work!

I often try to build my maps with the 3rd dimension in mind but with these maps it makes it so much easier to visualize.

Oh yea. I recognize that FF:TacticsA2 map. Awesome stuff

I think the mine could be conducive to some sort of mystery, looking at these makes me think of old adventure games, whats going on might not always obvious untill you examine or search points of interest.

This was a very good video; I'm currently (in my off time) designing a dungeon crawl type game, and I'm trying to figure out how I can both provide a lot of guidance and shortcuts to the GM to make interesting dungeon levels, without just making an entire book full of maps for them to use. I think that the idea of making a space evocative is one that a lot of GMs have sort of internalized, but the idea of advenience has been less well articulated. People say things like, "make it interesting" or "make it fun to explore" but I really think it's this idea of advenience that is the core to all advice of that form. So, thank you for articulating it so well!

I think you could do without the nomenclature and summarize this video in one simple rule: combat for the sake of combat isn't very interesting. A group of goblins sitting in the mine map is just a pool of hitpoints to hack through. But the same goblins racing the players to the top of the bell tower is a real obstacle.

I think this critique misses an important point. If the artist's intent is to create a map that can inspire an adventure, than it's 100% on point. If, however, the point is to create a game space that could be used by someone who already has an idea for an adventure, it's off the mark. Overly evocative theming can actually take a map with an excellent game space and render it unusable, if the DM already has their own theme in idea in mind. I think there is definitely a market for spatially interesting maps, with minimalist theming (cavern, dungeon, tomb, abandoned house, etc).

Excellent content, thanks for taking the time to share!

Your recent video came up in my recommendations and had all the right stuff to get me looking into your older videos. I found it funny that you don't describe what "indexing" means. I'm also surprised the term "affordance" didn't appear in the video. It encapsulates that idea of verbs: what sorts of actions or interactions (i.e. verbs) does an object communicate to the viewer.

genius vid again. thank you

I respect that you said something nice about one of the most hated names in music

20 Owlbears!?

I love your content and advice. In an attempt to make your videos even better I'm going to add this single critique. Your hands constantly waving around in frame is very distracting from what you are saying. Thank you for all you do.

Great stuff, hope I can eventually get off my ass and learn to dm so I can put it to use. One nitpick though, you could use some EQ in your voice, clearly the recording environment isn't ideal but a small decrese in mids would make it sound much better IMO.

Just discovered your channel this weekend, and I LOVE it! Great content! Thank you!

As soon as I saw that marker I felt pain, very glad you clarified it's a copy

Not what I expected, but in many ways better. Speaking as a fellow recovering academic. :-)

This is great info!

These videos are really good material, thank you. As a game designer I find a lot of inspiration and insightful ideas in your videos, glad I stumbled upon them.

daam this channel is so good

Astonishingly good advice. Hope you do a lot more! :D

Awesome design talk! Love the references.

What is “indexing”?

You lost me. I dont think Im dumb but I have no idea what you where waffling about.

Your context is so extremely underrated. Truly if I had the power to flood someone's YT page with subs and viewers you'd be on the short list. You really got me to second guess and relook at my maps

My dude you've just discovered concept art the long way around by yourself