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How to Make Map Games

Map games are most often used to teach and test players' knowledge of geography. You can focus on whatever size or type of map you want if you create your own map game. If you want to create a great animated video map game (like those in the Resources section below), you should probably start with a board game. The process starts with a relatively simple list of materials to gather.

Things You'll Need

Atlas or map Tracing paper Pencil or pen Index cards

Instructions

- 1
  
  Pick a map that you want to use. Most map games focus just on states, provinces or countries. You can choose any level of detail, including solar system, continents, countries, states, counties, cities, neighborhoods or even streets. For our example, we are using a map of the solar system. For your game, you may want to take an atlas and trace the outlines of the geographic units you've chosen. If you are copying from map pages with different scales, you can copy them in their different sizes and use photocopiers or image-editing software to get them to the same scale.
- 2
  
  Decide what sort of information players will need to play. Most map games give you the name of a place and then ask you to find it on a map of outlines only. In our example, we are asking for substantive knowledge in addition to relative position, so in addition to knowing the names and locations of all the planets, players will need to know which moons go with which planet, and the locations of dwarf planets and asteroid belts. In your game, you could test players' knowledge of state or national capitals, rivers, lakes, mountain ranges or any other geographic feature.
- 3
  
  Choose a mechanic for randomly generating challenges. The easiest is to generate cards that can be shuffled, with the questions on one side and the solutions on the other, as you will see in our example. You may decide to put all your challenges in the pages of a book, which can be flipped open at random. You may decide to chain your answers; for example, if someone correctly finds Texas, he might have to roll a die, and if it comes up with an E for east, the player must also name Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma (all the states east of Texas).
- 4
  Design your prototype. You can start out with a paper version and move up to more durable or more intensive formats later as needed. Make sure your map is big enough so that the smallest outline is identifiable. On our map, Ceres (a dwarf planet between Mars and Jupiter) is the smallest element, so all other outlines need to be bigger once we choose a size for Ceres. In your game, Rhode Island may be the smallest state, Prince Edward Island may be the smallest province, or Gambia may be the smallest country. Make sure your cards are big enough to fit the largest outline on your map. In our sample game, if we were to include the outlines or images on the backs instead of more information, we would want to make sure to size them so that Jupiter (the largest planet) fits the width of our card.
- 5
  Test your game. If you are using the game as a teaching tool, try it out with your friends before you give it to your students. If you are using it just for entertainment, teach a group of friends to play it first. Then try it out on a different group of friends or acquaintances, but let them learn how to play it just from written instructions. Then observe. You may find that the length of the game, the number of cards, the rules or some other aspect of the game needs adjusting. A frequent issue with educational games is boredom, so try to keep other players occupied when it's not their turn -- possibly by allowing others to answer if the original player gets the question wrong.

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