Map Map - A Game About Maps - PC Review

Map Map - A Game About Maps by developer Pipapo Games and publisher Rekoup—PC (Steam) review written by Susan N. with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

Sometimes a game will hit your feed that is completely unexpected. That is the reaction I had when I discovered Map Map - A Game About Maps (which I'll refer to as Map Map from here on out). It is a puzzle exploration game where you take the role of a young cartographer setting out on a relaxing journey to many unknown islands. Not only will you be marking key locations on each map, but you will be hunting for hidden treasure as well. So, let's search for some treasure and hope we don't dig up a soggy boot or something, eh?

Gameplay

Map Map is a cute little game that you can spend several hours exploring the different islands with unique features and biomes. You begin with a brief cutscene of drawing your first map, although it doesn't go as well as you had hoped. In efforts to improve, you search for adventure in the way of a hiring flyer. Billie's Bunch is on the hunt for the Raven King's lost treasure. Naturally, you decide you will apply.

After reaching the first island, you find a large stone compass embedded in the ground which serves as a guide. Though, as you progress through the game, these are not always present. With your map and observation skills, you start marking specific locations that it asks for. These first couple of islands serve as a bit of a simple tutorial.

Once you get through the first island or two, you will meet a couple of people who are looking for the Raven King's treasure. Billie, Milo, Rue, and Byte are part of Billie's crew whom had put out the original post you read back at home. They are eager to test your skills as a cartographer and ask you to pinpoint the location of several landmarks. To succeed at your task, you are given a map and a locator to begin. As you progress through the game, you will find other useful tools like a protractor, some stickers, and more! All of the tools will be helpful during gameplay and I had the most usage out of the stickers to mark locations on the map. 

Each map begins to have additional objectives like finding a couple of hidden treasure chests. These can be found after you locate the cryptic clues that direct you to the treasures' location. Chests will have new stickers and sometimes other useful tools to assist you in your journey, but they are not required to progress in the game. Now, if you cannot find their locations, you can always go back to the map and try again because each map shows the total number of treasure chests that are discoverable. 

A feature that Map Map has which is not present in many games is Twitch Integration. People in chat can guess the location of your objective. An interesting addition to this is that in your settings, you can put a limit on the number of guesses shown on the map. It is also possible to set the guessing to subscribers only to potentially reduce the amount of guesses. While that doesn't seem like much of an integration, it could be fun to have a playthrough where chat controls the guessing. And wouldn't it be fun to have that kind of chaos when you're in a dangerous biome like a lava one? I think so! 

It may not seem like an amazing game at first, but you do get sucked into cartography fairly easily. Especially when it comes to finding treasure, because we all like treasure, yeah?

Graphics and UI

Let's talk about the graphics and UI of Map Map. On first glance, the game has a cute animated aesthetics that works very well for the style of game. The maps have unique enough features that make it easy enough to pin point the locations of key points like the tallest tower or a group of fish near a distinctive landmark. Once you know the unique elements of the island, then the world is your oyster!

In the gameplay portion of this review, I talked a little bit about some of the treasure chests that are strewn about. Many of the treasure chests have stickers which you can use on your map to keep track of where unique features are located. The map is accessed through hitting Tab on your keyboard and clicking on the sticker box or using the pencil to mark information down. By using the map to mark key locations down, it means that the UI of the game doesn't take any space. This is a different experience than other games where sometimes the information can clutter the whole screen. Map Map is the complete opposite by not displaying any real information on your screen, which certainly makes your job as a cartographer more interesting!

While I adore the non-existent UI, I personally am not much of a fan of the Raggedy Ann face for our character. This stems back to when I was much younger and those dolls were everywhere. I recall not liking the character or the style of doll - not that I was horribly interested in playing with dolls in the first place, but you get the picture. Map Map unburied the memory of the dolls from my childhood and I almost based my entire decision about it on that fact - truth be told. 

Audio

One of the few aspects of Map Map that I dislike is the character 'dialogue'. Unlike other games that either have voice acting or don't, this one has 'voice acting' in the form of repetition. The characters don't say what the dialogue box displays, they instead simply repeat the word 'map'. While I, too, am an enjoyer of 'I am Groot', the sentence isn't repeated throughout the whole Guardians of the Galaxy movie. When the characters are talking, they repeat the one word and it's infuriating. Personally, I would rather there not be any voice acting if it isn't in the language displayed on the screen. The audio is wasted because most people would also turn off the character audio.

As for the rest of the game, Map Map has some soothing audio that sits in the background while you puzzle out the precise locations of unique objects on the island. The music doesn't overstay its welcome and the sound effects for water and birds, or jumping onto ledges add enough realism to the game without distracting you from concentrating on the task at hand. As such, it is quite easy to lose yourself in the world. 

Final Thoughts

Overall, Map Map surprised me. The Raggedy Ann looking character almost drove me away from the game, I took a chance and decided to play it. I was quite surprised at how much time I spent getting lost in exploration and discovery of treasure chests. Who could honestly resist THAT temptation, eh? 

The game is cozy and relaxing despite the challenge it poses in pinpointing landmark locations on later islands. And there are a surprisingly large number of islands to explore throughout your time in the game. Just don't be surprised when you discover that several hours have passed and you're still digging in places you think the map is pointing at. 

Score: 9 out of 10