All games with overland travel

[:Flash:]

A discussion with colleagues about game mechanics being impossible in modern engines (My colleagues claimed modern games do everything old games did, only better), reading felipepepe's recent article, and the UV thread convinced my I need to take a more in-depth look at some specific game mechanics I like and miss. I would like to start with overland travel, and thus I'd like to create a list that contains all games that have it as a gameplay element. I have some theories about what is required for good overland travel, but I'd like to verify this.

These are my criteria:
- Overland travel is represented in another scale as the rest of the game
- It has actual mechanics, i.e. is not just an animated map, or a choice dialog for insta-travel.

And here I realize that I'm not really familiar with a lot of 80's/early 90's games apart from Ultima and RoA, both of which qualify. IIRC the overland travel of Summoner had wandering monsters and would thus also qualify.

 

[DraQ]

Bwuh?

You need to be more specific, "not just animated map" is a negation of attribute rather than attribute itself, while I don't quite know any example of scaling you mentioned, nor see how it would be a good thing.

 

[felipepepe]

You're talking about hundreds of JRPGs, plus many Ultima clones and old-school games...

 

[:Flash:]

Bwuh?

You need to be more specific, "not just animated map" is a negation of attribute rather than attribute itself, while I don't quite know any example of scaling you mentioned, nor see how it would be a good thing.

Hmm, I I thought it was clear, but that's possibly because I have thought about it so much that I forgot to express what I mean.
As I said I'm talking about overland travel that is displayed on another scale than the rest of the game. It is a good thing (IMO), because it is an abstraction that allows the illusion of exploring an entire country or continent. Without this abstraction, you'd either have an unplayable game where it takes real-time hours or days to walk from town to town, or you have a shrinking of the world to a condensed version. The difference can be seen between Ultima V and VI. The latter did away with the two-scale model, Thus shrinking Britannnia from a continent to an island.
Some games have this two-scale model, but the overland scale does not have anything on it. You just walk from one city icon to the next and that's it. These are what I called "animated maps", and I'm not interested in those.

You're talking about hundreds of JRPGs, plus many Ultima clones and old-school games...

OK, let me specify: I'm looking for distinct gameplay experiences. So if an Ultima clone does not add anything to the Ultima formula, we can disregard it. But I'm also looking for nuances, so I'd distinguish between Ultima IV which does not have roads/paths on the overland map, and Ultima V, which has them.
I have never played a JRPG, but still, if they offer any new gameplay elements for this feature, I'd be willing to try.
Old-school games? Let me hear about them.

 

[V_K]

It's actually easier to list pre-2000 games, that didn't have some sort of overhead map travel while having a large enough overworld. Ultimas 6 and 7, BaK and Wiz7 are the only ones I can think of. Maybe Dark Sun 1 too, but I don't remember exactly.

 

[felipepepe]

I have never played a JRPG, but still, if they offer any new gameplay elements for this feature, I'd be willing to try.

You're in for A LOT of JRPGs then... try this: http://www.giantbomb.com/overworld/3015-1004/

It's incomplete, but it's a good start.

 

[rezaf]

Let's see...

The old Ultima's are obvious, I think they were the first examples of overland maps I encountered.

The GoldBox series had overland travel. In Pool of Radiance, it was actually quite sophisticated compared to later GoldBox games, where it was basically a map where you marched to the next hub location.

Realms of Arkania had very involved overland travel. It's approach remains fairly unique to this day.

Fallout had good overland travel in my book. Uncovering the fog of war was rewarding - especially the first time around, before the internet, when you actually had to look for stuff and didn't alt-tab to a site that listed all possible destinations...
I also loved the random encounters ... used much more frequently in FO2.

This concept reaches back a bit to Darklands, which also was somewhat distinct - and also had those random things you could encounter. I recently replayed Darklands and still love it.

That's at least something to begin with, I'll try to think of more - but those I can think of now are not really distinct from the above.

As for JRPGs ... MANY use the exact same approach, of you marching with your sprite dude with the occasional random encounter ... kinda like the old Ultimas did it. Then again, I have very limited experience with anything remotely recent when it comes to JRPGs (unless it's been ported to PC, then I might have played it).
_____
rezaf

 

[DraQ]

Some games have this two-scale model, but the overland scale does not have anything on it. You just walk from one city icon to the next and that's it. These are what I called "animated maps", and I'm not interested in those.

But a game like Fallout has travel via animated map, yet you can still find locations or run into encounters in it.

 

[octavius]

A discussion with colleagues about game mechanics being impossible in modern engines (My colleagues claimed modern games do everything old games did, only better), reading felipepepe's recent article

This is teh second time you mention this article without providing a link.

 

[Infinitron]

A discussion with colleagues about game mechanics being impossible in modern engines (My colleagues claimed modern games do everything old games did, only better), reading felipepepe's recent article

This is teh second time you mention this article without providing a link.

Well, not a lot of people missed it: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...gaming-industry-curate-its-own-history.97065/

 

[:Flash:]

Some games have this two-scale model, but the overland scale does not have anything on it. You just walk from one city icon to the next and that's it. These are what I called "animated maps", and I'm not interested in those.

But a game like Fallout has travel via animated map, yet you can still find locations or run into encounters in it.

Fallout would certainly qualify.

 

[No Great Name]

Does something like Arcanum's overworld travel count? Consider that travelling on the overworld can have random encounters, allow the player to discover nearby points of interest, and the fact that the player can choose any point on the overworld and it will have a corresponding point in the wilderness that the player can walk through in the regular gameview (although it's mostly empty).

 

[DraQ]

Some games have this two-scale model, but the overland scale does not have anything on it. You just walk from one city icon to the next and that's it. These are what I called "animated maps", and I'm not interested in those.

But a game like Fallout has travel via animated map, yet you can still find locations or run into encounters in it.

Fallout would certainly qualify.

But it's probably the first thing most Codices see when hearing "animated map travel".

 

[:Flash:]

Does something like Arcanum's overworld travel count? Consider that travelling on the overworld can have random encounters, allow the player to discover nearby points of interest, and the fact that the player can choose any point on the overworld and it will have a corresponding point in the wilderness that the player can walk through in the regular gameview (although it's mostly empty).

It seems my memory is not what it used to be - I played Arcanum (admittedly not for too long), but I didn't remember it having this feature.

 

[Athelas]

Storm of Zehir.

 

[Tigranes]

DraQ he clearly means overland travel where some kind of gameplay happens in any form, as opposed to just clicking to travel a la IE games.

Fallout, WL2, Arcanum should all qualify.

SOZ, of course, in recent times.

 

[rezaf]

But it's probably the first thing most Codices see when hearing "animated map travel".

You control your movement across the map and things can happen.
Obviously Flash is refering to those games where you finish an area, it shows a world map and your dudes auto-travel there.
Think that famous animation from Indiana Jones.
_____
rezaf

 

[:Flash:]

Storm of Zehir.

Cool, I own this on GOG and didn't even know it.

 

[JasonNH]

Storm of Zehir.

Cool, I own this on GOG and didn't even know it.

I hope you have an SSD. While I actually liked the game overall, those loadscreens ... ugh.

 

[almondblight]

Exile III (earlier Exiles too, but III probably does it the best). There's a ton of stuff to find just by wandering around the map - abandoned houses, farms that will sell you small food items, burial mounds to loot, hedge wizards that will teleport you to different areas, ancient crypts from a forgotten time, soldiers to chat with, battles to join or run from, etc. Some of these encounters involve you entering a location, some of them are through a popup menu. You can also get horses to ride.

 

[Dorateen]

Knights of the Chalice

 

[Lilura]

Fallout
Fallout 2
Jagged Alliance 2
Storm of Zehir (I've written about the overland map, here)
Dragon Age: Origins
Temple of Elemental Evil
Arcanum

 

[DraQ]

Morrowind given that buildings tend to be bigger on the inside.

(Then again, given worldspace scaling it has to be a mess in one way or the other. )

 

[Ulminati]

Arcanum is interesting in that you had a map where you could click to say you wanted to go someplace. But if you were really pedantic you could also just keep going in one direction until you go to your destination. There were a bunch of secrets you could find by going to specific coordinates on the overmap too. I recall there was one questline I had trouble with where some NPC wouldn't give me the location of a mountain pass or somesuch. So I went to roughly the spot where it would be on the overmap and walked around until I stumbled upon it.

 

[octavius]

Phantasie 1-3
Wasteland
Demon's Winter
Battletech
The Magic Candle 1 (and most likely 2-3 as well)
Most of the Gold Box games, except Curse of the Azure Bonds (more like Baldur's Gate) and Secret of the Silver Blades (no overland).
Knights of Legend
Abandoned Places
Darklands
The Aethra Chronicles

The further you go back towards 1985 the more likely a game fits your criteria.