User blog:Random-storykeeper/Maps are cool

Hehehe. :D

Wikia just released Wikia Maps today, which is an available extension for wikis to enable. It allows users to upload an image and place pins on it, so that they can visually point out key locations and items, etc.

I decided to try it out for myself on Nitrome Pixel Love Wiki, since I can see it being very helpful for the Metroidvania features. I didn't have a particularly good map on me though, so I just used a map some users created for Pivot. It started out confusing to use, but once I toyed around with it a bit, the process seemed simpler.

I was thinking that Nitrome Wiki would find use for maps, particularly in the Flightless Demo, where we can make a large visual map of all the rooms and pinpoint gems. That way, users can click on each gem to find out how to get it, right there on the map. Just my two cents.

From the looks of it, it doesn't appear to be that the map image is included in the Upload log, so I'm not sure if the image would have to abide by the limitations of the Upload image feature (10 MB max.). Still, we could think about combining the images of rooms together to create one large, interactive map for users to find exactly which gem they are looking for without having to guess and check.

We could also use this for the level selection of the Icebreaker: A Viking Voyage packs. Since each pin can be associated with an article, we can utilise it so that users can click on the level within the map, and directly be brought to the corresponding section. The only issue at the moment is that it opens a new tab when a user clicks the link, which may be useful if users want to view several different levels at once or otherwise annoying, because they want it to be sequential.

Sorry, I just think this feature has a lot of potential for providing readers with a great visual navigational aid for games like Flightless, where the rooms basically have no name and are similar looking to each other. I want to see if I can create a really large map for one of the Pixel Love games.