User:Richardvinguyen/sandbox

A mini-map is a miniature map, often placed in a corner of the screen in computer games and video games to aid in reorientation. Mini-maps usually display traversable terrain, allies, enemies, and important locations or items. Mini-maps have become almost standard-issue in RTS and MMORPG genres, as a notion of where the current screen lies within the scope of the game world is necessary. Most first person shooter games also have some version or variant of the mini map, often showing enemies in real time.

Shown in the Minimap
The minimap's content will depend on the specific game, but it will generally include these aspects:
 * Terrain - The minimap will show a general outline of the whole map showing features such as land, water, cliffs, mountains, buildings, walls, etc.
 * Allied Units - Colored representation of friendly units. Often always visible to the player.
 * Enemy Units - Colored representation of enemy units. Often only visible on the minimap if these units are not under fog of war.
 * Fog of War - Parts of the minimap will be darkened if it is out of the player's vision. Conversely, everything in the player's vision will be highlighted and constantly updating on the minimap.
 * Mission Objectives - Specific icons will often be on the minimap for objectives specific to the game.

First person shooter games and other games where the player only controls one character will often have these aspects in the minimap:
 * Player Icon - Often represented with an arrow indicating the direction the player is facing.
 * Centered Minimap - The minimap will not show the whole map, and will be centered with the player icon.

Dynamic discovery
In most games, the mini-map begins as a solid field of black, and the map is automatically drawn as the player discovers new areas of the game world. A slight alternative to this is that the whole minimap is displayed but under fog of war. Thus, locations out of player vision will be greyed out and will not be updated until vision of that area is granted.

Layers
Similar to custom layers in Google Earth, some team-oriented multi-player games, such as Age of Empires II or Empire Earth, allow players to draw temporary lines, signals or markings on the mini-map for others to see. Things in a fog of war portion of a mini-map may not be updated until they are rediscovered.

Automap


In video games, an automap is a navigational aid used mainly for virtual worlds that are expansive or maze-like. An automap is typically an abstract top-down view of nearby areas of the game world, automatically updated as the player character gains knowledge of the environment. Automaps often display traversable terrain, allies, enemies, and important locations or items.

Early automaps typically found in role-playing video games were pause screens that stopped gameplay when opened. When the feature became popular with action-oriented games such as Doom and Diablo, the automap feature in these games did not pause the game and allowed the player to continue gameplay while the map was on screen. Early examples of video games to feature a real-time automap include Namco's Rally-X in 1980, Gebelli Software's Horizon V in 1982, and Arsys Software's WiBArm in 1986.

Automapping was a particularly desirable feature in dungeon crawls, which typically featured a dungeon with many levels for players to explore. Before automapping, players were expected to draw maps by hand as they played the game, so they could navigate through the dungeon levels later. For this reason, game boxes for early 1980s Wizardry games, for example, included graph paper.