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[Tumetsu]

I'm developing a small Flash card battle RPG where player fights against enemies in one-on-one battles, collects cards and makes decks. Game isn't pure "card game" though since cards trigger different attacks etc. All in all, cards play a big part in this game (no pun intended) and I would like to have world map to also be along with theme.

Game will contain worldmap familiar from example Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, where there is certain places on map (towns, caves etc.) which player can select to interact either with towns, or battle enemies on wilderness. Now I'm thinking how to represent this map. For now I have to candidates I'd like to ask opinions and suggestions:

1. Only cards:

Each battle, town or any other significant place is represented as a card. When player beats a challenge in a card, cards connected to it will flip over and be available to play. Thus cards create various paths. Some paths could be opened by just receiving first quest from guild, or perhaps completing special objective in battle. Player could then try to find how to unlock locked areas, since they know that unknown card has to be connected to one beside it. Cards can either show the place or enemy player will encounter there or both.

Pros:
- A little more original than another approach
- Fits in theme
- Possibility for various different paths and unlocking them if I can add multiple goals for battles.

Cons:
- Worldmap might look a bit boring
- Worldmap will be rather small since I'm not going to create hundreds of quests.
- Not sure if unlocking idea would work that well

2. World map with cards

Here the world map is more like regular worldmap showing all kinds of stuff everywhere. After beating a challenge, a new place(s) will appear on map as a cards representing a place. In before empty place now flips a card showing town, cave etc. Cards can either show the place or enemy player will encounter there or both.

Pros:
- World map will feel bigger and spacey
- Fits in theme

Cons:
- Trying to find secret places could be harder than in 1) solution, since player can't deduce from grid where could be a secret.
- I need more extra graphics for map.

So what do you think? What style would you prefer? Or do you have any better solution?
Finally here is a little screenshot of the battle as it is now for you to see how the game looks like right now:

[Sankar]

Cards Flipping are a good idea if the game doesn't need "geographical information" in its storyline, IE: Knowing exactly where something takes place makes no difference. Its a nice thing that fits well in what you describe as the overall game style.

But if the game is storyline heavy, the player may feel lost in the sense of what city is next to what city, how far they really are. If this is the case, you could try to use both methods: Have a background map, something like a classical map, simple, outlines and so on. And on top of it, have flipped cards at the right places, a town card over a town. So with that information the player will be able to know: "oh so i'm travelling that far"

Anyway, Good idea.
And I'm liking the game style so far, a little more polish and I think it will go a long way.

[Chromanoid]

I totally love the only cards idea. Things could pop out of the cards.
like this:


the carcassonne videogame adaption might be an inspiration too.
http://www.hmtk.com/wp-content/uploads/carcassonne1.jpg
http://images.amazon.com/images/G/03/toys/toysreview/CarcassonneLand.jpg

[SundownKid]

I like option number two. You could have a "deck" of places and put them down in spots on the world map as you discover them. That way secret places could still be secret, and you could put "enemy cards" on top, kind of like a board game.

[Destral]

I'm using something similar to option two for the game I'm working on now, with the map made to look like an old parchment map with sepia lines and color 'tiles' for places of interest like cities and dungeons and so forth. And the just-card layout creating obvious empty spaces indicating to the player where secrets can be found might be too obvious for some, where with a full map with card hotspots you can hide secret levels pretty much anywhere.

[SirNiko]

Display the map like in Option 2, where you can see the mountains and plains and such.

As the player uncovers locations, have a playing card drop down that has a graphic in the middle that looks exactly like the land it covered up, except with a cave / town / tower displayed as appropriate. The color or text on the border could relay information about the location as is appropriate for your game. Face down cards could be used to represent locations that are known but have not yet been discovered, and hidden locations would have no indicator.

As the map is uncovered, it goes from a featureless landmass to a map strewn with cards representing the location. You might also tilt the cards to look as though they've fallen any which way, as opposed to the neat rows of the first concept you posted.

That would let you get the card-theme into the map, and have a map with graphics similar to the battle shot you posted.

[Tumetsu]

I think that I'll go with second option. I had in mind something like SirNiko posted, where cards flip or to drop to a place to show a new place. I guess in some occasions there could be multiple cards on top of each other at places, like town, monster, ruined town etc. which will be revealed when top most card is taken away byt some player or story action.

[baconman]

Sounds fun. If you need some ideas, one boring winter at my Gma's inspired me to do something similar, only with an actual deck of cards. Feel free to borrow what you'd like from that, but I'd certainly include a good balance treasure and trap spaces, so it's not like every space takes 2 minutes of attention, just some of them.