Getting Lost
Musings on Mistakes Made in the Woods
Last week I was hiking in the jungle on Guam for work. We were looking to relocate archaeological sites that hadn't been visited in a long time based on 15-year-old GPS data. As one does, I was thinking a lot while out there about how to apply my experiences hiking to exploration in old-school adventure games. There's a lot to think of there, like how much it sucks to push through walls of spiky pandanus leaves, or how well little monsters could hide underneath a thick bed of ferns.
But then we got lost for a little bit, and I knew I needed to blog about it and how the experience could carry over into games.
What Happened?
We had finished at one site, and set out to find another. The plan was to hike straight north until we reached a cleared path, and then follow that path east before going off trail again to the site. A colleague and I both checked our compasses, oriented north, and headed off. After a little while, we reached a cleared path and turned right. However, when we paused after a bit to check how close we were to the site, the GPS showed us as being Southeast of where we had started. Now, GPS units aren't always very fast, particularly in dense tree cover, so we thought it simply hadn't updated yet, and we waited for it to get a better position on us. But that didn't happen. So then we restarted the GPS receiver and the phone that connects to it, but it was still showing us in the same location. We then checked our tablets, which have less accurate GPS signal, and they also showed us in the same location Southeast of where we had started from.
At that point, we were starting to think we had legitimately walked through the barrier into Fairie and come out in a different part of the woods magically. But, we checked our compasses and then realized we were on a path that ran North-South, not the East-West path we had been looking for. After we followed it North for a bit, we found the correct path and carried on our way, still mildly spooked about what they fey might be doing to us.
We never figured out what went wrong that sent us heading east since two of us had checked our compasses first, but it was either human error or something supernatural.
What Can We Learn Here Apart From the Fact that You Used Your Compass Wrong One Time?
What I think is actually interesting about this scenario for adventure games is that what should have been a simple mistake to fix was made more difficult by the fact that we had a GPS. We had a source of geographical truth that didn't align with our perception of our movement through space. The mismatch between where we thought we'd been walking and what our magical map showed was what really slowed us down. And, I think it could be interesting to replicate that in a game.
So, let's do that with a magic items and some fey tricks.
The Magical Map
For this to really work, you need a fantasy analog of the GPS unit, so let's give that a go.
Magical Map
A large roll of parchment that can display a map of a region magically imbued into it via a Cartomancer. A map parchment may hold up to 5 regional maps simultaneously. The region must have been previously mapped by the Guild of Cartomancers, and only guild-sanctioned maps are guaranteed to work with no magical side effects. Some say non-guild cartographers have found a means of imbuing illicit maps, but there may be unintended consequences for doing so.
While in use, the map shows your location as a glowing blue dot on the map. It is accurate within 3 ft. under optimal conditions but accuracy may degrade up to 25 ft. under poor conditions, or the map may lose functionality under conditions that completely block its magical connection. Connectivity, and accuracy, decreases due to cloud cover, trees, cliffs, structures, or anything else blocking the connection of the map to the cartomanthic aether.
Fey Tricks
Having established a fantasy GPS, let's talk about two fey tricks that would work with it to give players navigational problems. The first messes with the magical map, while the second messes with their physical location. The idea is that you might not know which is happening to you, making figuring that out the puzzle to solve.
Map Malfunction
The Fey have devices that allow them to interfere with the cartomanthic aether connection and scramble the location displayed on nearby maps. The location displayed on the map is shifted subtly enough to not be immediately noticed, but which will place the user increasingly off course over time. Rolling and unrolling the map will reset the connection and typically stop fey interference. However, it typically takes work orienting yourself with nearby landmarks to discover the error.
Misdirection
The Fey can instantaneously shift the ground you are standing on up to 90 degrees in either direction, setting you off course from your intended path. While this is easily noticeable in open areas, it can be indetectable in dense forests, mists, or other similar low visibility environments. A series of small shifts may also be used to make the effect less noticeable.
Conclusion
Are these ideas half thought out? Yes, but I frankly don't have the time to flesh them out fully, and I'd just never blog if I pushed for that much. But maybe you can do something with them? If nothing else, you got a funny story about me getting lost in the woods, and that has to be worth something.