You’re wandering in the woods, looking for a secret that environmental clues have indicated is in the area. You pull out your map. It is unhelpfully vague, includes no topographical features, and you can’t even zoom in properly to get a closer look. Gamers the world over know this struggle.
The sitesof Valnet Gamingwant to help.
One fairly recent update to our gaming brands, which include sites likeTheGamerand Game Rant, is the creation of interactive maps. These are maps for specific games that you can use to find the locations of collectibles, boss fights, secrets, etc., each tailor-made for whichever game title it is for.
Creating interactive maps for Valnet Gaming sites like Game Rant and TheGamer involves significant effort and teamwork. Here’s an inside look at the process behind their development. Don’t get lost!
On A Technical Level: Behind-The-Scenes Work On Interactive Maps
Interactive maps wouldn’t be possible on any of the Valnet Gaming sites without the work of a host of people from our IT team. Though their names never get credited on the site, every article owes its existence to them from a technical standpoint, as they are the minds behind our proprietary CMS (content management system).
When asked about the difficulties behind making interactive maps from a technical perspective, Andrew Couto, the Head of Product and Data at Valnet, surprised us by pointing out the main issue with interactive maps lies with a page element we’re all pretty familiar with: images.
“An interactive map is really just a bunch of layers of images on coordinates,” he explains, “where some layers can trigger actions. Technically, the main challenges really revolved around having a page with potentially thousands of images — which browsers don’t generally like to render all at the same time in full resolution.”
At this point, it also requires a cartographer who is willing to learn the mechanics of how these things really work…
He continues, saying “Putting them together is an organizational challenge more than anything else. At this point, it also requires a cartographer who is willing to learn the mechanics of how these things really work… We’re hoping to improve and simplify the workflow, but we’re first focusing on foundational features in order to go live faster and gather feedback to improve the technology.”
Brad Fleischman, the General Manager of Valnet Gaming, bookends the work that goes into maps by summarizing the challenges of the process. “Interactive maps come with their own unique set of challenges. Building them is a collaborative process that begins with our editorial team, who play through each new game in real time. They meticulously document locations, take high-resolution screenshots, and uncover every hidden collectible or side quest marker. From there, our tech and design teams convert that raw gameplay data into polished, intuitive maps that can be embedded across our sites. This workflow requires tight coordination across departments, as well as custom solutions for each game’s engine and map layout—but the result is a highly valuable tool that enhances our coverage and serves our audiences exceptionally well.”
On TheGamer and Game Rant: Relentlessly Deep-Diving Into Games Big And Small
TheGamer is a special site among the Valnet Gaming portfolio. Rather than being acquired, TheGamer wasfounded by Valnet Inc. in 2017. Since then, they’ve covered a multitude of games of the triple-A and indie variety. Whether they’re writingan insightful feature on The Last of Us HBO seriesorcomprehensive guides on Warframe, TheGamer’s game coverage is superlative to the nth degree.
Part of reaching that quality is an openness to adopting new features and applying them to their coverage ravenously. The inception of interactive maps on Valnet sites gave TheGamer a whole new avenue to rush down when it comes to writing about games.
However, the legwork of creating these maps is done on TG’s sister site, Game Rant, with other Valnet gaming sites having the ability to link out to them.
Game Rant has been aroundfor over fifteen years at this point. That’s a hefty amount of time during which to acquire the experience and expertise needed to thoroughly write a host of articles, all in the name of the passion and enthusiasm the team has for the medium.
So when interactive maps came on the scene, you can bet that Game Rant utilized it with the same gusto as all other new features beforehand, taking the lion’s share of the work in making the magic happen.
Russ Boswell, GR’s Evergreen Content Lead, has devoted hours of his life to making interactive maps possible. When asked about the workload, we couldn’t imagine the amount of details needed to create even a single map.
…sometimes we deal with maps that have over 2,000 coordinates of data on a single map tile.
“So there is actually quite a bit that goes into map creation,” Russ tells us. “A huge chunk of it is just the organization involved in the custom files we make. A big part of my job is just collecting all of the meta data and making sure it’s all in the right spot. This includes things like map tile images, titles, names, hex color codes, icon images, etc. It all has to line up with one another for it to work and sometimes we deal with maps that have over 2,000 coordinates of data on a single map tile.”
We dared to ask about the most arduous step in the whole process, and Russ’ answer didn’t disappoint. “The most time-consuming part of all of it is creating the coordinates themselves. It involves going to the spot in the game, cross-referencing that location with the map images we have for the site, and literally adding the coordinate to the map via our in-house tools.”
These in-house tools within our CMS have been a godsend when it comes to handling map coordinates, according to Russ. But the difficulties don’t stop there. “Thankfully, we have some really great tools created so far that let us do a lot of the map creation via a point-and-click interface. Another time-consuming aspect of it is adding what’s called ‘pop-up data.’ These are the little boxes that show up when players click on a coordinate to give them more information about the coordinate itself, including things like items, enemies present, puzzles, etc. It’s a very time-consuming process so usually there are quite a few people involved in the creation of just a single map. It takes a team working on each of those aspects in unison to make it work.”
On a lark, we asked Russ what was the most time-consuming interactive map to work on, and, without hesitation, he answered, “Baldur’s Gate 3, for sure. There are four separate tile-sets and each one of them has TONS of coordinates.”
Russ inserted a sobbing emoji within this answer as well.
To wit, here’s a zoomed out look at whatBaldur’s Gate 3’s interactive map looks like on Game Rant.
Holy smokes.
Finding Our Way To/Through/On/With Interactive Maps
All things said and done about each individual team (oxymoron!) and their participation in creating interactive maps, it’s a group effort. It’s a total cooperative endeavor, creating something like maps, whether we’re talking in-game maps, interactive site maps, or, heck, even real-world maps. A lot goes into it. But it’s worth it to give every visitor to our Valnet Gaming sites one of the handiest tools you can have while exploring the (often massive) in-game worlds of their favorite games.
Now excuse us while we lose ourselves in these interactive maps. Figuratively speaking, of course. With maps like these, how could we ever get truly lost?
