Dragon Warrior and the Guide to Get You Home

Those lucky individuals who owned a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and had a subscription to Nintendo Power at the end of 1989 were rewarded with both the game “Dragon Warrior” and a guide to help play “Dragon Warrior.” (Oxford, 2018). This rare moment of generosity by Nintendo promoted not only the role-playing genre on the NES, but embedded in the minds of video game players the value of a game guide and, most importantly, the need for maps in complex gaming environments. The gaming ecosystem was evolving beyond the linear nature of side-scrollers to interactive play that demanded that the players be aware of their situation and how to navigate through the various digital worlds.

A single folded sheet of glossy paper could be the difference between saving the kingdom or becoming lost in the World of Alefgard (the Kingdom that acts as the primary location for “Dragon Warrior I”).

The map was more than a way to orient a location within the field of play. Alefgrad’s map provided the knowledge of which enemies a player would face at a given site within the game, the coordinates of the critical treasures needed to beat the game, and the waypoints to hit during the various quests within the game. This safety net allows players to be open in their gameplay as they can find the right pathway back to the comfort of the known. This simple tool allows the player to make the right connections between the gaming terrain and the end goals. They can see how to finish the game and earn the final reward.

A map of this quality is like Linus’ blanket from Peanuts. It provides comfort to the nervous soul. Each decision a player makes has been tried, examined, and completed by experts. They can explain what actions the player need to take to get Erdrick’s armor (beat the Knight Aberrant in Damdara) or how to beat Dracolord (very, very carefully).

Maps like the one found in the Dragon Warrior guide would be helpful to have in the real world, but such a simple tool doesn’t exist.

Social interactions in the real world are much harder to navigate. Interactions, unlike the Kingdom of Alefgrad, is not finite in nature. The newer experiences a person faces on a daily basis does not fit neatly onto a carefully designed map to show how to transverse these various social and cultural decisions.

It is easy to fall into the traps of going through the linear motions of the well-worn pathways of life and rarely making changes.

It is known; therefore it is safe.

Players also know that the big rewards are often outside the realm of the known. All of the treasure chests in town have been opened up long ago and are owned by others in our village. The valuable materials on a map are there for people brave enough to explore beyond the safety of the town walls and go into the unknown of the wild. This bravery should be combined with being able to read the dangers along the way and know how to negotiate those potential harms.

The purpose of this series of posts is to create a version of these beautiful infographics to help balance between the risk of social failures and the reward of social acceptance. Most of the time the terrain we are exploring in the real world is most closely related to the emotional well-being of ourselves and the members of our community. The most helpful guide that typically can help an individual throughout the day is one that incorporates social awareness with the ability to perform an emotional self-diagnostic. This type of manual or map can use emotions as the legend to translate how a person’s feelings influence their views of the world. Having this type of map creates the beginning of developing a pathway towards becoming a person more open to new experiences and new interactions.

Guides and maps are not very useful unless they provide both the landmarks to aim towards as a person moves across the landscape and the knowledge of how to move towards those landmarks by avoiding the barriers along the way. There will be two theories that will act as the knowledge for the creation of this map: affect theory and face-work. The landmarks of this map will incorporate examples from other games. The three main games that will be used in this series of posts are the ones that have a strong connection between the players and a map (or lack of a map). Breath of the Wild, No Man’s Sky, and Minecraft will act as the means of translating emotions into landmarks on a mental paradigm of how society and culture functions in the real world and how people can interact with the various actors along the way.