{"id":1839277,"date":"2025-04-10T18:16:30","date_gmt":"2025-04-10T22:16:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/?p=1839277"},"modified":"2025-04-10T18:18:45","modified_gmt":"2025-04-10T22:18:45","slug":"maps-and-games-roundup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2025\/04\/maps-and-games-roundup\/","title":{"rendered":"Maps and Games Roundup"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The GeoFacts Challenge<\/a> is calling for games that teach geography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

How many of us only know where Winnipeg is because we played Ticket to Ride, or Kinshasa because of Pandemic, or Kamchatka because of Risk? None of these games are educational in nature, per se, and yet for many gamers, they have been more effective teachers of geography than a textbook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your goal for the GeoFacts Challenge is to design a game with memorable geographical information, whether it be countries or capitals, volcanoes or valleys, or annual caribou migration corridors. The game should use modern mechanics and a printed map with real location names. Both the map and the geographical information should be integrated into game play, but this contest is about fun\u2014don’t disguise homework assignments as games! […]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Examples of strategic games that use a well-integrated map with memorable locations: Twilight Struggle, Sun Tzu (2005), Italian Rails, Axis and Allies, Pandemic, Risk, Terraforming Mars, the Ticket to Ride series, and certain cases in Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective. While most of these games use a map of the world or a map of a specific country, contestants are not limited to maps of this nature.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Thanks to Alan for the tip.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the Map Making Mega Bundle<\/a> collects the game mapmaking app Campaign Cartographer 3+<\/a> with a number of its add-ons, plugins and resources at a discounted price, a portion of which goes to charity. Despite the fact that it is in many ways adjunct to fantasy mapmaking, which is one of the areas of my expertise, I am woefully under-informed about roleplaying or computer game mapping, but CC3+ seems to come up a lot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The GeoFacts Challenge is calling for games that teach geography. How many of us only know where Winnipeg is because we played Ticket to Ride, or Kinshasa because of Pandemic, or Kamchatka because of Risk?… More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[467],"tags":[802],"class_list":["post-1839277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-games","tag-software","post_format-post-format-link"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1820788,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2023\/11\/where-comedy-meets-geography\/","url_meta":{"origin":1839277,"position":0},"title":"‘Where Comedy Meets Geography’","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"22 November 2023","format":"link","excerpt":"Geographical magazine has a profile of the Map Men\u2014that is, Jay Foreman and Mark Cooper-Jones, who\u2019ve been posting funny videos on YouTube that explain some cartographical or geographical silliness since 2016, on and off. \u2018As little as ten years ago, maps were something that you just had to live with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cartography"","block_context":{"text":"Cartography","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/cartography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":942,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/02\/a-form-of-cartophobia\/","url_meta":{"origin":1839277,"position":1},"title":"‘A Form of Cartophobia’","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"19 February 2016","format":"quote","excerpt":"Benjamin Hennig calls on social scientists\u00a0to \"rediscover maps and other forms of geographical visualization\": It is interesting to consider how far the discipline of human geography appears to have distanced itself from maps over recent times, resulting almost in a form of cartophobia. Several papers over the last years showed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Geography"","block_context":{"text":"Geography","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/geography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1785127,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2018\/03\/comparing-cartograms\/","url_meta":{"origin":1839277,"position":2},"title":"Comparing Cartograms","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"19 March 2018","format":"link","excerpt":"Datawrapper has added population cartograms to its map collections, and in its blog post discusses the advantages and disadvantages of cartograms vs. geographical maps, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of some of the different\u00a0types of cartograms. Turns out that cartograms are kind of like map projections: each has\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Human Geography"","block_context":{"text":"Human Geography","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/human-geography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/datawrapper-cartogram-comparison-1024x762.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/datawrapper-cartogram-comparison-1024x762.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/datawrapper-cartogram-comparison-1024x762.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/datawrapper-cartogram-comparison-1024x762.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1787859,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2019\/10\/the-atlas-of-unusual-borders\/","url_meta":{"origin":1839277,"position":3},"title":"The Atlas of Unusual Borders","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"3 October 2019","format":"link","excerpt":"Out today: Zoran Nikolic\u2019s Atlas of Unusual Borders (Collins), a book that \u201cpresents unusual borders, enclaves and exclaves, divided or non-existent cities and islands.\u201d Another compendium of geographical curiosities: a genre we\u2019ve seen before (see, for example, the Atlas of Improbable Places, Atlas Obscura, the Atlas of Remote Islands, the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Geography"","block_context":{"text":"Geography","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/geography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/atlas-unusual-borders-214x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1833776,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2024\/08\/a-history-of-the-harvard-university-institute-of-geographical-exploration\/","url_meta":{"origin":1839277,"position":4},"title":"A History of the Harvard University Institute of Geographical Exploration","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"27 August 2024","format":"link","excerpt":"\u201cThe Harvard University Institute of Geographical Exploration was one of the first and most well-wrought private institutions in aerial photography in the first half of the 20th century. Its short institutional life at Harvard was replete with materials, stories and scandal, and its pieces remain scattered today throughout the Harvard\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Geography"","block_context":{"text":"Geography","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/geography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1806281,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2022\/03\/the-problem-with-worldle\/","url_meta":{"origin":1839277,"position":5},"title":"The Problem with Worldle","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"9 March 2022","format":"link","excerpt":"Meanwhile, among the many many Wordle variants and games-inspired-by-Wordle out there is one that map aficionados ought to appreciate: Worldle. Every day you have six chances to guess the name of a country based on an outline map. 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