Map Map Tips: A Beginner's Guide to Charting Your First Islands

Map Map – A Game About Maps is a cozy game where you actually make the maps yourself.

You play a cartographer traveling with a small crew of adventurers, hopping from island to island in search of a legendary lost treasure.

Here’s the twist, each island hands you a map showing only the coastline, and your own position is never marked on it.

That blank space is the whole game. Your job is to explore, find the locations your crew asks about, and pin them onto the map as accurately as you can.

It can feel a little overwhelming in the first hour. These Map Map tips will smooth out that early confusion so you can settle into the game’s relaxed, figure-it-out-yourself rhythm.

You won’t see a “you are here” dot, and that’s the point

Most games hold your hand with a glowing marker showing exactly where you stand. Map Map does the opposite.

There’s no position indicator and no quest marker nudging you toward the next objective.

You orient yourself the old-fashioned way, by looking at the world around you and matching it to the coastline on your map.

This is the single biggest mental adjustment for beginners. Once it clicks, the rest of the game opens up.

Start by finding obvious coastal features. A jutting peninsula or a distinctive bay gives you a solid anchor point to work outward from.

Master step-counting early, but know when it lies

The first real tool the game leans on is your own two feet. You can measure distances by counting your steps from a known point to wherever you’re trying to map.

This pacing method is reliable on flat ground, and it’s how the game teaches most of its early puzzles.

There’s a catch worth knowing about. The game factors height into how long each step is, so walking up an incline, climbing stairs, or taking a small drop throws your count off.

If you measure a distance across a hill, the number you get reads longer than the actual flat distance between the two points.

The fix is simple. When you need an accurate measurement, pace it out on level ground whenever you can, and stay suspicious of any count you took on a slope.

It also helps to pick clean starting points.

Begin your count right at the base of a landmark rather than somewhere vague nearby, so your number actually means something when you transfer it to the map.

The pencil draws arcs, not just dots

This is the tip that saves the most frustration. Plenty of players never realize the pencil can draw arcs, not only single points.

Using the dividers (the compass-style drawing tool), you can sweep a curved line across your map at a set distance from any point.

That arc represents every spot that sits exactly that far from your reference. Suddenly step-counting becomes far more powerful.

Say you know a landmark is 40 steps from a ruin. You draw a 40-step arc around the ruin, and your target lives somewhere along that curve.

Draw a second arc from another known point, and where the two arcs cross is your answer. This is the heart of accurate mapping in Map Map.

Triangulation is your best friend

Triangulation sounds technical, but here it’s really just common sense with a fancy name.

The idea is to pin down an unknown spot using its relationship to two or three things you’ve already placed on the map.

Take a distance or a direction from one landmark, then another, then a third if you can. Each reference narrows down where the target has to be.

Two crossing lines or arcs give you a single intersection point, and that’s exactly where you drop your marker.

The more spread out your reference landmarks are, the more accurate the result. Try not to lean on two points that sit right next to each other, since their lines cross at a shallow, fuzzy angle.

Use landmarks as alignment lines

Here’s a quick trick that needs no measuring at all. Sometimes two objects in the world line up perfectly from where you’re standing.

When that happens, you can draw a straight alignment line through both of them on your map. Your target sits somewhere along that line.

Combine an alignment line with a single distance measurement and you’ve often got enough to place something precisely.

This works great for spots that are hard to reach on foot. You don’t always have to walk somewhere to map it accurately.

Every new tool unlocks a new way to map

Map Map drips out its tools slowly, and each one solves a different kind of problem. Experimenting with them is half the fun.

The compass helps you lock in direction so your bearings stay consistent as you move around the island.

The telescope lets you study distant features you can’t walk up to, which pairs perfectly with alignment lines.

The sextant brings angles into the mix, giving you another way to triangulate without relying on step counts at all.

Don’t fall into the trap of solving everything by pacing. When a puzzle feels impossible with steps alone, a different tool is usually the intended answer.

Climb high and slow down

There’s no clock ticking in Map Map. Nothing punishes you for taking your time, so lean into that freedom.

Climbing to high ground gives you a vantage point over the whole island. From up there you can spot landmarks, plan routes, and line up distant features.

Elevation is one of your best mapping tools, even though it isn’t an item in your kit. A good overlook can save you ten minutes of wandering around at sea level trying to figure out where a ruin actually is.

Slow down and actually look around. The game rewards careful observation far more than rushing from one objective to the next.

If that unhurried pace is your thing, Map Map fits right in with the other picks on our roundup of relaxing games with zero combat.

Talk to your crew and chase the cozy extras

Your crew of adventurers is the source of most of your tasks. Check in with them often to pick up new locations to find and small quests to complete.

Following their requests is how the treasure hunt actually moves forward, so don’t wander off and forget about them entirely.

Beyond the main objectives, every island is packed with extras for the curious. Ancient ruins, wildlife, hidden paths, and little tucked-away details all reward poking around off the obvious route.

There are also collectible stickers scattered about and a full set of achievements to chase if you’re a completionist.

If island-hopping and cataloguing is your kind of cozy, you’ll feel right at home with our Collector’s Cove tips and our Mika and The Witch’s Mountain guide too.

Closing thoughts

Map Map asks you to think instead of follow, and that’s what makes it special. The first hour can feel slow and a little confusing.

Push through it. Once you understand how to measure, draw arcs, and triangulate, every island turns into a satisfying little puzzle you get to solve your own way.

Grab your pencil, set up camp, and start charting. That blank coastline won’t fill itself in.

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Images are from the Map Map – A Game About Maps page on Steam and used under Fair Use.