Maps are an essential part of adventure design, providing a visual guide for both players and the Doomsayer (GM) while reinforcing the unique tone and style of the world. When crafting your Fun with Fäng Adventure Jam submission, choosing the right mapping style can enhance exploration, player agency, and storytelling.
Below, we explore different mapping styles—each with its strengths and best use cases—so you can decide which approach best fits your adventure.
Cutaway Maps – The Classic Fäng Approach
Used in the original Fängelsehåla booklet, the cutaway map style presents an adventure location as if the walls and floors were sliced open to reveal a side-scrolling view of the interior.
What It Looks Like:
- Think of old-school platformers like Pitfall, Super Mario Bros., or Castlevania, where levels are laid out as 2D side views.
- The map doesn’t just show a top-down view of rooms—it illustrates connections between levels, vertical movement, and hidden passages.
Why It Works for Fäng:
✔ Matches the bold, illustrative aesthetic of the game.
✔ Makes elevation and movement intuitive (jumping, climbing, falling).
✔ Encourages vertical exploration, making traps and puzzles more engaging.
Best Used For:
- Dungeons with verticality (caves, towers, underground lairs).
- Side-scrolling, obstacle-based challenges (crumbling ruins, rope bridges).
- Encounters where climbing and jumping matter.
Location-Based Maps – Evoking a Living World
Instead of mapping every room and corridor, a location-based map takes inspiration from storybook maps like Winnie the Pooh’s Hundred Acre Wood, Disneyland or The Lord of the Rings. These maps focus on key landmarks rather than strict geometry.
What It Looks Like:
- Illustrative and evocative rather than technical.
- Labels landmarks, points of interest, and pathways but avoids measuring exact distances.
- Uses visual storytelling to highlight mood (stormy cliffs, haunted forests).
Why It Works for Fäng:
✔ Encourages a freeform, narrative-driven style.
✔ Players get a bigger-picture sense of the world.
✔ Supports open-ended adventure design (players choose which areas to explore).
Best Used For:
- Small, self-contained regions (a cursed valley, an archipelago of floating islands).
- Sandbox adventures with multiple points of interest and nonlinear exploration.
- Adventures with a fairytale or folklore feel.
Top-Down Maps – Traditional but Adaptable
A staple in classic D&D modules and tactical RPGs, the top-down map provides a bird’s-eye view of the location.
What It Looks Like:
- Overhead blueprint-style layouts, showing rooms, corridors, and terrain.
- May include grids for tactical movement, though Fäng doesn’t require them.
Why It Works (and Why It Doesn’t):
✔ Players immediately understand spatial relationships.
✔ Ideal for small, confined areas (fortresses, village buildings, crypts).
✘ Can feel too clinical and less immersive for Fäng’s aesthetic.
Possible Adaptation:
To make it more Fäng-friendly, consider a tilted 3D perspective (think isometric or axonometric maps), which gives a sense of depth while still showing key details.
Best Used For:
- Isolated buildings or settlements (a fortress, inn, or lighthouse).
- Tactical challenges that require knowledge of sightlines, cover, and routes.
- Structured indoor locations where movement is confined to rooms and hallways.
Hex Crawls – A Journey Across the Unknown
A hex crawl breaks the world into a hexagonal grid, where each hex represents terrain, travel time, and potential encounters.
What It Looks Like:
- A zoomed-out map of a region with hexagonal spaces covering the landscape.
- Each hex represents a day’s travel (or some fixed unit).
- Random tables or encounters trigger when players move into a new hex.
Why It Works (and Why It Might Not):
✔ Great for wilderness exploration and survival mechanics.
✔ Procedural adventures—players never know what’s ahead.
✘ Less focused on individual adventure sites or locations.
✘ More about travel than action-driven exploration.
Best Used For:
- Expeditions and long journeys through uncharted wilderness.
- Tracking the movement of rival factions, armies, or migrating monsters.
- Hex-based domain play (players control a faction, settlement, or warband).
Which Style Should You Use?
Each map style offers a different way to engage players and shape the adventure’s tone.
For dungeon-crawling, choose: ✦ Cutaway Maps, Top-Down or Isometric
For large-scale journeys, use: ✦ Hex Crawls or Location-Based Maps
For fairytale-like regions or a location with points of interest, try: ✦ Location-Based Maps.
Or mix and match styles! Your adventure could feature a cutaway dungeon hidden within a location-based region, where players navigate with hex crawl movement through the wilderness to reach their goal.
Start Mapping Your Adventure
Your map is more than a tool—it’s a storytelling device. Whether you’re sketching a cutaway dungeon or crafting a whimsical location map, let your design evoke the world’s character and guide players into the unknown.
Have an idea? Start sketching! Your adventure awaits.
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