Getting Lost

Musings on Mistakes Made in the Woods Last week I was hiking in the jungle on Guam for work. We were looking to relocate archaeological sites that hadn't been visited in a long time based on 15-year-old GPS data. As one does, I was thinking a lot while out there about how to apply my experiences hiking to exploration in old-school adventure games. There's a lot to think of there, like how much it sucks to push through walls of spiky pandanus leaves, or how well little monsters could hide underneath a thick bed of ferns. But then we got lost for a little bit, and I knew I needed to blog about it and how the experience could carry over into games. What Happened?We had finished at one site, and set out to find another. The plan was to hike straight north until we reached a cleared path, and then follow that path east before going off trail again to the site. A colleague and I both checked our compasses, oriented north, and headed off. After a little while, we reached a cleared path and…