Minimap
A small, always-visible overhead map in a corner of the screen showing the player's immediate surroundings, nearby points of interest, and often other players or objectives. Grand Theft Auto V's minimap tracks waypoints and nearby activity in an open world, while League of Legends' minimap is a critical strategic tool showing ally and enemy positions, objectives, and pings across the whole map. Designers use minimaps to give constant spatial awareness without requiring a full pause-menu map check, to surface critical information (enemy positions, objectives, threats) at a glance, and — in competitive games — to create a skill differentiator (players who track the minimap consistently outperform those who don't). Key decisions: what's shown (fog of war interacts directly with minimap visibility), zoom level and rotation (map-north versus player-facing), icon clarity at small scale, and how much information is 'free' versus requiring active scouting to reveal. Pitfall: a minimap cluttered with too many icons becomes unreadable at a glance, defeating its purpose — the whole value proposition is instant comprehension, so icon design and information hierarchy matter enormously.
- Dev effort: Small
- Timing: Real-time or turn-based
- Common in: open-world, moba