Hunt Map
The stop map visitors see on a hunt
What the hunt map draws, why it has no streets, and how it differs from the floor-plan mini-map in the corner of your tour.
Video walkthrough
Narration script
The walkthrough has not been recorded yet. This is the narration it will follow, step for step.
Let me show you the map visitors get during a hunt, and clear up the confusion with the other map, because we have two and they do different jobs. This one appears on the hunt page under Where the stops are, just below the tour viewer, and only if at least one stop sits in a scene with real coordinates. A hunt you play from your sofa does not get one, and that is correct. It draws your stops as numbered dots joined by a dashed line in order, so you can see the shape of the walk. Green means done. Amber, slightly bigger, is the one they should be heading for. Grey is still ahead. If they have turned location on, they show up as a blue dot, and the map reframes to fit both them and the stops, so walking in from outside does not squash you against the edge. Now the part I am proudest of. Everything that picture shows is also written out in words underneath. Next tells you the stop, the distance, and the direction in plain language, northeast, southwest, and so on. There is a scale line. And All stops lists every stop with how far and which way. The drawing itself is hidden from screen readers deliberately, because the words are the real channel, not a consolation prize. Now, no streets. That is on purpose. A hunt happens outdoors, usually where signal is worst, and a map that downloads tiles is a map that shows a grey box the moment you are lost. This one is drawn from numbers already on the page, so it works in airplane mode. Tiles would also mean picking a map vendor and paying their bill, and that is your call, not ours to make quietly. We can slide a basemap underneath later without changing a mark. Finally, do not mix this up with the tour map. That is the little floor plan in the corner of the viewer, one per destination, built on the Connections page, and tapping a pin jumps you to that room. This one is per hunt, uses real latitude and longitude, and nothing on it is clickable. It tells you where to walk. It does not take you there.
Steps
- The hunt map appears on the hunt page under the heading Where the stops are, below the tour viewer. It shows up only when at least one of the hunt's stops sits in a scene that has real coordinates. A hunt played entirely from anywhere simply does not have one, which is correct rather than broken.
- It draws your stops as numbered dots joined by a dashed line in stop order, so the shape of the walk is legible at a glance. Finished stops are green, the stop the visitor should be walking toward is amber and drawn slightly larger, and stops still ahead are grey. If the visitor has turned location on, they appear as a blue dot, and the map reframes to fit both them and the stops so that approaching from outside does not pin them to the edge.
- Every single thing the picture shows is also written out underneath it, and that is the point rather than a nicety. Next names the stop and reads like '{title} is 450 m to the northeast', using eight plain compass words: north, northeast, east, southeast, south, southwest, west, northwest. A scale line tells you roughly how far the bar represents. All stops lists every stop with its distance and direction from where the visitor is standing. The drawing itself is hidden from screen readers on purpose, because the words are the primary channel and not a fallback.
- There is no street basemap, and that is deliberate. The note on the map says so plainly: it shows the stops and how far apart they are, it has no streets, and it works with no signal. A hunt is played outdoors, often exactly where reception is worst, and a map that has to fetch tiles is a map that shows a grey rectangle at the moment someone is lost. This one is drawn from coordinates already on the page, so it renders in airplane mode. Tiles would also mean picking a map vendor, agreeing to their terms and often paying their bill, which is an operator's decision and not one to make quietly inside a component. A basemap can be slid in underneath later without changing any of these marks.
- The projection is honest about the shape of the ground. Coordinates are drawn on Web Mercator with north up and one scale on both axes, not plotted as if a degree of longitude equalled a degree of latitude. Across most of the northern hemisphere that shortcut stretches a map east-west by a fifth or more, which is enough to make 'the next stop is that way' point at the wrong thing. If every stop shares one position, it still draws, centred in a window about 200 metres across, rather than collapsing.
- Do not confuse it with the tour map, which is a completely different feature. The tour map is the small floor-plan mini-map in the corner of the tour viewer. There is one per destination, you build it on the Connections page under Tour map, it sits on a floor plan image you upload or on a built-in grid, and each scene's pin is positioned as a percentage across that image.
- The differences that matter in practice: the tour map is about indoor position on a plan, the hunt map is about real latitude and longitude outdoors. The tour map is per destination and shows every placed scene, the hunt map is per hunt and shows only that hunt's stops. Tapping a pin on the tour map jumps the visitor to that scene, while nothing on the hunt map is clickable at all: it tells you where to walk, it does not navigate. The tour map follows visitors as they move between scenes, the hunt map tracks progress through the stop list.
- A scene can appear on both, and one has no effect on the other. Placing a pin on the floor plan does not give a scene a real-world position, and typing latitude and longitude does not put it on the floor plan. A museum scene legitimately has a place on the building plan and a place on Earth, so if you want both, set both.