A Mental Map of Rust: Mapping the wonder, horror, and ephemeral triumphs experienced by players in the online survival game
navigating the unknown
For this assignment, we were challenged to use technology to create a map that didn’t follow traditional standards of “academic” map making. To create a passionate and subjective map, we studied Crampton and Krygier’s 2006 essay "An Introduction to Critical Cartography" and observed various different interpretations of map classifications in Jill Berry’s 2011 book Personal Geographies: Explorations in Mixed-Media Mapmaking. Through these resources, I began exploring various topics, through which my aim was to create a map that wasn’t necessaraily academic, but fulfilled various academic requirements.
I chose to go with a type of map touched on by Berry in her discussions of maps inspired by Phrenology Charts (p. 19). Drawing inspiration from Kim Rae Nugent’s “A Day in the Life of a Crow” map (p.131) and Jason Logan’s “One Week of Missed Connections”, I decided to make what Pearce refers to as a “narrative” map (Crampton 2006) — one that would subjectively tell a story. Much like Nugent’s map, my map shows something that presumes an inner monologue: one that occurs for the player inside of the video game Rust: a game that (ironically) has no map. To do this, I used a combination of Adobe Photoshop and InDesign software to layer a brain and map vector. I then plotted the path of any given player from login to logout, giving him or her a voice, all while roughly following the standards/expectations for an “academic” map.