Explore the surprisingly fascinating world of video games!

A recent book published by Thames & Hudson and an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) examine the intersection of architecture and video games, exploring how people experience space and time through interactive design. 

The book, titled "Videogame Atlas: Mapping Interactive Worlds," written by Luke Casper Pearson and Sandra Youkhana, and the MoMA exhibition, "Never Alone: Video Games and Other Interactive Design," delve into the immersive and often imaginative worlds of video games, highlighting the role of architects in designing the built environments within these virtual realms. 

While architecture and film have been extensively studied together, there has been relatively little exploration of the relationship between architecture and video games. These two works seek to fill this gap, offering a unique perspective on the intersection of these two fields.

Video games often include maps in various forms, such as Pac-Man's screen layout, in-game navigation tools for players to explore virtual environments, and printed maps in guidebooks for hardcore gamers to refer to. 

However, the maps created by Luke Casper Pearson and Sandra Youkhana for the Videogame Atlas are a different kind of map entirely. As leaders of the Videogame Urbanism Studio at the Bartlett School of Architecture, their maps visually analyze the urbanism of various interactive game worlds. 

The maps cover a diverse range of game genres, including first-person shooters, sandboxes, role-playing games, and simulators. This allows the authors, both avid video game players themselves, to examine a wide range of virtual environments and analyze them through mapping.

The book contains nearly 500 illustrations, all of which were created by the authors. This will be especially beneficial for readers who are familiar with the games, as they will have a better understanding of the maps and diagrams. Some of the interactive game worlds are based on real places, like the Paris of Assassin's Creed Unity, making them easier to comprehend. 

However, others are more fantastical or hybridized versions of reality, such as the world of Katamari Damacy. This game involves a player rolling a giant ball around a room, picking up objects, and increasing in size until they are able to consume everything on Earth's surface. The authors have included diagrams explaining how the player controls the Katamari, maps showing its movement and growth within a room, and illustrations showing the size it must reach to uproot buildings.

A map of the Euclid Galaxy in No Man's Sky. (Image © 2022 Sandra Youkhana and Luke Casper Pearson)