History Main / VideoGameGeography

* The {{Lufia}} series is a particularly odd example. The world of LufiaAndTheFortressOfDoom is definitely toroidal, and that's all fine and good...except that the world map in [[LufiaIIRiseOfTheSinistrals the prequel]] is completely different. And they explain this by saying that Lufia II takes place in "North Land", while Lufia I takes place in "West Land". No matter how far west of North Land you go, you will never reach West Land. Same with South Land and [[BlindIdiotTranslation Estoland]]. [[EpilepticTrees Maybe they're toroids looped around each other??]]

* ''VideoGame/ShadowHearts'': From the New World takes place all over the Western Hemisphere. The real one, with America and Brazil and so forth. Which the characters navigate almost entirely on foot.

* ''ShadowHearts'': From the New World takes place all over the Western Hemisphere. The real one, with America and Brazil and so forth. Which the characters navigate almost entirely on foot.

* Justified and/or Lampshaded in ''{{Creatures}}'', where the "planet" is actually stated as being cylindrical. [[FridgeLogic ...With very odd gravitational properties]]. (And there's no cylinder world trope, but this also fits in BizarreWorldShapes.)

-->''The World Is Square''

* Inverted in ''VideoGame/PennAndTellersSmokeAndMirrors''' mini-game "Desert Bus", where the player makes a trip from Tucson, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada by bus, and the gameplay is, if anything even more boring than it would be in [[https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Tucson,+AZ/Las+Vegas,+NV/ real life]]. Maximum speed: 45 mph. Pausing: none. Total trip time: Approximately [[BladderOfSteel 8 hours]].

* Averted in ''VideoGame/PennAndTellersSmokeAndMirrors''' mini-game "Desert Bus", where the player makes a trip from Tucson, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada by bus. Maximum speed: 45 mph. Pausing: none. Total trip time: Approximately [[BladderOfSteel 8 hours]].

* ''{{Myst}} 4: Revelation'' has Haven, which prominently features a rocky seacoast, a jungle, a swamp, and a savanna all within '''yards''' of each other.

* In the ''FinalFantasy'' series at least from ''[[VideoGame/FinalFantasyI I]]'' to ''[[VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX IX]]'', if you fly off the east/west side of the map, you show up on the west/east side of the map. Good and logical for a spherical world, yes? However, if you flew past the north/south border, you would end up at the south/north border... thus leading us to realize that all Final Fantasy worlds in fact, behave as toroids like the picture above.
** Taken to an extreme in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII: Revenant Wings'', in which an essentially flat FloatingContinent works by the same mechanic.

** Mountains in Skyrim illustrate the heavy space compression. The tree line occurs at about 50 feet above sea level. It's a bit jarring to be walking though a temperate field and the suddenly end up on a blizzard-swept peak, only to look back five feet and see the field.

* Averted in ''VideoGame/PennAndTellersSmokeAndMirrors''' mini-game "Desert Bus", where the player makes a trip from Tucson, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada by bus. Maximum speed: 45 kph. Pausing: none. Total trip time: Approximately [[BladderOfSteel 8 hours]].

** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]'' is actually something of an interesting case, thanks to recent technological developments. Because the world was hand-crafted rather than randomly generated, it still seemed just as large to players as the (in reality) much-larger Daggerfall. However, the ability to remove the persistent in-game fog in order to increaese visibility to realistic levels brings with it the uncomfortable realization that all of Vvardenfell's major settlements are about 100 feet apart.

* In the expansion for the first VideoGame/CallOfDuty game, a part of the game takes part in the Netherlands. Particularly in a mountainous area. Good luck finding mountains in the Netherlands, the closest available can be found a couple of hundred kilometers away, far outside the country.

** ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' follows the same methods to box the player in. There are also a few blocked off roads to nowhere and collapsed caves that appear on the map but don't serve any importance, likely to be used in upcoming DLC content.

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' is the "flat and country-shaped" sort of variant. The game world is a flat square in the area around Washington, but once the player reaches the edge of the world, the player can see that the world continues well past the [[InsurmountableWaistHeightFence limit of movement]]. There is even an entire district of skyscrapers across the Potomac from Rivet City.

** I heard that they were mapped onto a gigantic globe that seemed infinite because it was too big to go around in a match time-limit, even in a Shrike.

* Averted in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}''. The game world is a flat square in the area around Washington, but once the player reaches the edge of the world, the player can see that the world continues well past the [[InsurmountableWaistHeightFence limit of movement]]. There is even an entire district of skyscrapers across the Potomac from Rivet City.

-->-- ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' [[note]]Well, actually, in game, it's the solution to a puzzle: ERAU QSSI DLRO WEHT. [[LampshadeHanging It was Square's catchphrase at the time.]][[/note]])

-->-- ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' (Well, actually, in game, it's the solution to a puzzle: ERAU QSSI DLRO WEHT. [[LampshadeHanging It was Square's catchphrase at the time.]])

* ''VideoGame/EscapeVelocity'' has an unusual relationship with this trope. Initially the original ''EV'' had toroidal space, but AmbrosiaSoftware could never quite get it working so it was changed to square space with {{invisible wall}}s in a patch. ''EV Override'' stayed with the square space model, but ''EV Nova'' managed to get toroidal working properly.

* ''MetroidPrime'' does this. Magmoor Caverns is essentially a giant short-cut, and there are a lot of very, very convenient elevators to different locations. The world itself looks irregular and confused, but when you play through it, getting around feels mostly natural. It always seems like there's a quick route to where you need to go next. To understand why this is a useful trope, consider ''Metroid Prime '''2''' '', which averts this. The world is very regular: there is a central hub world with elevators to 3 adjacent areas, and each adjacent area has elevators to the two areas around it. However, none of these entrances and exits are very placed for the convenience of the player. Getting around is painful, even if you don't count forced encounter rooms that you're frequently forced to go through. There is almost ''never'' a fast route to where you need to go next.

* Spoofed in ''RPGWorld'', where the universe has a tendency to make things that go over any edge reappear on the other edge, for instance, on the world map. Diane demonstrates this with punching another character by throwing her fist across the panel border.

*** ''SecretOfMana'' also lets you view its torus-world map as a plane or a globe.

* '''Toruses ("donut-shapes")''': Going off one side of the screen causes the player to appear at the opposite, implying a toroidal (or donut) shape[[note]]Technically, worlds like this have the same ''topology'' as a donut, but not the same ''geometry''. That is, they look the same until you try to measure something, and then they don't anymore. Among other things, a rectangular map of a toroidal world should vary in width at different latitudes (or, equivalently you should move across the map at different speeds horizontally at different latitudes)[[/note]]. Thus you scroll off the bottom and end up at the top, instead of going in the opposite direction from a different area at the bottom. It allows, among other things, faster travel around the map, allowing players to not have to cross the equator every time they want to get from the north pole to south pole and vice-versa.

* ''VideoGame/StarOceanTheSecondStory:

* '''Toruses ("donut-shapes")''': Going off one side of the screen causes the player to appear at the opposite, implying a toroidal (or donut) shape[[hottip:* :Technically, worlds like this have the same ''topology'' as a donut, but not the same ''geometry''. That is, they look the same until you try to measure something, and then they don't anymore. Among other things, a rectangular map of a toroidal world should vary in width at different latitudes (or, equivalently you should move across the map at different speeds horizontally at different latitudes)]]. Thus you scroll off the bottom and end up at the top, instead of going in the opposite direction from a different area at the bottom. It allows, among other things, faster travel around the map, allowing players to not have to cross the equator every time they want to get from the north pole to south pole and vice-versa.

* '''Flat and country-shaped''': You can't walk off the edge of the map, which is shaped like any real-world border, irregular and conforming to mountains, rivers, etc. You can see some LOD land beyond the border, but you cannot get there and discover that it's sound stage quality. Most well known from the Bethesda {{RPG}}s (Franchise/TheElderScrolls and the new {{VideoGame/Fallout}}s).

* ''VideoGame/KingsQuestI'' featured the land of Daventry in a toroidal shape, while the next three games in [[VideoGame/KingsQuest the series]] had somewhat of a WrapAround shape of a sideways cylinder, where the east and west were impassible but north and south wrapped around. Oddly enough, the first three games (and possibly the fourth) all take place in the same world, with the third one explicitly revisiting the world of the first one at the end (turns out you can escape a toroidal world if you climb up a high enough mountain), which meant that the world had different sections that were shaped like cylinders and toroids somehow. Or possibly AWizardDidIt.