I was in a Facebook group recently for worldbuilders and came across a question posted to from one of its members. They were looking for software that tied their maps together in some form or other. I thought about it and then, having previous experience in HTML scripting, suggested using an Image Map. Which basically allows you to map out clickable points on an image shown on a website. Back in the 90s, I created an online game/community that used Image Maps, but still being new to HTML 3 back then, I used software to create them.
The more I thought about my suggestion, the more I came to realize I should be taking my own advice for my worldbuilding on my fantasy world of Agrobathe. Up until a few weeks ago, I have just kept most of my world maps in folders on the PC. Seeing how this would greatly improve my research and tie the world together into an interactive map, I set to hardcoding web-browser based Interactive Map. I have the world map of Agrobathe as the main overlay map. Next, I have every landmass broken down into continents or areas. Once you click on one of those the page zooms in to just that map area. If another area gets included in that zoomed-in map, I’ve darkened that area out. So now I have a world map that is clickable to break it down into areas, from there I have all the major areas, locations, castles, cities, etc and you can click down into those to see a city map for example. I don’t have any building or interior maps created yet, but I plan to do so for all the major buildings/areas within the city maps. This will save time when I’m writing and want to zoom from the world map down to the details of what may be in a room or upon a table at the inn.
As of right now, I just have hyperlinks back to the main map at the top of my world map but think I will add relevant information regarding that area, building, and so on. Since I’m hardcoding everything in just HTML, I can access the HTML files from the browser on my local computer without the need for hosting or PHP/databases, etc. For now, it’s just for me and it’s igniting more creativity of places within my world I want to write about, which will appear in my first Agroathe Anthology book coming out soon I hope. Still staying busy with worldbuilding during this global pandemic.
