Patchwork Map: Difference between revisions

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[[File:Fsabirdseyelw1.jpg|link=The Legend of Zelda Four Swords Adventures (Video Game)|~~right~~|Yes, that is a desert right next to the frozen tundra.]]

[[File:Fsabirdseyelw1.jpg|link=The Legend of Zelda Four Swords Adventures (Video Game)|frame|Yes, that is a desert right next to the frozen tundra.]]

{{quote|''I've always said, the best thing about dwelling in the desert caves is the easy access to the lush rainforest.''|'''Mike Nelson''', ''[[Rifftrax]] of [[Battlefield Earth]]''}}

In the real world, the landscape is determined by a complex combination of climate and geography. Deserts, for instance, are usually created because a mountain or valley blocks rain clouds from being blown over it (known as a "[~~http://en.~~wikipedia~~.org/wiki/Rain_shadow~~ rain shadow]"). Tundra has to be at the right elevation and temperature to remain frozen. Rivers have to source their water from somewhere (usually from the same moutains which stopped those rain clouds from reaching the desert). Swamps are generally located in low-lying areas where the water collects rather than draining out.

In the real world, the landscape is determined by a complex combination of climate and geography. Deserts, for instance, are usually created because a mountain or valley blocks rain clouds from being blown over it (known as a "[[wikipedia:Rain shadow|rain shadow]]"). Tundra has to be at the right elevation and temperature to remain frozen. Rivers have to source their water from somewhere (usually from the same moutains which stopped those rain clouds from reaching the desert). Swamps are generally located in low-lying areas where the water collects rather than draining out.

Not so in the world of fictional geography, where you can have a vast jungle next to a desert with nothing separating them and no reason why the two should have different geological features aside from an invisible line. You'll also have swamps on mountain tops and caves full of ice slightly below a sunny surface.

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** [[Fridge Brilliance]] when you think about how this is exactly what should be expected in a digital universe.

** Seeing as the Digital World is after all [[Exactly What It Says On the Tin|digital]], it may very well have gotten its strange geography from video games.

* On [[One Piece|Grand Line]], there're 4 different kinds of islands - Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter Islands. Obviously, that (partly) explains the ridiculously unpredictable weather changes. It also causes that [[Slippy Slidey Ice World|Drum/Sakura Kingdom]] and [[Shifting Sand Land|Alabasta Kingdom]] to be neighbour countries.

* On [[One Piece|Grand Line]], there're 4 different kinds of islands - Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter Islands. Obviously, that (partly) explains the ridiculously unpredictable weather changes. It also causes that [[Slippy-Slidey Ice World|Drum/Sakura Kingdom]] and [[Shifting Sand Land|Alabasta Kingdom]] to be neighbour countries.

** Played straight with {{spoiler|Punk Hazard that has [[Slippy Slidey Ice World]] on its one side and [[Lethal Lava Land]] on another. It was caused by the battle between Admirals [[Playing With Fire|Akainu]] and [[An Ice Person|Aokiji]].}}

** Played straight with {{spoiler|Punk Hazard that has [[Slippy-Slidey Ice World]] on its one side and [[Lethal Lava Land]] on another. It was caused by the battle between Admirals [[Playing With Fire|Akainu]] and [[An Ice Person|Aokiji]].}}

== [[Comic Books]] ==

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* An extreme example in the graphic chat/MMO, ''[[Furcadia]]'', users can make their own maps (called dreams) that other users can explore, chat, and RP on. Quite a few users have made dreams based on the [[Warrior Cats|Warriors]] series by Erin Hunter. In the books, the four clans of wild cats live in slightly different territories, such as one clan lives in moorland while another lives in a forest. In these fan-made dreams, however, the differences in the territories tend to be very drastic. It is not at all uncommon to find a Warriors dream with a barren desert, murky swamp, snowy tundra, and lush forest all sitting right next to each other with little or no transition in between, made even more drastic by the fact that the area of the dream would probably wind up being only 15 square miles or so in real life.

* Justified in ''[[Endless Frontier]]'' {{spoiler|which ends with five different worlds getting mixed together in a fairly haphazard way}}. Of course, Nature is soon to start asserting itself, so...

* Morning Land in ''[[Billy Hatcher and The Giant Egg]]''. It has the wooded [[Green Hill Zone|Forest]] [[The Lost Woods|Village]], next to the beach/oceanic like [[Palmtree Panic|Pirate Island]], which in turn is right next to the volcanous [[Lethal Lava Land|Dino Mountain]], which is next to [[Slippy Slidey Ice World|Blizzard Castle]] ([[Exactly What It Says On the Tin|guess]]). And in the middle, with all the others surrounding it, is [[Shifting Sand Land|Sand Ruin]]! [[Circus of Fear|Circus Park]] and [[Floating Continent|Giant Palace]] don't count, seeing as the former isn't in any particular biome, and the latter is in ''the sky''.

* Morning Land in ''[[Billy Hatcher and The Giant Egg]]''. It has the wooded [[Green Hill Zone|Forest]] [[The Lost Woods|Village]], next to the beach/oceanic like [[Palmtree Panic|Pirate Island]], which in turn is right next to the volcanous [[Lethal Lava Land|Dino Mountain]], which is next to [[Slippy-Slidey Ice World|Blizzard Castle]] ([[Exactly What It Says On the Tin|guess]]). And in the middle, with all the others surrounding it, is [[Shifting Sand Land|Sand Ruin]]! [[Circus of Fear|Circus Park]] and [[Floating Continent|Giant Palace]] don't count, seeing as the former isn't in any particular biome, and the latter is in ''the sky''.

* [[Simon the Sorcerer]]. You have a temperate forest right next to a swamp right next to some icy mountains, and so on, and so on, in it's defense, it IS a magical world.

* In ''[[Runescape]]'' the border between desert and grassy fields is ''a fence'', both from the northern and western sides. The western border eventually turns into a river and a sea. The eastern border is a river and a sea all along, and across the river from the northern part of the desert, both to the east and the west, lie separate swamps. Another swamp lies in the corner of the desert, separated from it by a plateau from two sides and bordering with the sea from two other.

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* ''[[Minecraft]]'' can get ridiculous with it's biome generation. In rapid succession, you can walk from a temperate forest, to a tundra, to a sandy desert, to a tropical rainforest (which for some reason, has livestock instead of the normal stuff). Without skipping a beat.

** Not as obvious, though, as of the 1.8 update. Biomes are much, much bigger now, so it's not as stark. Still, you can see a desert that shares close boundaries with a very large, temperate forest and ocean.

* ''[[Ys (Video Game)|Ys]]'' is a frequent offender. ''Ys V'' has [[Shifting Sand Land]], [[Jungle Japes]], [[The Lost Woods]], [[Bubblegloop Swamp]], and [[Green Hill Zone]](across a [[Broken Bridge]] from the desert, no less) all in the same vicinity. In ''Ys VI'', Quatera Island is mostly forested while the adjacent Canaan is mainly grassland, and the latter has barren rocky mountains a stone's throw away from the meadows. ''Ys II'' has a [[Slippy Slidey Ice World]] and [[Lethal Lava Land]] directly connected to each other.

* ''[[Ys (Video Game)|Ys]]'' is a frequent offender. ''Ys V'' has [[Shifting Sand Land]], [[Jungle Japes]], [[The Lost Woods]], [[Bubblegloop Swamp]], and [[Green Hill Zone]](across a [[Broken Bridge]] from the desert, no less) all in the same vicinity. In ''Ys VI'', Quatera Island is mostly forested while the adjacent Canaan is mainly grassland, and the latter has barren rocky mountains a stone's throw away from the meadows. ''Ys II'' has a [[Slippy-Slidey Ice World]] and [[Lethal Lava Land]] directly connected to each other.

* ''[[Wonder Boy III Monster Lair (Video Game)|Wonder Boy III Monster Lair]]'', which has [[Direct Continuous Levels]] in parts, goes from [[Slippy Slidey Ice World]] to [[Shifting Sand Land]] to [[Green Hill Zone]] to [[Palmtree Panic]] and back to [[Slippy Slidey Ice World]] in the second half of the game. ''[[Wonder Boy III the Dragons Trap (Video Game)|The Dragon's Trap]]'' is also somewhat guilty.

* ''[[Wonder Boy III Monster Lair (Video Game)|Wonder Boy III Monster Lair]]'', which has [[Direct Continuous Levels]] in parts, goes from [[Slippy-Slidey Ice World]] to [[Shifting Sand Land]] to [[Green Hill Zone]] to [[Palmtree Panic]] and back to [[Slippy-Slidey Ice World]] in the second half of the game. ''[[Wonder Boy III the Dragons Trap (Video Game)|The Dragon's Trap]]'' is also somewhat guilty.

* The lower areas of Paradise City in ''[[Burnout]] Paradise'' are tropical and resemble Florida, then there's the geologically implausible California-style mountains with a parody of the Hollywood sign, and temperate forests/vegetation.

* ''[[Halo 3]]'' not only has jungle with [[Misplaced Vegetation]] and savanna right next to each other, but Mt. Kilimanjaro is way too close to the Tsavo/Mombasa area. And let's not talk about the rings themselves.

* ''[[An Untitled Story]]'' has it's entire world compressed into few hundred screens. As such, there's a [[Slippy Slidey Ice World|snowfield]] that borders with a sunny town and a grassy (and moonlit) hill without ''any'' barriers, or a [[Lethal Lava Land|lava]] covered [[Eternal Engine|factory]] that borders directly with [[Under the Sea|a water grotto]], a grassy plain from above and ''a tree''.

* ''[[An Untitled Story]]'' has it's entire world compressed into few hundred screens. As such, there's a [[Slippy-Slidey Ice World|snowfield]] that borders with a sunny town and a grassy (and moonlit) hill without ''any'' barriers, or a [[Lethal Lava Land|lava]] covered [[Eternal Engine|factory]] that borders directly with [[Under the Sea|a water grotto]], a grassy plain from above and ''a tree''.

* Notably averted in ''[[Mabinogi (Video Game)|Mabinogi]]''. Regions are laid out in a relatively realistic manner. eg. The region of Rano is divided into roughly equal parts; the rolling prairie land of Maiz Plains, the scrubland of Muyu Desert, and the lush, verdant Karu Forest, sitting side by side in that order. However, each region is seperated from its neighbor by a high, almost impassible mountain range that effectively shadows the desert from the moisture laden air to either side of it.

* ''[[Inazuma Eleven (Video Game)|Inazuma Eleven]] GO'' has a desert area sandwiched between an icy tundra area to its east and a beach/water area to its west. Justified in that they were man-made (the nearby windy valley area even has gigantic fans to create the wind), complete with walls separating them.

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[[Category:Patchwork Map]]

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