Point and Click Map

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A variety of World Map where the player doesn't steer the Player Character across the map but only has to click on the destination location to instantly go there. Essentially, it functions like another game menu, albeit stylized and pretty. Optionally, it will have smaller-scale maps to act as sub-menus.

Accessing the global map often requires either reaching the edge of the current location or interacting with a special transporter item or character, overlapping with Warp Whistle (though not all Warp Whistles present themselves as world maps). When "traveling", the path may be tracked on the map to conceal the level loading sequence. En route, the player can be optionally interrupted by a single Random Encounters (rarely more).

At the beginning of the game, only a couple of destinations will be available, but more will be added to the map later, either by exploration (finding hidden exits from known locations), by accepting quests that lead you there, or by exploration and completing certain quests on site. If the destination has several entrance points, your original location will often determine which of them you will teleport to.

Examples of Point and Click Map include:

Adventure Games

• Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People uses a "map" which is constructed by the player; as more locations are discovered, the player can add them as stamps anywhere on an empty sheet of paper, and even move them around. Clicking on a stamp instantly moves you there.
• Quite a few of the Reality-On-The-Norm games, such as Defender of RON.
• The Longest Journey had several point-and-click maps: Newport (accessible only in the subway), Marcuria (accessible by reaching the edge of a location), the Northlands, and the Alais Island. In all cases, new locations had to be unlocked by solving puzzles or advancing the overall plot.
• The Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2 both have one. The latter also has a sea map, that provides increasingly weird excuses for why you can't go anywhere except for the three main islands. From the second game:

Captain Dread: "We can't go there, mon. That's the Forbidden Icosahedron!"

Platform Games

• The Legend of Zelda CDI Games had menus like this.

Gwonam: Here is the map. Where do you wish to go?

• The Super Mario franchise:
  • Super Mario Galaxy 2: While the first game used a Hub Level, the second game used a map screen, accessible from the bridge of your spaceship.
  • Super Mario Bros. 3: Every world has a map, and Hammer Bros. are often seen wandering around on it (image).
  • New Super Mario Bros.: The maps are linear affairs that progress from one level to the next. New Super Mario Bros. Wii uses 3D rendered maps, similar to the 2D maps of Super Mario Bros 3 (even including wandering Hammer Bros).
• A staple of the Donkey Kong Country series, including Donkey Kong Country Returns: There is one large map depicting the entire world, with each destination represented by a smaller map containing the actual levels.
• In the 2008 Prince of Persia, the map of the City allows you to instantly travel from any already cleansed level to any other. The game simply explains it with Elika's light-fueled teleportation power.
• Sonic Adventure 2 uses a world map like this as its level select screen.

RPG -- Eastern

• Unlike many earlier installments, Final Fantasy X and its sequel utilize a map selection-screen for traveling by your Global Airship.
• Pokémon franchise:
  • In all of the titles in the main series, the Fly ability uses this interface to transport you to your chosen destination.
  • Pokémon Colosseum and its sequel, unlike most Pokemon games, use a World Map selection screen for travelling between locations.
  • The Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series also uses a world map to move between destinations, although the only destinations aside from the home town/base are dungeons. A few dungeons require one party member knowing an HM move (like Fly, Surf, or Dive) to access.
  • This is how you get around in the Pokémon Trading Card Game Gameboy game.
• Legend of Mana: You get to place destinations on the map as you go, which has an effect on the monster difficulty in that area.
• Legaia II: Duel Saga features a map selection screen for picking which town or dungeon you wish to visit. Once you acquire your pirate ship you can select destinations across water. Later in the game you also acquire a flying dragon, and any time you select a non-adjacent destination, the game shows the dragon flying between destinations rather than your party leader running across the map.
• Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World also features this.
• Xenoblade gives players the option to travel between maps, via its quick travel function. Which is a good thing, because there's 20 maps and they're friggin' huge! Of course, if players prefer, they can take the scenic route.
• In Dubloon, sailing is done by talking to Timber and picking a location on the Treasure Map, assuming the player found a map where it was drawn.
• This is how you moved ashore in the original Uncharted Waters: clicking on one of up to nine buildings on the port map took you there immediately. This was removed from the sequel in favor of navigable Three Quarters View maps.
• Rogue Galaxy: While you can use save points to warp between locations within the same planet, interplanetary travel is controlled via a map screen.
• Breath of Fire IV: You travel across the map using fixed routes; Random Encounters occur as a "?" appearing above the player's head, allowing the player to enter a generic field to fight monsters and/or locate items (but are otherwise not mandatory).
• Super Mario RPG: The World Map is divided into several screens progressing in a circular fashion, and you can travel between any available destination at any time.
• The Ogre Battle series has a map then minimap with the point and click interface.
• Final Fantasy Tactics used this for the main map, but you could actually still wind up in Random Encounters when crossing green (monster-filled) locations. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance had you build a map in this fashion, with the random encounters replaced by wandering ones, and Final Fantasy Tactics A2 had another predefined map.

RPG -- Western

• All Infinity Engine games featured this in some form:
  • The Baldurs Gate series had the maps of the Sword Coast and Amn (I and II, respectively). The first game's map had a rather obvious square grid structure, where if you wanted to unlock the location east of you, you had to reach the east edge of your current location, etc.. Also, the travel times were tracked on the In-Universe Game Clock: further destinations resulted in longer travel.
  • Planescape: Torment uses it to let you move around Sigil, with more locations unlocked as you figure out ways to move around the Chaos Architecture of the city.
  • Ditto the Icewind Dale series, with the maps of the eponymous region.
• Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines had the map of Los Angeles, accessible by speaking to a cabbie. The four major hubs (Santa Monica, Downtown, Hollywood, and Chinatown) were unlocked as the main quest progressed, while additional quest locations were added to it as you picked them up. There were no random encounters while traveling.
• In The Elder Scrolls series:
  • Daggerfall opened up the sandbox with all cities and dungeons marked on the province map. However, you had to acquire corresponding quests to know where to go next. Travel was only possible from outdoors locations.
  • Although Oblivion is an (almost) seamless Wide Open Sandbox, its in-game map of Cyrodiil functions like this for those who don't have time to enjoy the Scenery Porn. Apart from the main cities, you had to visit a place to be able to quick travel to it (although it was possible to get a given location marked on your map to make it easier to find).
  • Ditto Skyrim, although the main cities were only marked on the map and had to be visited before quick travel became available to them. There were also cart drivers who could be paid to take you to a given city you hadn't been to yet.
• Fallout 3 (which used the same engine as the Elder Scrolls games mentioned above) had a similar system (you had to visit a place to quick travel to it), however the map started off with no markers whatsoever.
• In the Dragon Age series:
  • Origins had the map of Ferelden (Amaranthine in the expansion) that functioned similarly to Baldur's Gate II: destinations were unlocked by exploration and quests, you could get ambushed, and there were sub-maps for the Deep Roads and Denerim. Due to lack of an in-game clock, however, you were always Traveling At the Speed of Plot.
  • Dragon Age II had the map of Kirkwall (by day and by night), as well as the Wounded Coast region nearby. The random encounters were removed (there was only a single plot-triggered one).
• The Mass Effect series has it, but only with the top, Portal Network level of the galaxy map. To move within star systems and from star to star, you have to manually navigate the ship.
• Evil Islands features multiple locations connected only via travel points. Accessing them summons the world map, where you can choose to travel either to the adjacent area's travel points or any area you have previously unlocked by completing quests there.
• In another Russian RPG, Golden Land (a.k.a. Heath: The Unchosen Path), the world map is accessed on reaching the edge of the location. From there one can travel to any available location, from permanent hubs to temporary quest locations. The progress is tracked on the map and you can be ambushed along the way.
• Bloodnet's is a map of New York with several markers on it, with more appearing as the game progresses; clicking on a marker brings up a list of all the locations in that area.