Navigating Imaginary Worlds - Wayfinding and Subcreation

This edited anthology offers a collection of essays that each look at various types of wayfinding. Together they explore a variety of wayfinding tools and techniques and their applications, as well as ways of keeping track of the construction of worlds too.

List of contents

About the Contributors
Acknowledgments
Foreword
Kevin Conran
Introduction
Mark J. P. Wolf
FINDING ONE'S WAY AROUND
World-Building, Emplotment, and Disorientation in Gangs of New York
Henry Jenkins
Comic Book Encyclopedias: The What, When, Where, Why and How of DC's Who's Who and The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe
Blair Davis
Navigating Ludotopia, Exploring Allotopia: Natural and Unnatural Exploration of Open Worlds in Video Games
Krzysztof M. Maj
The Importance of Afterstory and Tolkien's Fourth Age
Mark J. P. Wolf
WAYFINDING IN INTERACTIVE WORLDS
Pinball Playfields: Mapping Heavy Metal
Ryan Banfi
Toys-to-Guide: Nintendo amiibo as Transmedial Waypoints
Matthew Thomas Payne
The Warhammer Product and Service Portfolio: Wayfinding as Competitive Advantage
Neal Baker
Where Be Witches? The Role of Adventure Maps in Building a Game World
Stefan Ekman
The Soundscape of the Metaverse: Aural Navigation in Meta's Horizon Worlds
Harry Burson
Transcendent Travels: Wayfinding in Extended Realities
Gundolf S. Freyermuth
CONCEPTUAL WAYFINDING
Miniature Worlds
Mark J. P. Wolf
Journey Loops and Vicious Circles: Lessons of Unfortunate Adventures in Romantic Tales
Lily Alexander
Artificial Intelligence and the Possibility of Sub-Subcreation
Mark J. P. Wolf
Research as a Navigating Tool
Nathali H. S. Pilegaard
APPENDIX
The Cartographers of Vasterra
Mark J. P. Wolf
Index

About the author

Mark J. P. Wolf is a professor in the Department of Digital Media and Design at Concordia University Wisconsin, USA. His books include The Video Game Theory Reader 1 and 2 (2003; 2008), The Video Game Explosion (2007), Before the Crash (2012), Encyclopedia of Video Games (two-volume 1st edition, 2012; three-volume 2nd edition, 2021), Building Imaginary Worlds (2012), LEGO Studies (2014), The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies (1st edition, 2014; 2nd edition, 2023), Video Games Around the World (2015), Video Games and Gaming Culture (2016), Video Games FAQ (2017), Revisiting Imaginary Worlds (2017), The Routledge Companion to Imaginary Worlds (2017), The Routledge Companion to Media Technology and Obsolescence (2018), Exploring Imaginary Worlds (2020), and Calculated Imagery: A History of Computer Graphics in Hollywood Cinema (2025).

Product details

• Authors: Mark J.p. (Concordia University Wisconsin Wolf
• Assisted by: Mark J.P. Wolf (Editor)
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 16.06.2025
• EAN: 9781032819549
• ISBN: 978-1-0-3281954-9
• No. of pages: 298
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History; History, Media Studies, Popular Culture, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Popular Culture, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Media Studies, LITERARY CRITICISM / Science Fiction & Fantasy, Humanities, Literary studies: general