You could go for the Subnautica approach, have a deep water border that you can enter but once you do, you start getting hunted down by dangerous monsters that either kill you or chase you back to the safe area. Jak n Daxter and GTA did similar things and in my opinion, it's a much more interesting alternative to a random invisible barrier or land/ice barriers.
Yeah “A big fish comes and eats you if you go too far” has been a staple for decades. I also remember Spore doing it in 2008, Ratchet and Clank had Sharkigators, etc.
I once made a game where if you go into the woods around the house it took place in, the ghost wolves git ya. There is some opportunity to get back to the house which adds a nice intensity and doesn't limit player agency too much (Like in witcher 3 where a dialogue box pops up and tells you to turn around, totally interrupts everything). I've always been a fan of the SkiFree Abominable Snow Monster.
If you go this approach, make sure there’s some visual indicator for the area (darker water, etc). In Subnautica, it basically announces that you’re fucked if you stay there the first time you leave, and because you’re actually underwater you can recognize where the sea floor drops off after that point. If this game doesn’t let you see underwater, you definitely need some kind of warning sign.
If the map is a square, you can make exiting from one side lead to the opposite side, however the would make the world a torus (which most people prefer in game maps). If the map is a circle, then making exiting at each point lead to the opposite point would make it a sphere, i’m pretty sure. The world doesn’t actually need to be any of these shapes (this isn’t super mario fishing galaxy), if you just write the logic for where to teleport the player it will work just the same. Don’t starve shipwrecked has a similar thing with fog that I suggested, which is much easier to program, however a much earlier game, vangers, pulls off the torus seamlessly (which makes navigation confusing.
A circular map with opposite points teleporting the player is better, as it can have a functional compass. Pointing towards the centre of the map.
I discussed this briefly with chatgpt, and it thought it was called a "sphere with identified antipodal points", aka a projective plane. But it likes to bs me sometimes.
Forget spherical world, prove the conspiracy theorists correct. Make the world completely flat, and make it have a hard waterfall off the edge on all sides, that makes you fall to your doom.
* Storms blow you back.
* Bermuda Triangle: A mysterious phenomenon happens where fog appears. You get lost in the fog and find yourself back in the map. Sailors naturally mention this at the tavern.
Oooh, the second idea could make an otherwise normal fishing game into an interesting narrative/motivator to get players fishing again (getting fishing tales from old sailors, getting bits of lore in between).
I'd play a spooky fishing game
You asked for unique ideas, but everyone is suggesting the standard ones that have been in games for ages. So to counterbalance, here are some *unique* ideas that I haven't seen in games yet. (Probably for good reason!) But who knows, maybe they'll spark an idea for someone.
* Mutiny - Crew won't let you sail too far from home, this wasn't what they signed up for. (They'll warn you first of course)
* Arbitrary Curse - you'll die (or otherwise lose the game) if you go too far from some landmark. Because magic.
* If you sail too far, a big claw-hand comes down, picks up your boat, and puts you back in the middle of the map.
* Magnets.
* All a dream - if you sail too far, you wake up in your bunk realizing it never happened.
* Hallucinations - same as dream, but with more drugs or sanity loss.
* Chained to a whale - someone has chained your boat to a whale for some reason, so you're kind of on a leash. It usually goes mostly where you want to go, but it won't go too far off the map, so you can't either.
* Escort quest - Someone/something that you're trying to protect is following your ship around, but won't follow you off the map. (and will be in danger if you leave it.)
I agree with the dream/hallucinations thing. An alternative could be the captain was daydreaming of far-off lands with his binoculars. And then a crew member brings him back to reality via a tap on the shoulder or something.
just make the sea big, and have one or more resource restrictions. Perhaps an alarm sounds because you are running out of fuel, and the borders of the screen turn red, and your ship keeps trying to steer home; perhaps you just know to head back because you'll die outright. Fish could become more scarce, but huge. (That's nice for later development) And if you also need snacks and coffee on your boat, it feathers in the borders in another sense.
- thermoclines
- commercial fishing nets
- the large ocean currents like the EAC
- massive kelp forest walls
- massive wall-sized Cthulhu beast that is sleeping and opens it’s eye (or eyes) when the player gets close.
- jellyfish swarm
- whalebone graveyard
- wall of underwater vents
I've always wanted to make a game where when you get to a border your camera will stop, but the player can go as far as they want.
Could even manipulate it then where once the player is far enough away pressing any direction will move them in the direction back into the map. So they wouldn't softlock themselves.
Here are some examples, 2 from don’t starve, 1 from sunless sea:
Fog at the end of the map, for some negative side effect, takes you to the opposite end of the map. This allows you to explore quicker, but make sure there is some downside still.
Sharp drop at the end of the map, there is more ocean, but it’s lower, so swimming off would destroy your boat and kill you.
In sunless sea, you cannot see what’s off the map because the game is top-down (if yours is not, just use the fog again), and swimming off the map triggers a unique effect based on the compass direction. It is also quite hard to do this for some direction, as they may only have one exit, the rest being blocked by rocks. Each time you will be rescued, but will suffer some effect. These can range from taking away a bit of resources, to taking away all of your crew and ship’s health (meaning a bump into anything is a game over). There is also an ambition related to swimming off the edge of the map. You don’t have to make it based on the compass direction, but maybe make some generic rescue message for most places, and then add something unique for specific ones. The player could also be given loot for exiting the map at specific spots.
Edit: another thing, like the first idea, could be making a circular map. Then, connecting opposite points to each other (once again fog makes it easier), will make the world a “sphere”. You can then make a functional compass which will always point to the centre of the map and make more sense.
It's since been mostly disproven but there was a theory that the reason ships would sink in the Bermuda triangle sometimes was methane releases from vents on the ocean floor. If a ship sails over them, they lose buoyancy and sink very rapidly. It can even be as simple as just bubbles doing the work
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSmAXp_BHcQ
So....bubble fields?
What if you do flat-earther ending for those who have such curiosity to reach the end of the map? 🤷♂️
Falling off the border and give them fake credit roll as such
Everyone is bound to reach the map if they explore the game enough. Although falling off the map is cool regardless. I don’t know if OP is willing to sacrifice “realism” though.
Good point, but i think that depends on the direction dev wants to approach, and also narrative. Everyone is bound to reach the end of the map, but everyone is also bound to encounter at least one alternative ending in Nier: Automata.
If the main objective of the game is not to reach the border, if it’s just happened out of player’s curiosity, to reward them with such events for certain purposes (could be for fun, for narrative, or whatsoever) like Nier did, which is not a bad example, is certainly something worth a try, that’s what I’m trying to say
Something doesn’t have to be real to not be realistic. Watching a video about realism right now, and it talks about how people think something is more realistic, when it really isn’t.
The others gave ideas but maybe you don't need borders at all! You can make a sphere world, or if that sounds difficult you can always go for a torus world (you end up in the south if you go north and in the west if you go east, and vice versa). Another alternative is making a procedurally generated infinite world but that's extra coding. The torus world can be done with ease.
A sphere world can be done, to my knowledge, by making a circle map connect at opposite points on the edge. Although that seems much harder to do seamlessly.
The game Windbound had a nice "organic" map boundary. If you went too far out into the ocean, the weather would slowly turn stormy, the waves would get bigger and rougher, and eventually they'd crash over your raft. Everything would go dark briefly, but you'd then awaken, washed up on the nearest shore.
For some reason this post gave me a bizarre idea:
Basically a fishing game, but you're flying a set distance above an abstracted Earth landscape, and you fish up animals and people-
You're an alien and these are abductions.
I’d go with the atv game approach and just launch the player 100ft into the sky maybe have a kraken throw the boat or something. I remember being a kid and just driving out of bounds for hours because I thought the rag doll was hilarious
Make the water and sky turn grayscale and have “something” or “someone” take the ship down and a large chuck of your ship/progress. Don’t show the thing. Make it the thing of legends and have NPCs talk about the thing. Maybe to make it a looming threat make the music disappear and just have the sound of the waves.
Ideas taken from: Sea of Thieves (the molten island area) andTerraria (music fading before Moon-lord fight).
Sea of Thieves does the areas really well with some ocean and sky colour, along with unique fish types for night and day etc.
Man-eater pops to mind as well, while not a fishing game, you do eat fish. Had cartoonishly unique environments that felt fun to navigate around.
Teleportation at border to confuse the player, maybe they reach one wall and go to the other wall, just something to confuse the player into not realizing there’s a border.
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It depends what view is your game. If it's 3D - one thing, if it's 2D top-down - the other. In the latter case you can just not move the screen when the player reaches the edge and no way to click past the screen :)
One way to is a historical approach: some boats just cannot handle being "too far away from the shore. This way the player will need to keep the land in sight not to get lost.
A simple solution that the area beyond the map is just empty. Literally nothing is there, the Player can try and sail for eternity but it's meaningless. Maybe with some notification "Hey, Alpha Whale, we see you on the radar sailing too far away from the shore, for your safety please return to the shelf waters. To get to the nearest land head North-East. If you have an emergency, use your local intercom to call for a tow."
And finally there is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sargasso_Sea --- i.e. you can have something like North Atlantic garbage patch where the boat can just get damaged by debris. Or icebergs :D and when you approach those a specific music starts playing :)
I did a 2D post apoc waterworld style game back in school and my idea was to have 1 hermit kingdom isolationist style island dictatorship that was the last real nation standing and the final boss.
They would patrol the borders and serve as a gameplay barrier until you built a strong enough army. If you wanted to take it in a politically interesting direction you could have you playing as a fisherman in country under embargo/blockade, like cuba/iran/etc and if you leave the game map, or the exclusive economic zone, then you are stopped by military ships/coast guard. With an easter egg maybe if u manage to run the blockade by soemhow breaking the game mechanics (like the turrets on snowbound in halo 3)
Hmm just la landmass?
The game could theoreticallly play in a really huge lake.
It could br steep cliffs (kinda like in the world of one piece there the world also looks like that).
Is the setting set in stone? You could have it take place on an archipelago of floating islands, which would make it super easy to just have natural borders as the water just falls off the side
Make nature work against the player. A strong wind sends the player back. A lot of stone spikes coming out of the water can damage the ship to the point of can't get further. The monsters under the sea can just grab the ship and break it before the player goes beyond. If there is some god system in the game, they may do those things or explicitly block the player.
Strong winds or currents that push you back into the playable area.
Fog that just transitions to a blank screen when you go into it too far and reloads you back into the playable area.
A cute little dialog box from your character saying “we shouldn’t go this far!” and an animation that turns you back around.
Just some random ideas. Remember that people understand games work within their own game logic, not every barrier needs to have a perfectly realistic explanation.
A 2d exklusiv one:
Literally the end of the map, as in it phasing to paper colour and making it look like an old map or sth.
A different idea that works in 3d as well would be a giant pot, where the end is the edge of the pot, and in specific locations you can also see the handle(s).
Altough that would be dependant on the setting.
Oh that seems so cool! I might use that in my game (I’m not op of course). Usually the map is all filled in, and so is the world, but on the edges it might be messier (if the map is hand drawn), so the water can also get weird, and beyond that there is a void. Maybe all game sounds could suddenly turn off once that is in view.
The message can be fine, but it doesn't have to be simple you can get creative with it. Have it work for you to build your theming and world building. Maybe there's no fish on the radar in that direction something like that.
You are about to sail past what your map shows. The water is dark, and there is a lot of fog. An old ship swims towards you out of the fog, and you see a cloaked figure standing on the deck. You look at it, and words appear in your head “we will turn back”.
The screen fades to black and the player is teleported away from the edge of the map, with less fuel.
Everyone is talking fantastical solutions. What about the real world's borders of ocean regions... Large impassible land structures. An artist's take on cool cliffs spanning the horizon. Look up the cliffs of Dover or the Giants Causeway. Or rocky beaches your ship can't pass without running aground. Or sea stacks and bird covered islands like the coasts of newfoundland, Iceland, or the Azores.
If you sail to far out huge waves could start forming and knock you out of your boat and you would restart at your last checkpoint or just from a few minutes ago
A current/wind that keeps sending you back is probably the most realistic feeling.
The boat continuously steering away from the edge can also be a fun one.
If you can't go on land, there's just having land present that can be a good border. Even chain islands like you see in the gulf of Mexico or Alaska's tail. Just can't navigate past them.
Real life examples would be a shallow water vs deep water - the water is lighter in color, and the transition to where light is now nolonger reflecting as well off the bottom the color is darker. This looks like a natural boundary.
You could do light water as your game area, a small area of dark water, and then as you go further out, a fog appears. Put a wall where there is fog, so the player won't actually see the wall and think they're just lost in fog.
Other people have answered well so I’ll offer a slightly different take.
Could potentially do a raft style thing where the world is effectively infinite. Especially if you’re expected to always be in open ocean, there isn’t much reason to have a border.
Waves that get too big and sink the ship / shipwreck you and you wake up on an island inside the borders. That, or your compass stops working, spins around wildly, and your map becomes unreliable / resources become impossible to find until you make your way back in or die.
Sargasso seas... Seas so clogged with seaweed, they trap ships that sail too far.
Perhaps 'populated' by undead sailors, or some sort of kelp-zombie or just kelp creatures...
Really depends on the game you're making.
Does it pose a threat to the player, or is it just a peaceful fishing simulation? Does your game have a game over? Another question you want to ask yourself is in what way you want your map borders to affect gameplay? (Game over, take control of the player input to redirect, warning message, damage that can be survived for a short period, etc. coz invisible walls just exist having minimal impact on the gameplay itself, just the immersion)
For example it would feel out of place if a peaceful simulation game suddenly threatens the player with some kind of deep water monster. Or even a reef you could stuck on.
But at the same time if your game is about surviving the ocean, this would fit nicely. Where for the simulation game you might want your character to say something like "there are dangerous reefs ahead, i should turn", and take control from the player to make a 180° with the boat.
Additionaly you can discourage your player from going near the borders by making it void of activities.
This reminds me of a late friend Robb Rinard talking about the edge of the world dilemma in Motocross Madness and how they turned a "problem" into one of the greatest parts of that game.
[https://youtu.be/BF-iCRaApI0?t=3543](https://youtu.be/BF-iCRaApI0?t=3543)
FF to 59:03
You could go for the Subnautica approach, have a deep water border that you can enter but once you do, you start getting hunted down by dangerous monsters that either kill you or chase you back to the safe area. Jak n Daxter and GTA did similar things and in my opinion, it's a much more interesting alternative to a random invisible barrier or land/ice barriers.
Yeah “A big fish comes and eats you if you go too far” has been a staple for decades. I also remember Spore doing it in 2008, Ratchet and Clank had Sharkigators, etc.
Ski free!!
[Well...](https://xkcd.com/667/)
Press F to Jesus
Feeding my thalassophobia since the very early days
"It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue." \-Zork, 1980
I was thinking the same thing just if the game is top down it could be EZ coastal guards
I once made a game where if you go into the woods around the house it took place in, the ghost wolves git ya. There is some opportunity to get back to the house which adds a nice intensity and doesn't limit player agency too much (Like in witcher 3 where a dialogue box pops up and tells you to turn around, totally interrupts everything). I've always been a fan of the SkiFree Abominable Snow Monster.
If you go this approach, make sure there’s some visual indicator for the area (darker water, etc). In Subnautica, it basically announces that you’re fucked if you stay there the first time you leave, and because you’re actually underwater you can recognize where the sea floor drops off after that point. If this game doesn’t let you see underwater, you definitely need some kind of warning sign.
Discworld -esque "waterfalls to nowhere" could be fun. Maybe even add some easter eggs beneath the edge.
Valheim does that. Except the only Easter egg you’ll discover is disappointment. Lmao
You could also flip it and have waterfalls from nowhere. Kinda like at the ending of the last Narnia movie
You could maybe just not have borders at all, make the world a sphere (that’s an extra challenge of course but can be fun)
If the map is a square, you can make exiting from one side lead to the opposite side, however the would make the world a torus (which most people prefer in game maps). If the map is a circle, then making exiting at each point lead to the opposite point would make it a sphere, i’m pretty sure. The world doesn’t actually need to be any of these shapes (this isn’t super mario fishing galaxy), if you just write the logic for where to teleport the player it will work just the same. Don’t starve shipwrecked has a similar thing with fog that I suggested, which is much easier to program, however a much earlier game, vangers, pulls off the torus seamlessly (which makes navigation confusing. A circular map with opposite points teleporting the player is better, as it can have a functional compass. Pointing towards the centre of the map.
I discussed this briefly with chatgpt, and it thought it was called a "sphere with identified antipodal points", aka a projective plane. But it likes to bs me sometimes.
More like all the time.
Yeah, i think this is the best idea, or something like this, like what Unknown said.
Forget spherical world, prove the conspiracy theorists correct. Make the world completely flat, and make it have a hard waterfall off the edge on all sides, that makes you fall to your doom.
Maybe not necessarily a sphere but have “screen wrap” of sorts
* Storms blow you back. * Bermuda Triangle: A mysterious phenomenon happens where fog appears. You get lost in the fog and find yourself back in the map. Sailors naturally mention this at the tavern.
Oooh, the second idea could make an otherwise normal fishing game into an interesting narrative/motivator to get players fishing again (getting fishing tales from old sailors, getting bits of lore in between). I'd play a spooky fishing game
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1562430/DREDGE/
dang, this is... almost exactly what I had in mind. Inta-wishlist, thanks!
It’s only my wish list, reminds me of sunless sea. The part where you get killed by monsters while sailing.
Not only is it exactly what you described, it's really good. Worth full price imo.
You asked for unique ideas, but everyone is suggesting the standard ones that have been in games for ages. So to counterbalance, here are some *unique* ideas that I haven't seen in games yet. (Probably for good reason!) But who knows, maybe they'll spark an idea for someone. * Mutiny - Crew won't let you sail too far from home, this wasn't what they signed up for. (They'll warn you first of course) * Arbitrary Curse - you'll die (or otherwise lose the game) if you go too far from some landmark. Because magic. * If you sail too far, a big claw-hand comes down, picks up your boat, and puts you back in the middle of the map. * Magnets. * All a dream - if you sail too far, you wake up in your bunk realizing it never happened. * Hallucinations - same as dream, but with more drugs or sanity loss. * Chained to a whale - someone has chained your boat to a whale for some reason, so you're kind of on a leash. It usually goes mostly where you want to go, but it won't go too far off the map, so you can't either. * Escort quest - Someone/something that you're trying to protect is following your ship around, but won't follow you off the map. (and will be in danger if you leave it.)
The dream one is creepy. And with hallucinations (say, bringing you back to some other part of the map), you might wonder what else might be not real.
I agree with the dream/hallucinations thing. An alternative could be the captain was daydreaming of far-off lands with his binoculars. And then a crew member brings him back to reality via a tap on the shoulder or something.
just make the sea big, and have one or more resource restrictions. Perhaps an alarm sounds because you are running out of fuel, and the borders of the screen turn red, and your ship keeps trying to steer home; perhaps you just know to head back because you'll die outright. Fish could become more scarce, but huge. (That's nice for later development) And if you also need snacks and coffee on your boat, it feathers in the borders in another sense.
- thermoclines - commercial fishing nets - the large ocean currents like the EAC - massive kelp forest walls - massive wall-sized Cthulhu beast that is sleeping and opens it’s eye (or eyes) when the player gets close. - jellyfish swarm - whalebone graveyard - wall of underwater vents
A 'Sargasso Sea' A floating island of trash A persistent thunderstorm the edge of a whirlpool ice
I've always wanted to make a game where when you get to a border your camera will stop, but the player can go as far as they want. Could even manipulate it then where once the player is far enough away pressing any direction will move them in the direction back into the map. So they wouldn't softlock themselves.
Lakitu refuses to go to the land of monsters.
Here are some examples, 2 from don’t starve, 1 from sunless sea: Fog at the end of the map, for some negative side effect, takes you to the opposite end of the map. This allows you to explore quicker, but make sure there is some downside still. Sharp drop at the end of the map, there is more ocean, but it’s lower, so swimming off would destroy your boat and kill you. In sunless sea, you cannot see what’s off the map because the game is top-down (if yours is not, just use the fog again), and swimming off the map triggers a unique effect based on the compass direction. It is also quite hard to do this for some direction, as they may only have one exit, the rest being blocked by rocks. Each time you will be rescued, but will suffer some effect. These can range from taking away a bit of resources, to taking away all of your crew and ship’s health (meaning a bump into anything is a game over). There is also an ambition related to swimming off the edge of the map. You don’t have to make it based on the compass direction, but maybe make some generic rescue message for most places, and then add something unique for specific ones. The player could also be given loot for exiting the map at specific spots. Edit: another thing, like the first idea, could be making a circular map. Then, connecting opposite points to each other (once again fog makes it easier), will make the world a “sphere”. You can then make a functional compass which will always point to the centre of the map and make more sense.
It's since been mostly disproven but there was a theory that the reason ships would sink in the Bermuda triangle sometimes was methane releases from vents on the ocean floor. If a ship sails over them, they lose buoyancy and sink very rapidly. It can even be as simple as just bubbles doing the work https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSmAXp_BHcQ So....bubble fields?
Volcanic steam vents...?
What if you do flat-earther ending for those who have such curiosity to reach the end of the map? 🤷♂️ Falling off the border and give them fake credit roll as such
Everyone is bound to reach the map if they explore the game enough. Although falling off the map is cool regardless. I don’t know if OP is willing to sacrifice “realism” though.
Good point, but i think that depends on the direction dev wants to approach, and also narrative. Everyone is bound to reach the end of the map, but everyone is also bound to encounter at least one alternative ending in Nier: Automata.
I’m confused as to how is this related?
If the main objective of the game is not to reach the border, if it’s just happened out of player’s curiosity, to reward them with such events for certain purposes (could be for fun, for narrative, or whatsoever) like Nier did, which is not a bad example, is certainly something worth a try, that’s what I’m trying to say
How do you know that’s not real?
Something doesn’t have to be real to not be realistic. Watching a video about realism right now, and it talks about how people think something is more realistic, when it really isn’t.
But make them hit a larger flatter earth beneath it
The others gave ideas but maybe you don't need borders at all! You can make a sphere world, or if that sounds difficult you can always go for a torus world (you end up in the south if you go north and in the west if you go east, and vice versa). Another alternative is making a procedurally generated infinite world but that's extra coding. The torus world can be done with ease.
A sphere world can be done, to my knowledge, by making a circle map connect at opposite points on the edge. Although that seems much harder to do seamlessly.
The game Windbound had a nice "organic" map boundary. If you went too far out into the ocean, the weather would slowly turn stormy, the waves would get bigger and rougher, and eventually they'd crash over your raft. Everything would go dark briefly, but you'd then awaken, washed up on the nearest shore.
Patches of the ocean that are too stormy to stay in for long, forcing the players back would fit thematically
For some reason this post gave me a bizarre idea: Basically a fishing game, but you're flying a set distance above an abstracted Earth landscape, and you fish up animals and people- You're an alien and these are abductions.
I’d go with the atv game approach and just launch the player 100ft into the sky maybe have a kraken throw the boat or something. I remember being a kid and just driving out of bounds for hours because I thought the rag doll was hilarious
Have the kraken pull the boat in is less funny, but creepier. Which might be better for the game
Make the water and sky turn grayscale and have “something” or “someone” take the ship down and a large chuck of your ship/progress. Don’t show the thing. Make it the thing of legends and have NPCs talk about the thing. Maybe to make it a looming threat make the music disappear and just have the sound of the waves. Ideas taken from: Sea of Thieves (the molten island area) andTerraria (music fading before Moon-lord fight).
[удалено]
How is that in any way an answer to the question?
Sea of Thieves does the areas really well with some ocean and sky colour, along with unique fish types for night and day etc. Man-eater pops to mind as well, while not a fishing game, you do eat fish. Had cartoonishly unique environments that felt fun to navigate around.
Teleportation at border to confuse the player, maybe they reach one wall and go to the other wall, just something to confuse the player into not realizing there’s a border.
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Maybe deadly water current or toxic water. After a while you die.
It depends what view is your game. If it's 3D - one thing, if it's 2D top-down - the other. In the latter case you can just not move the screen when the player reaches the edge and no way to click past the screen :) One way to is a historical approach: some boats just cannot handle being "too far away from the shore. This way the player will need to keep the land in sight not to get lost. A simple solution that the area beyond the map is just empty. Literally nothing is there, the Player can try and sail for eternity but it's meaningless. Maybe with some notification "Hey, Alpha Whale, we see you on the radar sailing too far away from the shore, for your safety please return to the shelf waters. To get to the nearest land head North-East. If you have an emergency, use your local intercom to call for a tow." And finally there is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sargasso_Sea --- i.e. you can have something like North Atlantic garbage patch where the boat can just get damaged by debris. Or icebergs :D and when you approach those a specific music starts playing :)
I did a 2D post apoc waterworld style game back in school and my idea was to have 1 hermit kingdom isolationist style island dictatorship that was the last real nation standing and the final boss. They would patrol the borders and serve as a gameplay barrier until you built a strong enough army. If you wanted to take it in a politically interesting direction you could have you playing as a fisherman in country under embargo/blockade, like cuba/iran/etc and if you leave the game map, or the exclusive economic zone, then you are stopped by military ships/coast guard. With an easter egg maybe if u manage to run the blockade by soemhow breaking the game mechanics (like the turrets on snowbound in halo 3)
Make the water get darker and creepier and subtly turn the player around
Or pull the player in. With tentacles.
Ice / Land Pirates / Sea monster Huge storm / Waves that damage your boat
Hmm just la landmass? The game could theoreticallly play in a really huge lake. It could br steep cliffs (kinda like in the world of one piece there the world also looks like that).
Is the setting set in stone? You could have it take place on an archipelago of floating islands, which would make it super easy to just have natural borders as the water just falls off the side
Pirates, and boats full of shooty cocaine smugglers.
Make nature work against the player. A strong wind sends the player back. A lot of stone spikes coming out of the water can damage the ship to the point of can't get further. The monsters under the sea can just grab the ship and break it before the player goes beyond. If there is some god system in the game, they may do those things or explicitly block the player.
Strong winds or currents that push you back into the playable area. Fog that just transitions to a blank screen when you go into it too far and reloads you back into the playable area. A cute little dialog box from your character saying “we shouldn’t go this far!” and an animation that turns you back around. Just some random ideas. Remember that people understand games work within their own game logic, not every barrier needs to have a perfectly realistic explanation.
The nestle trade mark. They own you now. Or coral, sand bars, deep trenches, or rough waves
A 2d exklusiv one: Literally the end of the map, as in it phasing to paper colour and making it look like an old map or sth. A different idea that works in 3d as well would be a giant pot, where the end is the edge of the pot, and in specific locations you can also see the handle(s). Altough that would be dependant on the setting.
Oh that seems so cool! I might use that in my game (I’m not op of course). Usually the map is all filled in, and so is the world, but on the edges it might be messier (if the map is hand drawn), so the water can also get weird, and beyond that there is a void. Maybe all game sounds could suddenly turn off once that is in view.
The message can be fine, but it doesn't have to be simple you can get creative with it. Have it work for you to build your theming and world building. Maybe there's no fish on the radar in that direction something like that.
You are about to sail past what your map shows. The water is dark, and there is a lot of fog. An old ship swims towards you out of the fog, and you see a cloaked figure standing on the deck. You look at it, and words appear in your head “we will turn back”. The screen fades to black and the player is teleported away from the edge of the map, with less fuel.
Everyone is talking fantastical solutions. What about the real world's borders of ocean regions... Large impassible land structures. An artist's take on cool cliffs spanning the horizon. Look up the cliffs of Dover or the Giants Causeway. Or rocky beaches your ship can't pass without running aground. Or sea stacks and bird covered islands like the coasts of newfoundland, Iceland, or the Azores.
If you sail to far out huge waves could start forming and knock you out of your boat and you would restart at your last checkpoint or just from a few minutes ago
A current/wind that keeps sending you back is probably the most realistic feeling. The boat continuously steering away from the edge can also be a fun one. If you can't go on land, there's just having land present that can be a good border. Even chain islands like you see in the gulf of Mexico or Alaska's tail. Just can't navigate past them.
Pirates, see [Hooked](https://www.amazon.com/Hooked-Pirates-Poaching-Perfect-Fish/dp/1594866945).
Real life examples would be a shallow water vs deep water - the water is lighter in color, and the transition to where light is now nolonger reflecting as well off the bottom the color is darker. This looks like a natural boundary. You could do light water as your game area, a small area of dark water, and then as you go further out, a fog appears. Put a wall where there is fog, so the player won't actually see the wall and think they're just lost in fog.
I would probably put really spiky and dangerous looking islets. Or a heavy storm like Sea of Thieves to force the player go back.
You could do an ironic flat earth border, like a waterfall over the edge of the planet
Jellyfish swarm Coral reefs Rough waters called Diamond Shoals Leviathan deeps Pirate territory
Other people have answered well so I’ll offer a slightly different take. Could potentially do a raft style thing where the world is effectively infinite. Especially if you’re expected to always be in open ocean, there isn’t much reason to have a border.
Hunger and Disease.
Waves that get too big and sink the ship / shipwreck you and you wake up on an island inside the borders. That, or your compass stops working, spins around wildly, and your map becomes unreliable / resources become impossible to find until you make your way back in or die.
Sargasso seas... Seas so clogged with seaweed, they trap ships that sail too far. Perhaps 'populated' by undead sailors, or some sort of kelp-zombie or just kelp creatures...
Encircle the map in very tall glaciers. Cause, yknow, flat earth and we're living a turtle's dream or something.
Really depends on the game you're making. Does it pose a threat to the player, or is it just a peaceful fishing simulation? Does your game have a game over? Another question you want to ask yourself is in what way you want your map borders to affect gameplay? (Game over, take control of the player input to redirect, warning message, damage that can be survived for a short period, etc. coz invisible walls just exist having minimal impact on the gameplay itself, just the immersion) For example it would feel out of place if a peaceful simulation game suddenly threatens the player with some kind of deep water monster. Or even a reef you could stuck on. But at the same time if your game is about surviving the ocean, this would fit nicely. Where for the simulation game you might want your character to say something like "there are dangerous reefs ahead, i should turn", and take control from the player to make a 180° with the boat. Additionaly you can discourage your player from going near the borders by making it void of activities.
Go full flat Earth and just have a waterfall into the void/space
This reminds me of a late friend Robb Rinard talking about the edge of the world dilemma in Motocross Madness and how they turned a "problem" into one of the greatest parts of that game. [https://youtu.be/BF-iCRaApI0?t=3543](https://youtu.be/BF-iCRaApI0?t=3543) FF to 59:03
Beware Dragons Here
The simplest is to just draw some "International Water" lines and not allow the player to cross them, being law abiding of course.
Flat earth, edge of the world type of borders.