im wondering what ppl consider the best place to stick a map (top down view of the surrounding scene showing the entities like rally-x or sideon like defender, i believe those were the first 2 games to employ this ) at the moment im drawing it in the top center of the screen (though user can decide where they want it) but im not liking this cause bullets/aliens etc can get covered up/hidden by it (which detracts from the gameplay) thus the user will tend to favour flying in the downscreen direction (as they have more time to see oncoming hazzards etc) an option is to partition off say the right side of the screen and stick the map, score etc there whilst in a sense this is better cause the game area is uncovered, u sort of lose the 'cinematic appeal' of using the whole screen. any other suggestions of what to do? zed

well its a top down game thus the concept of ground is everywhere,
also even with opactity (which i have at the moment) it still obscures part of the game area and detracts from gameplay.
since theres no ideas it looks as if partitioning off part of the screen is the only method. thanks anyways zed

In Diablo and Diablo II, you had the map being half transparent as well, and it was pretty useful to know where you were. It didn't obscure the screen at all, when you got used to it.

In addition, if you plan to have complicated and/or large maps, you could have either the map revolve around the central dot, so that it makes it easier to know where to head at short notice, but make you feel dizzy, as to where to go at a longer scope, or have the map be "sort of" static in direction, and then move, so that you can follow the movement, a la diablo...