Godot Minimap Design: To Border or Not to Border?

8/11/2025

Does Your Minimap Need a Border? A Godot Design Guide

Hey there, fellow Godot devs! Let's talk about something we've all stared at for hours, both as players & as creators: the minimap. It’s one of those essential UI elements that can make or break a player's experience. We spend ages getting the player movement just right, designing the level, & then we slap a tiny version of our world in the corner of the screen.

But then the questions start. Should it be round? Square? Should it rotate? And the one that seems small but somehow feels HUGE: does it need a border?

Honestly, it’s a bigger deal than you might think. A minimap isn't just a shrunken-down view of your game; it's a critical piece of your game's UI & UX. It’s a silent guide, a strategic tool, & a window into the world you’ve built. Getting it right can keep your players from feeling lost & frustrated. Getting it wrong can make your game feel cluttered or confusing.

So today, we're going deep. We're going to explore the great border debate, dive into the practical "how-to" in Godot, & talk about the design principles that turn a basic minimap into an invaluable tool for your player.

The Big Debate: Why Even Bother With a Border?

First off, what's the point of a minimap? At its core, it’s about providing spatial awareness without forcing the player to open a full-screen map. It shows them where they are, where they're going, & often, where the important stuff is. For team-based games, it's CRITICAL for seeing where your teammates are & what's happening outside your immediate view.

So, where does a border fit into this?

The Case FOR a Border: Clarity & Style

Separation & Focus: This is the big one. Your game world is busy. A border creates a clear, defined separation between the gameplay area & the UI. It instantly tells the player's brain, "This is a separate piece of information." It cuts down on cognitive load because the player isn't trying to distinguish the edge of the map from an in-game object. Think of it like a picture frame; it isolates the art & draws your eye to it.
Aesthetic Framing: A border is a fantastic opportunity to reinforce your game's theme. Creating a fantasy RPG? Your border could be an ornate, carved wooden frame. Making a gritty sci-fi shooter? A sleek, holographic digital frame with a bit of flicker would be perfect. This thematic element adds to the immersion rather than breaking it. A
1NinePatchRect
in Godot is your best friend here, allowing you to create scalable frames that don't get horribly stretched.
Containing the Chaos: A minimap is full of little icons, lines, & maybe even fog of war. A border acts as a container, keeping all that information neatly packed. It defines the functional space, making the whole thing look more organized & intentional.

The Case AGAINST a Border: Immersion & Minimalism

Breaking Immersion: For some games, especially those going for a hyper-realistic or cinematic feel, any non-diegetic UI (elements the character can't see) can break immersion. A stark border can feel too "gamey." A borderless map might feel more like a subtle, ghostly overlay that's part of the player's HUD.
Visual Clutter: Let's be real, a badly designed border is worse than no border at all. If it's too thick, too bright, or clashes with the art style, it just adds noise to the screen. The goal of good UI is to be helpful but unobtrusive.
Screen Real Estate: Pixels are precious! A border, even a small one, takes up space. On a small screen or in a game with a lot of other UI elements, you might want to save every pixel you can for the map itself.

So what's the verdict? Honestly, MOST of the time, a well-designed border is the way to go. The clarity & aesthetic benefits usually outweigh the cons. The key is "well-designed."

Let's Get Practical: Building Your Minimap & Its Border in Godot

Alright, enough theory. How do we actually do this in Godot? Turns out, Godot gives us some pretty cool tools to make this happen, mainly revolving around the

SubViewport

node.

The basic idea is to have a second camera in your scene that's only looking at the things you want on the minimap, & then display what that camera sees inside a UI element.

The Core Setup: Viewports & Cameras

The magic starts with a

SubViewport

node. This node essentially creates a separate rendering surface. You can then put a

Camera2D

Camera3D

inside it to capture your scene from a different perspective (like a top-down view).

To actually SEE what this

SubViewport

is capturing, you need to display it in a

SubViewportContainer

. This container takes the output of its

SubViewport

child & renders it as a regular UI element. Pretty cool, right?

Here’s a typical node structure you might start with: