As many others have said before me, a map must be added, for many reasons.

My personal problem comes from taking a very long break from playing Haydee only to return back, forgot everything I had to do and was completely lost. This cost me all my saves, since they were useless.

Being nearly more than halfway through the game means I was forced to backtrack through everything I explored, looking for any unexplored areas, secret passages, rooms etc. That, for each and every room. I quit after trying that for the red and dark zone.

Let me get this straight, I am punished for not playing this game for a whole week, from start to finish, just so that I won't forget what my goal is or where I need to go. I am punished for having a personal life and having other things to do, for buying this game and paying money.

There is a reason why maps are added in some way or another in any game, and there is a reason why some don't have maps. It's called a game design choice, and like any choice it's either benificial or detrimental, in laymans term good or bad.

In the case of Dark Souls "no map" design, it's benificial. Why? How? Because it's location design and layout is thought out and comprehensible. It's easy to navigate and understandable at any given moment at any time, whether you are starting out or coming back after a long pause (like me).
You can tell with near 100% accuracy where you currently are, and the most important, what your next objective is. And guess what, the game is not made more or less difficult, unless of course you suffer from severe amnesia or memory loss.

What about Haydee? In the case of this game, it is hindering the enjoyment of it.

The locations are divided into 6 zones, with a bridge being the main lobby of sorts, and some are connected between each other through secret passages, like the elevator to the white zone from the red zone.

It may sound fine, but when you take into consideration how the locations and rooms are layed out, you will start having a headache after trying to map out even one zone, let alone all 6.

And even if you managed to somehow simplify it, it will become annoying to navigate, because if you missed something, which you WILL, well, good luck backtracking through each zone figuring out what was it.

Yeah, there is this:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/x33az9tdq1wz65v/AABVKSZVVzAEVTvdqRISbGKga?dl=0&preview=Haydee+map+WIP.png

But, ♥♥♥♥ me, even if I did have this back then it would still confuse me, cause alt-tab in and out to this mess(which it is), is simply not fun. "Hmm, fun, oh it's something we aren't allowed to have anymore." (c) Yahtzee.

Simulations are fun because we simulate things that we can't do IRL. Strategy games are fun because we can build, command, dominate with armies and tactics. Shooters are fun for the gunplay. Racing - for the sense of speed. MMO - for the massive multiplayer and what it provides. Puzzles - for the puzzles. Adventures - for adventures. RPG - for the immersion. Grind games for the grind and loot. Hardcore games for the difficulty that it presents to us, and challenges us to at a given task.

Backtracking, running around aimlessly searching for something we forgot/don't know about, repeating the same action for the millionth time again, and again is NOT hardcore, neither is it challenging. I do that in real life with ease and sometimes get paid. I don't need that in a game.

It's a statistic that maps were added to Metroidvania games, a game design statistic. Having a hipster attitude of "not being like everyone else" never benefited anything, or anyone. Same with having an elitist attitude saying "only for a certain number of people and not for everyone", then don't add a fan service character to rally in potential buyers and have a cheap ad for your game, eitherwise you are lying to yourselves and the players. Since we are on the topic of fan service, don't restrict a game to a small circle of people if you have already used such a cheap method, only to have this splinter in the ass which is bad on many levels throught the whole game.

Don't say it's a unique tasteful delibirate design choice when hundreds of other MUCH more successful games succeded way more than this game and proved that point wrong multiple times. This reminds me exactly why Misery (the "hardcore" mod for Stalker) sucks, even though it's premise is "what I wanted". Simply because the economy is broken and unfair, which forces the player to grind without a mistake, meaning making a stressful job out of a single player game. The only game that is allowed to do that is EVE Online. On the other note it reminds me of this:

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/323/067/229.jpg

If it weren't for the sexy Haydee and her tits bouncing up and down, the actually hardcore, but fair puzzles and enemies/ambushes, interesting parkour, I would've deleted this game from my library (and if it were under the 2h limit, refunded). But it's a great game, being hindered by the fact that you HAVE to play it in continuously, otherwise you are doomed to restart over or use a walkthrough to find out where she is, which is objectively a game sin, whether you like it or not.

It's one thing to use a walkthrough to pass a very hard boss or enemy, or zone, or whatever challenge, and completly another when the player is simply lost and has zero idea where to go, how to proceed, even though he passed fairly everything else before him. That is a flaw on the developers part.

A map shouldn't be a pointer to the next goal, it should be a guide on where the player is now and what he managed to finish.

A map that suits Haydee without making the game a walk in the park, but at the same time just as useless as if it weren't there at all, is a static map, located at specific key save points. For example, take the red zone safe room. It's close to the bridge intersection, meaning you are close to getting to other zones. The map is a monitor, hanging on the wall, interacting with it you get a digital map which shows only those locations that you have visited. Instead of showing every nook and cranny it is limited to open, well lit corridors(excluding the dark zone) which you can enter through a door. Floors are respectively shown with ingame 1F, 2F, 3F etc. The proportions or how the map represents the actual location can be different, to promote exploration. For example, the dark zone elevator has an accessable zone behind the fence, but the map doesn't show it, even though you've been there (be it in that small space or on the elevator), same goes for rooms that are accessed only by the vent. Rooms themselves on the map are connected to each other without showing what they are, or from what zone, but still showing that there is a possible passage. Using a simple +/- to switch between floors and that's it, you have a pretty simple, yet useful map to not get lost the next time you get back into the game.

No need for 3D graphics or making a new complex UI, and definetely no need for a stupid pen and paper, shove that up your ass elitists, I bet none of you even done it to have the guts to say it.

Peace out.