LANDNAV

For someone, being active duty, and training for SFAS this is a great resource compared to the Army's OE google game which you can play online, and is severely outdated. This game is great, it is incredibly accurate and realistic. Just when I thought I was great at land nav just playing the beginner course humbled me. The lateral drift threw me off from my point twice. Easy point only a few hundred meters off, so I had to use resection to find my location using a river, and draw. Then it happened again lol. I blame it on the insanely thick vegetation. Overall, I had a good experience even though I rage quit getting lost. Highly recommend this game.

Spent 8 years in the army and I always enjoyed landnav. It's fun knocking the rust off and practice these principles again.

This is the most accurate representation of land navigation I've seen. The tools are accurate and the orienteering techniques required reflect my experience running through these courses in the Army. This is a great learning tool for those preparing to join the military and in general for outdoor enthusiasts. The biggest thing that sets this apart is how it handles the effects of terrain. You will waste a lot of time if you try to run directly to the control points. Dense vegetation will slow you down significantly and it isn't possible to move in a straight line. You will need to correct for lateral drift and micro terrain that will deviate your direction of movement. There are a few minor bugs (being early access and all) but nothing major that breaks the experience.

The target audience of this game is for folks who want to learn or practice land nav skills using map, compass, protractor, pace beads. While it's primarily simulating a military landnav exercise this could benefit civilians and hobbyists such as backpackers, bushcrafters, and orienteering folks as well. I can confirm that so far the game is not abandonware. The developer of the game is currently working on some additional maps, features, game modes for a near future release as well and to reach a broader audience. He has been actively involved in the community on his Discord and welcomes feedback and suggestions. As it stands now, there is one very large map and many exercises within this map to go through. The game as it is now merits the cost in my opinion for those who just want to practice although variety of scenery is not that diverse, from a practical exercise perspective it's all there with more than enough variety of challenge to practice pretty much indefinitely without being able to memorize the landscape. Some good stuff here from newbie to expert. -For newbies there will be some required learning of concepts by a combination of watching YouTube videos (the author of this game has a "LandNav game" channel that he continues to add example runs to that you can watch to give you an idea how to apply these concepts to your own sessions. It's one thing learning the concept though and then an entirely different thing applying them in your own session and will take a lot of practice to start to get the hang of. I came in with basic knowledge map orienteering, taking/following a bearing, and some basic map reading skills. I've learned several concepts and continue to improve my terrain association reading skills through this game. I do feel that these skills will translate well into a real life scenario as well. Learning the basics of using the tools in various ways (map, compass, protractor, pace beads) will come pretty quickly and become solidified from repetition for sure. What is most valuable in my opinion though is learning to examine the terrain on the map and see what features a prominent and can be used as a landmark versus those that don't really stick out very much. Learning things to look for like spurs, saddles, draw, ridge, cliff, valley from studying the map and then finding it in front of you is a skill that you can learn in this game as well. Also learning parts of a topo map that you thought would be recognizable but are too subtle to trust in reality. These are things you will learn in this game that can translate into the real world. I still get lost more than I'd like but seems like every time I play I get a little bit better and I do see progress in finding my target for sure. If you're still not sure and on the fence, check out the "landnav game" youtube channel and you can see full demonstrations of an exercise walkthrough there to see if it is what you're looking for.

Good simulation. It takes some time to learn how to spin the objects quickly.

With my hobby of orienteering and backcountry trekking in the mountains I was quite happy when I found out about the Landnav Sim, where one could practice the use of map and compass in a wilderness-like environment on the computer. I think the technical part of how to use the map and the compass is very well done and extremely close to how it is done in real. Other tools are the protractor and the ranger beads for measuring the distance traveled. The topographic map is very well done, too. The actual travel, walking or running, reminds me very much of a real forest/mountain environment, the feel of being in a forest is very immersive, even haunting at times. It is easy to get lost in the thickets and ravines, pace count is lost and the compass bearing is all over the place - just like in real life, it is often better to go around such places and accept a detour through less overgrown terrain. Such decisions just add to the overall positive impression this game/sim has on me. I have not tried the night-orienteering option, but what I saw looks very promising, flashlight and the glowing stripes of the markers one has to find. I would give 5/5 points even though it is only an early version of the sim and the dev is working on the next version with much more features. I am looking forward to playing that one as well!

This game is a fantastic land navigation simulator. It’s also the only real one out there. I wish I had a training tool like this when I was in the Army. If you’re currently in the military or considering joining, especially a combat role, then I highly recommend you purchase and support this project. Right now it only has one map available, but it’s large, detailed, and challenging to navigate through. The few bugs that I’ve encountered have been very minor, nothing game breaking. More maps, polish, and controller support are on the way as well. The current price is an absolute steal, because LANDNAV provides a virtual training environment to help build a valuable real life skill.

I agree with other reviews that this is not a 'game' in any sense. It is a fantastic training tool for orienteering and land navigation. Well worth the price if you are interested in these sort of things. I can only imagine how much better this will be with some more polishing.

A truly great game that I've been eagerly waiting for a long time. It's evident that some work still needs to be done on the game, but it's already a lot of fun and helpful for my training. So far, excellent work has been done, and I believe there hasn't been anything comparable. I would greatly appreciate it if one could print the in-game map as an actual map in PDF format. This would allow working with real navigation tools.

If you ever wanted to learn how to read a map and be able to plan and execute a cross-country adventure with naught but said map, a ruler and compass then allow me to introduce you to LANDNAV. While there are similar games and tools, none of them offer it either as seamlessly or as detailed as LANDNAV does. Currently, there is one location, though the game has a few dozen 'exercises' across 3 different difficulties, this alone is the best crash course one can find on a computer. Moreover, the whole range is available at all times for you to get lost in or explore; Creating a virtual sandbox for you to test yourself, and your abilities. The game was largely built around military land navigation courses, though this has few practical consequences, the largest is the format of the game's 'exercises', reflecting how land nav is taught and trained in the US Army. Don't let this scare you off, if it wasn't for the character being dressed in camouflage with a rucksack and rifle it would be easy to miss the military influence and the game shouldn't be overlooked for it. If the military format and style are a deal breaker for you, there is an orienteering-focused (free) update in the works so it may be worth wish-listing and checking out later. Lastly, there is an official discord. If you want help or advice with learning land nav in-game or in real life it's a solid resource with a welcoming community full of people happy to share what they know.