Map room: how to read a coordinate
Also searched as: Map Room / where is the map / folding map / how do coordinates work
The short answer
Take the gold key on the red tower roof, cut its shape on the cutter at the tower's base, open the map room door. Inside is the whole island as a 3D map built into the floor, and you also pick up the folding map, the compass and the laser pointer. How to read a coordinate: put a decimal point before the last two digits - 4166, 1899 is 41.66 on the map's side scale and 18.99 on its bottom scale, and where those two lines cross is your target.
- Players
- 1 player or more
- Time
- 5 minutes, provided the red tower is cleared
- Coordinates
- 3560, 1425
- Reward
- Folding map + compass + laser pointer + Big View achievement
Find 3560, 1425 in the coordinate finder
The map room is the island's decoder. Without it every later coordinate puzzle is just noise - which is why this site puts the red tower first: doing it early pays off everywhere else, and coordinate questions mostly land on this map. That order is this site's recommendation, not a community consensus, and not a measured stall rate. The one rule it is worth learning first is the reading rule below: decimal point before the last two digits, first number on the side scale, second on the bottom scale. IGN and bigwalkguide.com state it the same way, and it is the single coordinate rule that recurs everywhere else.
Before you start
- Any 5 puzzles around the red tower (collect the 5 control panel parts)
- Technically 1 player is enough, but bring everybody in to collect a map
Step-by-step 5 steps
- 1
Collect all 5 parts
Finish any 5 puzzles around the red tower and fit the 5 parts into the control panel on the tower top.
- 2
Take the key and cut it
Bring the gold key down from the tower top and give it its shape on the very obvious red cutter at the base of the red tower.
- 3
Open the map room
The map room is a large blue building with a long red staircase beside it, right next to the first radio transmitter you meet after crossing the drawbridge. Insert the key at the door.
- 4
Take three things
Folding Map, compass, Laser Pointer. The folding map is the one you must take - every later coordinate puzzle depends on it.
Faster: Everyone should come in and take one. The map is a personal item, not a shared one.
- 5
Learn to read a coordinate (the most important paragraph on this page)
The grid lines around the floor map are numbered. A four-digit number is not a code, it is "which line to walk": put a decimal point before the last two digits, then find the first number on the side scale (a horizontal line) and the second on the bottom scale (a vertical line). 4166, 1899 is 41.66 on the side and 18.99 at the bottom; their crossing is the target. Go find it on the ground. Once you have read it, the coordinate locator turns the reading into a spot on the island.
Faster: The last two digits place you inside the grid square: 41.66 sits about two-thirds of the way from 41 to 42 on the side scale, and 18.99 just before 19 on the bottom scale (bigwalkguide.com). Once close, match the live coordinate readout on the folding map to both numbers.
Schematic: how to read a coordinate. 4166 is 41.66 on the side scale (follow that horizontal line), 1899 is 18.99 on the bottom scale (follow that vertical line); where they cross is the target.
Where it goes wrong
These are the places players actually get stuck most often. Working through them in order usually finds the cause.
Other Red tower puzzles
After finishing: The whole island, the ability to read coordinates, the Big View achievement, and the prerequisite for every coordinate puzzle after this.
More videos
Click a thumbnail to play it here, or click the title to open the original on YouTube.
Where this solution came from
The map room entrance (3560, 1425) and the red tower (3670, 1400) come from Screen Hype. The reading rule (a decimal point before the last two digits; first number on the side scale, second on the bottom scale) follows IGN's 4166 guide and bigwalkguide.com, which agree (checked 2026-10-25; this site had the two axes the wrong way round before, now corrected). Screen Hype is named without a link.
Puzzles in this game are not assigned in a fixed order: each tower needs a set number of gourds and has more challenges around it than that, so you choose which ones to clear, in any order. That is why two guides list different puzzle line-ups for the same tower — neither is wrong. Unless a coordinate is credited to a named source it is a community measurement, and later versions can shift it; once you are in the area, trust the landmark over the number.