I remember an old Sega or Nintendo castle game where the whole board was black and in order to see the overview of the level you had to move your guy around and "discover" it square by square.
Could anyone either a) cite games that use this technique or b) give an indication as to what this technique might be called?
Best Answer
This is going to vary wildly game by game, but the general concept you seem to be referring to is known as "Fog of War".
Wikipedia defines it as:
When it applies to minimaps in particular (the entire Metroidvania genre springs to mind), I'm not sure if it has a precise analog, but Fog of War definitely describes the nature of the phenomenon, at least.