How to make 3d scrollable map like Best Fiends?

[amivarius]

Best Fiends has a very interesting and beautiful map. I love the way the map scrolls.
Here’s a video of it: Best Fiends 2015, Map, Game Play Video - YouTube

But I don’t quite understand how their world scrolling works. It seems to rotate mostly like a sphere, but in reality it’s much longer than the diameter of a sphere would allow one to scroll. I think part of the illusion comes from the camera perspective, but I have no idea how to replicate this kind of scrolling.

Does anyone have ideas how to replicate this kind of scrolling?

[tanoshimi]

One way is to have the map as a flat plane but render it with a shader with a cylindrical rolloff - like this:

Animal Crossing Curved World Shader