Author Topic: Geographic Guessing Game (Read 162 times)

pianodwarf · « **on:** May 10, 2013, 10:53:12 AM »

Intriguing and surprisingly addictive little distraction. You are given a street view from a randomly selected location somewhere on the planet, and you are allowed to explore it for as long as you like. When you think you know where it is, you take a guess. The closer you are to the actual location, the higher your score is.

Some of them are very easy -- I got one, for example, where I saw a sign for "Ron Jon's Surf Shop of Cozumel" or something like that, which was a bit of a giveaway. Other locations, though, can be exceptionally difficult to determine. In some cases, you have to rely on things like which side of the street you're driving on, what language the signs are written in, and so on, but in some locations, you receive so few clues that it's almost impossible to guess. I got one where pretty much all I could tell for sure was that it was a very small town somewhere in the Midwestern United States. I ended up guessing central Kansas, but it was actually Caspar, Wyoming.

http://geoguessr.com/

Seppuku · « **Reply #1 on:** May 10, 2013, 11:03:19 AM »

I guessed somewhere in Africa, got Australia. Guess Florida, turned out to be California. Now I've got one I'm at a conflict with, there's American flags, but there's a Fish & Chip shop, which would imply English, maybe Americans like our Fish & Chip shops after all. Further inspection suggested it could be Alaska...turns out it was, but I was 900km off XD.

Interesting game. Maybe it'll help me learn my geography.

LoriPinkAngel · « **Reply #2 on:** May 10, 2013, 03:53:33 PM »

There is something wrong with this app. I guessed I was in Japan and it said the correct answer was in the middle of the ocean. I was absolutely not adrift in water.

Seppuku · « **Reply #3 on:** May 10, 2013, 04:19:17 PM »

I got tricked. I saw Legoland and thought, "It's got to be Legoland Windsor" because I've been there and it looked familiar. Turns out it was Legoland in Denmark. What a rip. At least I got Mexico right.

Chronos · « **Reply #4 on:** May 10, 2013, 09:54:29 PM »

I scored 11,741 points, but I don't know if that's a good score or a bad one.
Game results

magicmiles · « **Reply #5 on:** May 10, 2013, 10:22:25 PM »

Great fun. 10,700 points. The last one stuffed me up. Alaska, Montana....it all looks like a grizzly bears about to eat me.

magicmiles · « **Reply #6 on:** May 10, 2013, 10:27:02 PM »

Quote from: LoriPinkAngel on May 10, 2013, 03:53:33 PM

There is something wrong with this app. I guessed I was in Japan and it said the correct answer was in the middle of the ocean. I was absolutely not adrift in water.

If you click in far enough you'll see it was a bunch off islands off the coast

magicmiles · « **Reply #7 on:** May 10, 2013, 10:29:35 PM »

Quote from: Chronos on May 10, 2013, 09:54:29 PM

I scored 11,741 points, but I don't know if that's a good score or a bad one.
Game results

Pretty good, I'd say. Never more than a few hundred km away.

Chronos · « **Reply #8 on:** May 10, 2013, 10:59:50 PM »

This time I really screwed up one location but I earned 20,729 points.
Game result

magicmiles · « **Reply #9 on:** May 10, 2013, 11:12:42 PM »

I assume you can't use google maps to search street names? (or, it's sort of against the point of the game)

Nam · « **Reply #10 on:** May 11, 2013, 05:01:53 AM »

Seems difficult to play it on a phone.

-Nam

Nam · « **Reply #11 on:** May 11, 2013, 05:27:20 AM »

Doesn't show the button on my phone to get the answer but I did randomly find it. The most I scored so far 8,582. I got one only 2 miles from the location but that's only because I knew the beach in Brazil. (saw it in a movie)

One gave me a road in the middle of nowhere; how you're supposed to figure it out there I have no idea. And one was inside a mall. That could've been in any location.

[EDIT]

9,086 is highest now.

-Nam

Graybeard · « **Reply #12 on:** May 11, 2013, 05:46:39 AM »

A miserable 8483! I thought I'd be good at that. Likewise I got (i) a road in the middle of nowhere, and next (ii) a river with what looked like Eucalyptus trees, hence Australia, but it turned out to be Brazil!

This could compete with Stumble Upon for wasting my time.

Quesi · « **Reply #13 on:** May 11, 2013, 05:52:49 AM »

Oh, I should have given you thumbs down, PD. I'm going to waste hours here.

My first two games I got two Australias and one NZ, and since I have no sense of the topography of either location, I ended up putting them on the wrong side of the globe.

I got a Cozumel one too. I actually recognized it because I used to do a lot of SCUBA diving, and Cozumel is a mecca for divers so I've been there a several times.

I think my high score is 16902 though. In some games I do well on a bunch of them, and then I really mess up.

Tried to scroll in close to some writing, assumed it was Korean (I saw the little circles) but it ended up being Japanese.

What makes it so fun is that there are so many different types of clues to look for. Obviously, street signs or signs in stores are very helpful. But there are a lot of roads in the middle of nowhere, and you have to really guess based on the type of foliage, the natural formations, and much more subtle clues If there are buildings, you get to make guesses about the architecture.

Chronos · « **Reply #14 on:** May 11, 2013, 07:03:57 AM »

This time I earned 17,979 points
Game result

This is addictive and I need to stop it.

Better yet, I shall put on Facebook and force others to become addicted.

However, considering some of the low brow content I encounter on Facebook, there may not be many who partake of such a game.

pianodwarf · « **Reply #15 on:** May 11, 2013, 07:06:54 AM »

I've been having a good time with this one as well. The selection of sites appears to be a bit limited... one or two locations have come up for me twice now. Still interesting, though.

My highest score so far has been something like 10,000 or so, though I haven't really been keeping track since I'm not actually competing with anyone. There seem to be quite a few Australia locations, and those have been throwing me quite a bit, probably because I haven't ever spent any time researching it as a travel destination (I'd like to go, but it's so far I doubt I'll ever have the scratch). Other areas I've done better -- Scandinavian locales, for example, can sometimes be easily recognized by the style of housing.

Chronos · « **Reply #16 on:** May 11, 2013, 07:13:26 AM »

I haven't had any locations repeat, but the game likes to drop you into Brazil often and the US rarely.

Nam · « **Reply #17 on:** May 11, 2013, 08:01:53 AM »

I'm not playing it anymore. I saw a sign for "Hidrogas" which is in Argentina. So I stick my flag there and hit enter and it said I sat my flag in California. This game is defective. This happened three other times. I saw a sign for Barcelona, so I sat my flag in Spain and clicked enter and it said I sat in Brazil.

Stupid game.

-Nam

Chronos · « **Reply #18 on:** **Today** at 08:49:26 AM »

I scored 30,584!

Seppuku · « **Reply #19 on:** **Today** at 10:17:12 AM »

I managed to get a town in France spot on, I saw "Auray" and assumed it must have been a place name, saw it was next to a river with fishing boats, so it couldn't have been too far from the coast and by jove I found it. The second was in Japan (at least I was able to tell the symbols apart) but I can't read Japanese, so no real clues as to where. Turns out I guessed the opposite end of Japan, it was cloudy as well, so I thought, "more likely North of Japan" and then thought I was being illogical and just guess for somewhere much further south, turns out it was Sopporo, which is way up North.

Third one was Sweden, the houses were very Nordic, Denmark was my first guess, the landscape made me think Canada, but it felt too Scandinavian, so I figured Norway or Sweden, it was next to a lake and I saw a sign. Found the town the sign was pointing to, but it was like 100 miles away. For number 4, it struck me as very Texan, but I've been tricked before (could well be Australia). Then I saw a Spar (though we only had them in the UK, but I figured it must be European at least) and then some signs that looked Dutch, but I don't think there's many places that look like a desert in the Netherlands, so South Africa was the obvious choice, couldn't find the name of the town and I put the town too close to the coast. The last one felt distinctively American, definitely somewhere hot and near water, it could be near the sea or a big lake, given, but I can't see anywhere in the US where I might have imagined it to be near the coast, seemed like it was more in the middle of a desert and that's when I spotted the Salton Sea, which seemed like a possible location, it looks like it's in the middle of a desert. Turns out I was horrible misinformed, I was looking on the completely wrong side of the US, turns out it was the coast and in North Carolina. And we Brits mock Americans for completely misunderstanding geography in the UK.

That gave me a grand total of 14,376. At least I got all of the countries right.

Linky

As you can tell, I'm hooked.

Quote from: Nam on May 11, 2013, 08:01:53 AM

I'm not playing it anymore. I saw a sign for "Hidrogas" which is in Argentina. So I stick my flag there and hit enter and it said I sat my flag in California. This game is defective. This happened three other times. I saw a sign for Barcelona, so I sat my flag in Spain and clicked enter and it said I sat in Brazil.

Stupid game.

-Nam

I think you've got it stuck in George W Bush mode.

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Author Topic: Geographic Guessing Game (Read 162 times)