- Joined
- Feb 12, 2005
- Messages
- 55,679
- Reaction score
- 25,853
I'm not a person who enjoys gaming, but I cannot resist the lure of Geoguessr. We started playing it with our adult kids when they visited, and recently Mr. Maryn and The Kid figured out a way to play remotely, both self-isolating households seeing the same view.
It's not a game of skill or strategy but of research skills. (Know any writers? They've got those.) The player is dropped onto a road that's been recorded by Google Maps on street view (which means some parts of the world never appear). You "drive" using street view's directional pointers, and you and the other players attempt to figure out where you are. You seek highway or street signs, interpret billboards in many languages, research the trees or crops you see, guess location based on terrain and soil color, study mountain ranges or bodies of water, note the company names on trash bins or newspaper boxes, search the name of the boat you see that didn't get blurred out (as license plates do), and otherwise try to figure out your exact location when you were dropped off.
Kids old enough to use computers, phones, or notebooks can play, and we suspect high school and college kids would excel at this kind of research. ("That's a speed limit sign in Norway!" or "Wait, I think that's Tamil...")
Beginners in the US should probably start with the US-only game, which is more than sufficient challenge. Our very best round ever, we were less than three feet from our mark, in rural Missouri.
Maryn, all-time high score 4996 of 5000
It's not a game of skill or strategy but of research skills. (Know any writers? They've got those.) The player is dropped onto a road that's been recorded by Google Maps on street view (which means some parts of the world never appear). You "drive" using street view's directional pointers, and you and the other players attempt to figure out where you are. You seek highway or street signs, interpret billboards in many languages, research the trees or crops you see, guess location based on terrain and soil color, study mountain ranges or bodies of water, note the company names on trash bins or newspaper boxes, search the name of the boat you see that didn't get blurred out (as license plates do), and otherwise try to figure out your exact location when you were dropped off.
Kids old enough to use computers, phones, or notebooks can play, and we suspect high school and college kids would excel at this kind of research. ("That's a speed limit sign in Norway!" or "Wait, I think that's Tamil...")
Beginners in the US should probably start with the US-only game, which is more than sufficient challenge. Our very best round ever, we were less than three feet from our mark, in rural Missouri.
Maryn, all-time high score 4996 of 5000