World Guessr, free version of Geoguessr on crazygames.com

After reading a couple of people’s review of Geoguessr, I thought I would try it out this week. I haven’t traveled that much, but I like to look at maps to prepare whenever I do travel.  Also, I occasionally like to look up places that I have visited in my youth, but haven’t seen in years, to see if I can locate them now that the internet and google street view exist. For example, my grandparent’s house was in rural Maxton, N.C., and I only had their mailing address, which was a P.O. box. It took about a week of occasional searching, but I did eventually find it.

But back to the gaming! I searched Geoguessr and found a free version called Worldguessr. Since I had read other students’ reviews, I knew the general way to play and jumped right in. The first placement was pretty easy, as I could see the Taj Mahal in the background. However, I realized I wasn’t quite sure where in India the Taj Mahal was located. I went to the aerial map of the world and started zooming in to India hoping there might be an icon of it, since it is so famous. When that didn’t happen, I faced my first big question: Is it OK to Google locations? I briefly looked around the screen to see if there was anything that listed the rules. I couldn’t find any rules, and I know we were allowed to search for cheat codes, so I googled “Where is the Taj Mahal in India?” I selected a location that was half a mile away. My second location was on a waterfront. I looked around and saw a large bridge far away. I wondered if it was the Golden Gate bridge and I was in San Francisco. However, I kept looking around and saw the statue of liberty far off. This guess was 0.1 of a mile off.

My third location looked like it could be the Arc de Triomphe from behind, but it had what looked like a German-styled sculpture on its top, a shield and eagles with a cross. I took a chance and zoomed in on Berlin and selected an area near the Brandenburg Gate and was 0.4 miles off. The fourth location looked like Russian-style-church architecture and writing on some posters as I looked around. I thought about selecting a random location in Moscow but than thought maybe it was another place like Prague. I was over 1,000 miles away and it was Moscow. My fifth location was the foot of the Eiffel Tower and I was 0.1 miles away.

As others mentioned, subsequent rounds were more difficult, and I found myself thinking “Of course you can use google to search clues that you find, like phone numbers or words on signs, because how else would you solve some of these locations? Am I dumb not to Google the clues I find?” But, even with googling clues, my distance ranged from 20 miles to almost 1,000 miles

I checked the screen layout a few more times to see if I could find anything that mentioned the rules, but even on the home page for the game, it isn’t mentioned. I searched to see what the internet said, and for official gameplay it is against the rules, but for single players it is up to the player. Some of the things that bothered me were just with the layout or GUI of the app. As I scrolled around, I often would activate the map and it would enlarge. Also, the map enlarges form the lower right corner, and the zoom in and out buttons are also there, but those buttons are for the street view. The maps zoom buttons are in the upper left corner of the map after it enlarges. Because of the origination of the movement, I continuously would go to the right zoom buttons when I wanted to zoom in on the map.

Overall I really like the challenge of the game, and trying to look for clues in posters and surrounding flora. In fact, after a while, I felt like Scott Bakula in Quantum Leap traveling from one location (and time) to another. I also like seeing the world as it actually is, versus as a tourist in a tourist location.