Recently in my YouTube recommendations I’ve
found a video about a really interesting game which is Geoguessr. The game is
simple - you are taken to the random place in a street view and your task is to
guess where you are. You can move like in a normal street view from Google and
use a map to check your assumptions. Each game consists of 5 rounds and the
closer you guess the more points you get. I’ve found the game really satisfying
and addictive.
As I’ve seen in various videos, people even try
to guess the places with their own rules, like guessing without any moving,
zooming or looking around, which makes it even more challenging. Here I have
one of these videos which is a short highlights from the best guesses of a
YouTuber “GeoWizard”. In the video he decided that he can only look around but
can’t move or zoom.
Questions:
1. What do you think about the
Geoguessr game? Would you like to try it? Or if you’ve already played it, what
are your thoughts about it?
2. Do you think it’s an easy task to
guess an exact place by only being able to move around using a street view?
3. Do you know any similar game to the
one presented in the video, which uses your flair, perceptiveness and sense of
direction?
Comments
2. I think it's hard but not impossible to guess a place using Google Street View alone. You have to be observant, attentive, look at characteristic points, signposts. Surely this game is a challenge.
3. To be honest, I don't know any such game. In my childhood I spent a lot of time playing football. Although I recall that I once played the game "Treasure Map", it consisted of finding various goals and objects in the city.
I have played this game a couple of months ago and I instantly loved it. I am huge fan of geography in general and it was a pure pleasure to point the possible location of the photo by looking at the fauna, flora, buildings, and even cars in them! I dont like to brag, but I have been getting a preety descent score in that game every single time.
2. Do you think it’s an easy task to guess an exact place by only being able to move around using a street view?
If you are a traveller, you have some intermediate knowledge about various regions of the world and you have a kind of location instinct it is not that difficult to get close to the pinned location. It is not easy, but it is also not as hard as it sounds.
3. Do you know any similar game to the one presented in the video, which uses your flair, perceptiveness and sense of direction?
I do not but I would certainly love to get to know about one!
I've never played this game. This definitely must be satisfying for the person who guesses that it is close to the location indicated. However, when I was watching the video, I had no idea where the places were located, so I probably wouldn't be good at it.
2. Do you think it’s an easy task to guess an exact place by only being able to move around using a street view?
It depends on how good a player is at geography. Although it is easy to guess the right continent, knowledge of the terrain of individual countries is crucial.
3. Do you know any similar game to the one presented in the video, which uses your flair, perceptiveness and sense of direction?
No, I don't know and I haven't even heard about this game before. When I was younger, I played with Google Maps and virtually explored randomly selected places or toured places I had visited in real life.
2. It’s certainly difficult for a person who travels around the world rarely. I managed to guess several locations, so it's not impossible.
3. I don't know a similar game, but I'd love to try to play it.
2. No, absolutely not. A lot of places just look the same. For famous locations or types of surroundings (like that lake in Switzerland) it gets easier, but still it’s never trivial – the world is huge and diverse.
3. Maybe it’s not the best example, but geocaching also requires to have some minimal sense of direction.
2. The ability to move only in street view certainly makes this game more difficult. But whether it is easy to guess the exact place, it depends on tips, for example, boards informing about the city / country, language.
3. It seems to me that I do not know any game similar to the one shown in the youtube video. I prefer a more dynamic action and an interesting story.
The first time I have heard about Geoguessr game was at one of the lessons in the academy and then I have spent all day playing it. I liked the game, it is one of the ways to spend an interesting time while sitting at home.
2. Do you think it’s an easy task to guess an exact place by only being able to move around using a street view?
It can be easy when you are able to find a road sign and read the text on it. One time my friend was only 8 meters from the right place and got 5000 points. But it is difficult enough when there are no distinctive signs nearby.
3. Do you know any similar game to the one presented in the video, which uses your flair, perceptiveness and sense of direction?
To be honest I don't know any similar game to Geoguessr and it's hard for me to imagine what it could be.
2. It is a difficult task, there are often places such as empty villages or mountains without any signs or good clues. If you've traveled a lot, you have a better chance of winning the game. But without any experience it could be very hard.
3. I don't know any similar online game, but I think stalking game uses sense of direction and idea of using tips.
I absolutely love geoguesser. I've used to play it till late night hours when I was a freshman at uni. The satisfaction of knowing the exact location from just some roadsigns and the scenery is great. Also it's a great game to play together with friends via skype.
2.
It depends on the starting location. If we start inside a big known city it's easy to do guess, on the other hand if we find ourselves on a dirt-track in the middle of nowhere it is more tricky.
3. Unfortunately not, Geoguessr is quite unique.
1. I have tried it just after I read the introduction in your post. It is really simple, entertaining and knowledgable at the same time!
2. No, I don't. Actually I was surprised that a guy on the video was so good at it. I could not guess that so easily... I think some knowledge and intuition are required for that. For example, in the video there was a road in Finland if I remember correctly. If you know where the lines on the road are both white and yellow, you can make a guess much easier.
3. No, I have not seen such a game yet, although there are games that connect you somehow to the real world, for example Pokemon Go.
2. I think that for the beginner it’s going to by hard, but after some time it’s going to get easier to a level as shown on video. When you play it long enough you’re going to see hints like road infrastructure, language on signs or billboards, nature or geographical features.
3. After watching this video I don’t know why but geocaching comes to my mind. To play this game you have to go outside and look for items hidden all across the earth. You get the coordinates and hints where the items are hidden.
2. Not at all. Some of the places shown in the video looked as if they could by literally anywhere. I think it takes some time, knowledge and practice to master this game.
3. I don't know any other game that requires such 'skills'.
I think that Geoguessr definitely belongs to that good, advantageous group of games. And as you've stated it might be educating as well.
As you said after some time you start to notice more and more useful signs of where you might be. Every place has something characteristic.
But I would say that to master it as the person in the video you will have to play it really, really, reaaallly long. He does it for many years and bases his whole channel on that type of content, so he has a lot of experience.
Oo thank you for pointing geocaching out. I heard about it once in the past but I completely forgot about this. I would definitely check this out in the next few days.
Yes I played it some years ago and It was so much fun! It is amazing feeling when you guess a place in a whole world and you are accurate in a radius of 100km.
2. Do you think it’s an easy task to guess an exact place by only being able to move around using a street view?
No It's not. What is amazing is that actually just by having some photos of the streets, road signs, people we can be really accurate about our shot.
3. Do you know any similar game to the one presented in the video, which uses your flair, perceptiveness and sense of direction?
No, I do not. It's the first game of this type that I have seen.
2. It depends on luck. Sometimes you're put next to sign with big letters about exact place and sometimes you can waste whole time and don't see anything meaningful.
3. It's only game in such style, that I know.
I think it is very difficult, if we take Europe as an example, there are so many buildings which look like the same in each country. May be there are some distinctive features, which help us to define some particular place, but I doubt that only by street view and some snow around it is possible to guess correctly.
No, I am not a real fun of games in general, however i think I will look for something similar as I enjoyed watching this video and believe that playing will be as much exciting.
Thank you!
The guy does that on a daily basis for a really long time now and his whole channel is about this, so I guess he has already developed quite good intuition and knowledge connected to geoguessing.
Once I ended up in some village in United States and just as you described - it wasn't an easy task.
Hmm. I've never heard of stalking game before. Could you say something more about it?
Yea, sometimes it's really challenging. The positive side of it is that the more challenging it is the more satisfaction you feel when you guess correctly.
You know, his whole channel is build around that. He does it for a long time now and I think with so many games played and so many places visited he somehow managed to develop some skills which are subconsciously help him make a right guess.
Moreover, this is only a highlights video, so he only shows his best guesses from a couple of past videos. So definitely there is some percentage of skill and some percentage of luck :)
Ooo. Thank you for reminding me of a geocaching. I heard about it a long time ago and I totally forgot that something like this exists. I will definitelly do some research in this topic in a next few days.
Just as you said, many places have tiny characteristic 'features' which are helpful in guessing. But we must know them of course :)
I'm really glad you enjoyed it! Thank you for your comment!
Just like you said - observe, be attentive and look for a tiny characteristic features. Every place has some of them!
Thank you for pointing out a Treasure Map game. I remember I've also played some version of it when I was a kid.
You described it perfect to the point. That's indeed the type of knowledge that helps you reaching high scores in this game.
If you are interested in such a games, you should definitelly check "geocaching" which was pointed out by other commenters. It's a really intriguing type of game!
Don't be influenced by his perfect guesses of random places. It were only highlights - a video of his recent best guesses. I guess almost noone is so fluent and perfect in the guessing on a daily basis :)
And he does it a lot, so he is already really skilled in the whole guessing thing.
2.
It depends. Sometimes you can get clues that will help to figure out this. For example, if you see yellow lines on the streets instead of white you can guess that the country you are in is USA or Australia.
3.
Old doom games challenge your perceptiveness and sense of direction with their infinite mazes. You should try it out if you are not grossed out by exceptional brutality.
I agree it's hard to believe, but remember that those guesses are only a couple of selected cuts from his recent best games. And he does it a lot since his whole channel is based on that type of content :)
Thats why it's so stisfying, you use your different skills to make a final guess and when you find it correctly it's absolutely fantastic feeling!
You'll see how satisfying it is to make a correct guess based on your traveller's experience :)
I was already starting to think that everyone loves travelling and this game.
I think it's a pretty good game and also help the player to pay more attention to details and more. Yes, I even plan to play it this weekend.
2. Do you think it’s an easy task to guess an exact place by only being able to move around using a street view?
It's not an easy task to guess a place in these conditions but I think they more you play a game the easier it gets.
3. Do you know any similar game to the one presented in the video, which uses your flair, perceptiveness and sense of direction?
No, I don't. this game is innovation, fun and helps the player to develop various skills.
As I mentioned above. There are often views of the farmland itself, where they are the same everywhere in the world. There is a bug in the game, there are views from the center of buildings.
Unfortunately, I don't know any similar games.
2. It's not, especially if you have never been to that place before. I can't imagine if it is possible to guess every place right.
3. Sorry, i don't.
1. I think that the Geoguessr game looks like a pretty cool idea! I really like the exploration part of that experience. I would like to try it honestly. And I think I'll try it out soon since I'm sitting at home and doing nothing productive anyway.
2. It sounds like an easy task but I'm sure that it's actually pretty tough. I also think it depends where it drops you because some places are very characteristic.
3. Sadly I don't. I used to simply use Google Street View for fun in the past but I've never played any games related to it.
I just started to try this game, it is very interesting, though it is too difficult to guess the places correctly, we just need to pay more attention on the details and be concentrated, I think it is good to play this game in a group that everyone can discuss and share their opinions.
2. Do you think it’s an easy task to guess an exact place by only being able to move around using a street view?
To be honest, I don't have much confidence in this, moreover two places can look almost the same especially when it comes to be some places like country side, forest and so on.
3. Do you know any similar game to the one presented in the video, which uses your flair, perceptiveness and sense of direction?
Unfortunately, I failed to remember any game that I played was similar to the one presented in the video, I think this game is unique, it might be the first game of this type.
I didnt hear about this one but i saw something similar like geocaching. You have some points to find in real world and there are some hidden boxes. I have to try this when coronavirus will end because it sound really good.
2. Do you think it’s an easy task to guess an exact place by only being able to move around using a street view?
Probably there are some easier and harded points to find. Its quite good challenge and competition.
3. Do you know any similar game to the one presented in the video, which uses your flair, perceptiveness and sense of direction?
As i said in first point - i heard about geocaching which is quite similar to this which you presented. It must be so fun to try it by yourself.
I've never played a game like this. Globally, this is because when I was younger, there were no such games. The Internet was crawling, e-mail and IRC were working. Only the US Army had internet.
However, thank you for the information. I'll look how this gun works. I like exploring the world, but rather in person. Seeing some places on earth even from Google can be fascinating.
2. Do you think it’s an easy task to guess an exact place by only being able to move around using a street view?
I think it's not easy. Sometimes using the navigation we don't know which street to turn on. In a big city like London, Paris, New York, if you don't know it very well, it's difficult to find yourself using only street view.
3. Do you know any similar game to the one presented in the video, which uses your flair, perceptiveness and sense of direction?
I don't know, because as I wrote, I don't play games.
Yes, I heard about it long time ago even gave it a shot at some moment in time. It is quite nice but I prefer the game on wikipedia when you click the random news and you need to reach hitler in as low number of traversing between hyperlinks as possible.
2. Do you think it’s an easy task to guess an exact place by only being able to move around using a street view?
It depends on the place you are. Some are so much specific you recognize area in a second and some may take you hours of rethinking to get a job done.
3. Do you know any similar game to the one presented in the video, which uses your flair, perceptiveness and sense of direction?
Yes, some people in airsoft made a game once, they were thrown at the edge of the forest each team on the different side and they had to traverse to a specific point inside while fighting with each other.
2. Yes and no. It all depends on the level of our perception. Some people find it easier to recognize surroundings, others do not. In this case, you can move using street view, which allows us, for example, to read some information from advertisements, billboards from car registrations, which makes guessing easier.
3. No, I do not know a similar game. Unless you move around the map with google street view which you can count as a game.
1. What do you think about the Geoguessr game? Would you like to try it? Or if you’ve already played it, what are your thoughts about it?
I tried it when it first came out, in 2012. Funnily enough in one of the rounds I got my hometown, and got instant guess with 0 error rate and won :P
2. Do you think it’s an easy task to guess an exact place by only being able to move around using a street view?
Depends. There are many factors that can assist you: left or right sided driving, advertisements or shop displays written in certain language, architecture.
3. Do you know any similar game to the one presented in the video, which uses your flair, perceptiveness and sense of direction?
"Spot the difference"? That is the most classic and the first that comes to mind.
2. There are easier and harder locations. For example, if you get placed in the forest you can only guess by the plant species but if you land just next to Eiffel tower it becomes easy.
3. I don't know any other game that would use all those things but you can play by yourself or against others on Wikipedia. It is not an official game, all you have to do is to agree on what are you going to search for (the easiest is Adolf Hitler as he has a lot to atone for) then just hit the random article on Wiki and surf through the links to finally land on Hitler's page. The person who will have the fewest steps wins. Have fun :)
1. If I was drunk at 3-4 am at home alone with no one online to talk to, then maybe MAYBE I would spend some time to lurk around and listen to some music. But if you do this while being sober - then you are a very boring person. I am sorry if you didn't know this and it was a surprise for you. Don't get too sad about this fact, everyone can change 👌.
2. No it's not an easy task, especially if Google car that captures those panoramas did a bad job. If I had to play this game in my hometown then I will not be able to traverse properly through the street because of that.
3. I would prefer to play a standard quest game instead of that. It's kind of similar if you think about it. Also you need to explore the reality, not Google maps. By the way wouldn't it be great to play some quest in a people-free streets during pandemic 🤔...
I think that playing something like PokemonGo is also applicable to this argument. But it would be also strange to play it in 2020.
I have never heard about this game before but I would love to try it myself. What I adore about such games it is that the concept is as simple as possible. It seems to be fun so I am sure that I will give it a try.
2. Do you think it’s an easy task to guess an exact place by only being able to move around using a street view?
It depends from the place. You might guess sometimes thanks to some signs or well known objects. However I know that most of the time you end up in the middle of nowhere so guessing where exactly you are might be tricky.
3. Do you know any similar game to the one presented in the video, which uses your flair, perceptiveness and sense of direction?
The only app that comes to my mind right now is Geocaching. Maybe because of a similar name. The idea is that you have many trackers hidden around the world and their location is given in the app. The point is to find such tracker.
2. It really depends on the location, it can be very easy to guess but at the same time almost impossible to give a correct answer. But because of that, when you finally guess correctly you can be very proud of yourself.
3. I don't really play games on a daily basis, so it's hard for me to recall one.
The game sounds really interesting and I definitely would try it with my friends, especially now, when everyone of us is separated and cannot meet in person.
2. Do you think it’s an easy task to guess an exact place by only being able to move around using a street view?
I guess it depends on the place that you have been “spawned”. I don’t know the exact rules of the game and if the puzzles refer to famous places or rather ones that are not obvious at first glance.
3. Do you know any similar game to the one presented in the video, which uses your flair, perceptiveness and sense of direction?
I haven’t heard of any similar game but I used to take part in a competition at geography classes where we had satellite photos of various places and we had to guess the exact place.
2 / If the sense of orientation is well developed, then I think it is possible.
3 / There are many existing projects and several not implemented on Kickstarter. But the only example that I often came across is the meta codes in games.
I know it for a while now! I think it was around 10 years ago when I first heard about it. It's been 10 years but I played maybe less than 20 times. It's a fun concept but as I'm not really into traveling I didn't hook me for any longer than a single session once in couple months :)
2. Do you think it’s an easy task to guess an exact place by only being able to move around using a street view?
If your geography knowledge is broad then you can spot many hints in streetview environment. Just knowing type of plants, clouds and weather helps you significantly in limiting areas to choose/guess from!
3. Do you know any similar game to the one presented in the video, which uses your flair, perceptiveness and sense of direction?
No. Geogames are not my cup of tea so I can not recall anything. But if you'll find something interesting please let me know, I'll try it!
2. It’s extremely hard if someone doesn’t travel a lot! I see a big potential for this app if the authors would add real travel propositions :)
3. I haven’t played in that game but I think a ‘Pokemon Go’ was one of such games.
Geoguesser is awsome game. I have played it a lot. I really like to open google maps and drop myself enywhere and see how things looks there and thats why i like geoguesser, because i can try to guess where shown places are. It's brilliant in its simplicity.
2. Do you think it’s an easy task to guess an exact place by only being able to move around using a street view?
Sometimes its very hard because many countries speaks same or very similar language and the signs shown are hard to decode to see where it is. But sometimes its pretty easy.
3. Do you know any similar game to the one presented in the video, which uses your flair, perceptiveness and sense of direction?
I dont think so. Unfortunatelly geoguesser is the only one in this category that i know.
I think it's a pretty tough game and unless you've been to a particular place or watched the movies that were made there, you have a poor chance. However, road signs and subtitles make this game a lot easier.
Unfortunately, I don't know any similar games in this area, but I'm happy to discover others!
2. I think that it depends on place - we can be sent in somewhere very general, some town which looks like every town in most cities, but some places are distinctive and we can recognize them pretty quickly
3. Unfortunately, no
It sounds fun, and I would like to try playing it but to be honest I would probably be terrible at it.
2. Do you think it’s an easy task to guess an exact place by only being able to move around using a street view?
I think that it’s anything but easy, especially it you are beginner. Some more experienced player probably have some tricks up their sleeve to easily guess their location, but for me it would be extremely hard to guess.
3. Do you know any similar game to the one presented in the video, which uses your flair, perceptiveness and sense of direction?
No, not really. I can’t even imagine any similar game to Geoguessr.
2. It seems to me that everything depends on skills. If someone is perceptive, insightful, focused and can find himself in the field, he can handle this game perfectly. Although, as always, practice is important, even if at first you may go wrong, as time goes by, it will definitely get better and the game will help to develop or sharpen just such senses as mentioned above.
3. I don't play games that much, currently I don't have time for it so I don't know a similar game or one in which similar skills were equally important.
2. I think if It's not a big capital city with some special buildings It's only possible to guess country/region.
3. There are some sout's games.
1. What do you think about the Geoguessr game? Would you like to try it? Or if you’ve already played it, what are your thoughts about it?
I haven't played it, but I think I will give it a try. The idea is very simple, but it seems to be interesting to discover learn how local landscapes look like in various places.
2. Do you think it’s an easy task to guess an exact place by only being able to move around using a street view?
I think it may be very difficult sometimes, but there number of factors you can take into account: nature, sings on roads, style of buildings.
3. Do you know any similar game to the one presented in the video, which uses your flair, perceptiveness and sense of direction?
I don't think I know any, but it reminds me of some games thats' main aim was to learn some neural networks to recognize objects, which is obviously not a case here.
1. What do you think about the Geoguessr game? Would you like to try it? Or if you’ve already played it, what are your thoughts about it?
I've never played this game, but it fascinated me. I love traveling and discovering new places so for sure I would find a new direction of journey.
I’m excited that I knew some of the locations of the places. I will recommend this game my friends.
2. Do you think it’s an easy task to guess an exact place by only being able to move around using a street view?
It depends on how good a player is at geography. It should be easy to guess the right continent. Sometimes you're put next to sign with big letters about exact place and sometimes you can waste whole time and don't see anything meaningful.
3. Do you know any similar game to the one presented in the video, which uses your flair, perceptiveness and sense of direction?
No, I don't know, and I haven't even heard about this game before.
Oh yeah. Cool! I like this idea. I would like to try. In fact, if you turn on your brain, think about the landscape and other things around you can guess. But still, sometimes you have to turn on intuition. This is a very interesting thing.
2. Do you think it’s an easy task to guess an exact place by only being able to move around using a street view?
I don’t think it’s very easy. But this is a good opportunity to test your knowledge about the architecture of a particular place, about geography, landscape, natural conditions and so on. A good test of yourself.
3. Do you know any similar game to the one presented in the video, which uses your flair, perceptiveness and sense of direction?
It seems to me that I have never met such people. But on the Internet there are a lot of games like various questionnaires or quizzes with various graphic questions, maybe if such games. But unfortunately I can’t say exactly the name of such games.
I mean, I knew it existed, but never had a chance to try that out. But now that you posted the video of the topic I will probably stream that on the discord with my friends and we will probably have a good time with the game. ;]
2. Do you think it’s an easy task to guess an exact place by only being able to move around using a street view?
I definitely have to try it out myself in order to be able to answer that question better. But now I think that in some cases it could be really enywhere on the whole globe, so I do not think that it would be super easy.
3. Do you know any similar game to the one presented in the video, which uses your flair, perceptiveness and sense of direction?
When we were young, we played a game called "podchody". I just cannot call that stalking game because it sounds kind of strange I would say. But anyway, in this game you had to draw arrows or other signals in order to the person that were looking for you was able to find you. Of course there was some guys that were drawing fake arrows. Fun to play by the way.
2. If you can find a sign. But if this sign isn't in chinese or japanese or any other language where words more similar to images and you even can't try to guess it's pronunciation.
3. Can't remember anything similar or close enough. Maybe some computer games do the same but in another way, so it's hard now to name the proper one.
2. In most cases it sure is very hard. That is the good aspect of it because you not only need to have geographical knowledge but also cultural or sociological knowledge to know for example how houses look in certain places.
3. Only "podchody" game comes to my mind but it is hard to compare it to this one.
This game is just great in its simplicity. I wonder how they even thought about creating something like this I wonder is there are some kind of restriction or filters for some places like nudist beach or “Area 51”. I would like to try and maybe I will. Maybe after 100-200 rounds I will become good at it.
2. Do you think it’s an easy task to guess an exact place by only being able to move around using a street view?
I don’t think it’s an easy task to guess an exact place but sometimes there are some characteristic views that give you a clue about location like when he guessed Japan there was a car in a garage that was typical for Japan or when he chose England because of these characteristic stone walls… Well at least I think that's the reason why he chose them. But man, most of them I didn’t even know where to start to look for them.
3. Do you know any similar game to the one presented in the video, which uses your flair, perceptiveness and sense of direction?
No, I don’t know any similar game to this one.
I have an irresistible impression that I know of a game that is based on locating and orientation, but I can't remember the name. Anyway, geoguesser is a fun game that lets us sharpen our senses and perceptiveness.
I've heard recently about this game. I think it very interesting and I would like to try it. I like such kind of games, it can help me learn something new and to see new places. I think it is a great game to spend some time in it while you are at home and cannot go outside.
2. Do you think it’s an easy task to guess an exact place by only being able to move around using a street view?
I think it depends on the case. Like some views are well-known and everyone knows the place and sometimes it is something totally new and isn't such an easy task. So, it depends :)
3. Do you know any similar game to the one presented in the video, which uses your flair, perceptiveness and sense of direction?
To be honest, not so any. I know some "party" games, when a person is describing something, like place/thing/person/animal and others should guess what is it, but I am not sure is it this kind of game.
2. From what I watched, not a single person guessed the exact place. Some of them were really close though. I think it is nearly an impossible task, but I will check it later on YouTube, because someone probably did it. People are amazing.
3. Sadly, I cannot think of anything right now. Geoguessr is kinda unique in this matter.
2. I think it is not so easy. It is much easier when the street has a unique feature or if it is a popular place, in other cases it seems to me hard.
3. No, I have never heard of such games, but I played games, like name the capital of a country
I have heard about it. A few of my friends have recently played it. I don't wanna try becouse of my schedule but It's pleasent way to collecting and monetizing data that users are generating. Clever idea.
2. Do you think it’s an easy task to guess an exact place by only being able to move around using a street view?
I don't have opinion. Of course it can be challangable.
3. Do you know any similar game to the one presented in the video, which uses your flair, perceptiveness and sense of direction?
A lot of AR games are coming one after another this days. I don't have particular example but nowadays it's pretty common for games industry.