GeoGuessr is a web-based geographic discovery game designed by Anton Wallén, a SwedishIT consultant, released on 9 May 2013. The game uses a semi-randomized Google Street View location for paying members and Mapillary for non-members. The game requires players to guess their location in the world using only the clues visible. The website received hundreds of thousands of unique visitors per day within a week of being released.
Development
The idea for GeoGuessr came from Wallén's love of visiting far away locations on Google Street View, and the way in which it gave a visitor the sense of actually being there. He decided to add a gaming element to it. The development of the game took a couple of weeks, spread over a period of several months. It uses the Backbone.js JavaScript library and version 3 of the Google Maps API for paying members. For non-members Mapillary is used for the locations. Wallén posted the completed game to Google Chrome Experiments on 10 May 2013.
Gameplay
GeoGuessr places the player on a series of five algorithmically determined semi-random locations around the world. The locations are limited to roads and other paths that have been photographed by Google Street View cameras for paying members, which excludes the majority of Asia and Africa, most of the Amazon basin in South America, most of Central, and Outback Australia and most of the far north in Canada and Russia. The Street View window of GeoGuessr does not provide any information beyond the street view images and a compass; things such as road signs, vegetation, businesses, climate, and landmarks have been suggested as some clues that may help the player determine their location. The player may also move about along the roads through the normal directional controls provided by Street View. Once the player is ready to guess the location, they will place a location marker on a zoomable map. After the placed marker is submitted as a guess, GeoGuessr reveals the true geographic location and assigns the player a score depending on how far away the player's guess was from the true location. Scores range between 0 for a guess at an antipode and 5000 points if the guess is within about 150 meters of the correct location. However, point totals vary between different maps. A new location is then provided to the player, and the process repeats until the player has guessed five locations for a maximum of 25,000 possible points. Newer features include a variable time limit and grouped challenges, such as "Famous Places" or "Sweden".The game also allows paying users to both create maps and play other users maps, enhancing the experience for members and adding to the competitiveness of the game. After Google increased their API price 14-fold, non-paying members are now restricted to play one game a day on Google Street View. Players can play unlimited games with Mapillary, but the locations have limited methods of movement and zoom compared to Google Street View. Furthermore, following the August 2019 update, creating challenges where several players compete on the same map became now unavailable for non-paying members.
Reception
GeoGuessr was positively received by the media, with reviewers citing its simplicity of play and addictiveness. The game has also been praised as an educational tool and has inspired a number of classroom exercises.
