Geoguessing Game
Concept
Every 19 hours there is a new puzzle. The system then selects a user badge, based on a complex set of criteria. You are presented with an image from Google maps, the user name, the badge level, and the last digit of the badge. The image you see is the nearest Google Streetview image you can get. You need the app to find the matching quadrant. If you found the badge, long press, and this will reveal the quadrant. You need to input this as the solution to the puzzle.
Diamonds for Geoguessing
Did you know you can earn up to 4 diamonds per month by playing the Geoguessing game?
1 diamond for 50 points
2 diamonds for 130 points
3 diamonds for 240 points
4 diamonds for the player of the month (if score is > 240)
Note : the system counts the puzzles that ended during that month. Since puzzles run for 36 hours, it's good to know which ones are counted in which month.
Some strategy hints
About 80% of the puzzles can be linked to a specific ingame badge in under 30 min
If you find the exact spot first you can get 10 points, however you can also score up to 6 points if you know approximately where it is
So, do not spend hours trying to find one puzzle, in stead set a deadline for yourself, and once this time has passed, make a proximity guess - the scoring system is brutal for hardcore gamers, but pretty generous for casual gamers at the same time
Use google maps on a different device. While it is very easy to use the “Navigate there” option, the app also moves back to your current position - so this means if your guess was not correct, you have to relocate to where you were. It is more efficient to just use google maps on a different device or on pc.
The images are very pixalted and don't reveal much detail. However there is a 360° view under the image - download the image, and zoom in to see if something may give away more detail
When the quadrant is displayed - take a screenshot. Advantage : if the app accidentally relocates, you still have the solution in the screenshot. And for practical purposes, you can enlarge the image, so you don't accidentally introduce typo's.
Reducing number of candidates
Obviously - the user name already tells you what colour badge and user name to look out for
Click on the user name to find out in what country he/she has badges. Or use the “Ruler” pages per country, to find more detail to specific regions within a country
Take good note of the badge level - if it is a level 1 badge, it is not masked by the system, so those are easyer to spot. But also level 2 and 3 are both masked as 2+, so those are also pretty easy.
The higher the level the more difficult. For instance a level 15 could be 2+, 4+ or 8+. <insert link here with more detail about how badges are masked>
Also take good note of the last digit of the badge number, as obviously this also futher decimates the number of possible candidates
Images often look discouraging - however, even if a badge was dropped on the freeway, also the type of road, vegetation and weather conditions hold information, and can help you quickly reduce candidates
How does the scoring system work?
Basically we distinguish between exact guesses, and non-exact guesses
Exact guesses always take priority over non-exact guesses.
Exact guessers
Exact guessers get points in the range 6-10.
The formula is 6 + 4/rank, where rank = the order in which the guesses were made
Non-exact guessers
Non-exact guessers gets points in the range 0-6.
The score goes down with both, distance and rank, where rank is based on distance and, in rare cases of ties, answering time.