Count the straps on the roof rack

March 29, 2024 5:57 AM

Geoguessr shows you a Google street view scene and challenges you to guess where it is. Here’s a 170 page document to help find yourself in Mongolia.
posted by seanmpuckett (22 comments total)

Previously ... just over a decade ago! I loved this game.

But it requires an account now? Bummer.

(Can a mod add the tags "googlestreetview" and "googlemaps" to this post?)
posted by intermod at 6:05 AM on March 29 [3 favorites]

I'm thinking the great thing about this post is not the first link but... the second link? It is magnificent.
posted by vacapinta at 6:08 AM on March 29 [7 favorites]

Did you know there's a GeoGuessr World Cup? These kids are incredibly skilled at this.
posted by JoeZydeco at 6:16 AM on March 29 [2 favorites]

But it requires an account now? Bummer.

Or use your Google/Facebook/Apple login, which I refuse to do on websites, too. Bummer bummer.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:18 AM on March 29 [1 favorite]

I guess in trying to add context for the incredible reference guide I buried the lede. Anyway, yes, the document is the star of this post.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:22 AM on March 29 [3 favorites]

So people learn how to tell which photo session conditions and vehicle attributes were present in the regions being mapped...

I guess if an industry of search engine optimization can grow atop ever-changing search results, memorizing photosets to win a game until the photos are updated isn't much more far-fetched.

Leave it to Google to keep us on our toes.
posted by in_lieu_of_fiction at 6:27 AM on March 29

I enjoyed playing this pre-release - thanks! I won't create an account. I'm a little bummed that's required.
posted by amtho at 6:30 AM on March 29 [1 favorite]

If you want to have a quick (re)play of the concept without signing your digital soul away there are quite a few free clones around, Openguessr for example.
posted by protorp at 6:50 AM on March 29 [6 favorites]

I used to love a game called Earth Picker that similarly used Google street view and had you guess where you were. Google got it taken down (I think), so I started playing GeoGuessr instead.

I quit because: Earth Picker would always drop you in front of something interesting. A religious building with interesting architecture, a vista, or just a row of colourful houses or a herd of kangaroos. Then you'd poke around and look at signage, license plates, tree species, etc. It was nice.

GeoGuessr would maroon you in the middle of nowhere with no points of reference, and you could click along the solitary road for what seemed like forever and still be none the wiser. In real life I'd be delighted to drive through a blank snow-covered landscape, or desert, or endless conifer forest with no road signs or other cars, AS LONG AS I KNEW WHERE I WAS. "In real life I'd be dead by now" was NOT what I came here for, GeoGuessr.
posted by Pallas Athena at 7:00 AM on March 29 [2 favorites]

killer app for the stupid AVP . . .
posted by torokunai at 8:06 AM on March 29

I've enjoyed this especially during covid lockdown, playing with my sister over video chat.

I think my best guess was within 50 feet of a random stretch of desolate highway in Bahia state Brazil. I had been down an adjacent highway once, on a 2 day trip from Brazilia. There's some kind of geoguesser zen leading to a mostly lucky guess like that, which was the appeal to me, plus seeing lots of new places.

(Openguessr seems much easier since it keeps google maps's usual street name markings.)
posted by joeyh at 8:30 AM on March 29

I do wonder what that document will do to AI after scraping and training, since it describes each place fixed in an instant of time. "This is a city with a beautiful sunset. The sun can be a little higher in some places."
posted by joeyh at 8:38 AM on March 29 [3 favorites]

I do wonder what that document will do to AI after scraping and training

Apparently the best Geoguessr AIs notice things like smudges on the lenses of camera cars. (Go to 23:00 for the explanation and the developer who looks like a 1930s physicist.)
posted by clawsoon at 9:15 AM on March 29 [1 favorite]

I loved playing Geoguessr until Google decided to squeeze them for API access, and then they decided to fleece the userbase on top of that. It's quite a bummer because I loved playing that game but there is no possible universe it costs $60 a year for the data, and that's what they want to charge users.
posted by tclark at 10:07 AM on March 29 [2 favorites]

A 170 page document in French, and manually translated into English. Lovely madness.
posted by phooky at 10:46 AM on March 29 [1 favorite]

It's amazing how GeoGuessr has exploded and is now a legit e-sport. I mean look at their coverage of the GeoGuessr world cup finals and it's hard to not get hyped.
posted by zsazsa at 11:59 AM on March 29

Count the straps on the roof rack

My brain keeps trying to fit that title into the chorus of Elton John's 'Tiny Dancer'...
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:44 PM on March 29 [3 favorites]

My brain keeps trying to fit that title into the chorus of Elton John's 'Tiny Dancer'...

Not just me, then?

I play a fair amount of Geoguessr on a daily basis and don't mind paying them or creating an account in order to play what is effectively an online multi-player game. That seems pretty par for the course these days.
posted by Inkoate at 1:54 PM on March 29 [1 favorite]

This shows up in my IG feed quite frequently - someone finding which road they are on in Papua New Guinea within a few hundred feet in under 20 seconds because of a blurry license plate clue ......always blows me away..... had no idea about the World Cup - so that's a new hole to fall down....
posted by inflatablekiwi at 2:13 PM on March 29

I'm pretty good in Ulaanbataar but once you get outside of that I'm pretty much randomly dropping pins. So thanks, this is very helpful!
posted by rednikki at 3:29 PM on March 29 [1 favorite]

A similar game that I have enjoyed immensely for months now is Timeguessr. Five photos, establish date/location for each.
posted by user92371 at 5:26 PM on March 29 [3 favorites]

My brain keeps trying to fit that title into the chorus of Elton John's 'Tiny Dancer'...

Goodbye Erdenet Road
Where the Ulaanbaatarians howl
posted by credulous at 6:59 PM on March 29 [1 favorite]