{ 2007 12 04 }

Can You Beat A Geography Geek At His Own Game?

If you’ve been reading this blog religiously, you might have already chanced upon my minor episodes of self-promotion. I’m a big geography geek and I’ve been one for as long as I can remember (try age seven). That’s why when I found about Travelpod‘s nifty Traveler IQ application on Facebook, I was very excited to pit my cartographic memory against the best that the world could offer. The game basically challenges you to pin point particular locales on the nearly featureless world map. Of course, it can be prone to cheating so it’s a good thing that there’s a 10-second time limit. The closer you are to the actual location, the higher the score. You also get bonus points for being quick.

Just like any other game, it starts of easy and the locations are places that most people could point to on a globe. The game requires you to achieve a certain number of points per stage (the game has 12 stages) to proceed to the next one.

To my disappointment, my performance was hardly world class.

 

Though my score is already high relative to my Facebook friends, it pains me that more than 10,000 people have beaten my score. The top score is 708,457 and that’s just simply way higher than my paltry 619,525 point total. It’s hard to be precise in the game.

Why is the game hard?

  • It’s not simply about knowing what a country looks like in a map. To be able to get good scores, you must know where the actual cities lie within the territory of that country. You think you know that US well? You’re probably used to a map with the 48 continental states delineated. Try pointing at Des Moines without knowing where state boundaries lie.
  • As I said, the map is virtually featureless. There are countries that are hardly visible. There are plenty of countries in Europe that are less than half an inch across on your screen. Islands in the Caribbean are even harder to see (if they even exist in the map at all).
  • If you’re a geography geek worth your salt, you’ll (and should) know where Ushuaia (the city closest to the South Pole) and Vladivostok are. But would you know where Boquet Island and Iqualit are? There are a couple of places here that I’ve never heard of before! At least it’s a learning experience, right?
  • Precision is a major issue. Being off by just a few pixels will cost you points. The closest I’ve been to a location was 2 kilometers. This was for Edinburgh Castle. It’s really tough.

If you have the time, please do try it. And yeah, tell me about your score. I’d like to publicly challenge the following people:

1. Ronnie – He’s number two on my list and he’s a real seasoned traveler.

2. Doc Ian – He has beaten me TWICE in the UP College of Medicine’s annual trivia contest so any opportunity to beat him will have to be exploited to the hilt. Haha.

3. Adrian – Easily one of the most competitive people I know. He’ll definitely give this his best shot. Do visit his blog! It’s very informative.

4. Drew – He’s my blockmate and we’re so geeky of Geography that it is usually our topic of choice outside of discussing possible medical differentials. I really thought he could beat me but he didn’t even get out of Level 11! Hahaha. :p

5. JP Esteban – Trivia master extraordinaire! Yes, he also beat me at the College’s  trivia contest.  He’s selling yummy Belgian Chocolates by the way!

6. You!

Good luck!

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Posted by benj on Tuesday, December 4th, 2007, at 2:05 am, and filed under Uncategorized.

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