Geo Challenge Tricks of the Trade - Suitcase Shuffle

The good people at Playfish have created an amazingly addictive game called Geo Challenge which can be added as an application to your facebook page. Simply search "Geo Challenge" in the facebook search box and your first result will be the Geo Challenge app where you will see that there are more than 4 million active monthly users. Those are serious numbers, even for Facebook.

As a geography buff myself, I found this game to be not only entertaining but also quite challenging. The game tests your knowledge and reflexes on four different disciplines: Flags, country name, city location and landmark location.

As of this moment my high score is 45,687, much higher than my less nerdy friends that I have convinced to play along. But that's only because they haven't followed my advice!

While you won't find me on any high score boards, (which you will find are all filled with cheaters) I've learned some tricks to the game. With practice and a little advice I'll teach you how to score over 30,000 points on Geo Challenge legitimately!

This post will give you some tips to improve your score on Suitcase Shuffle. I'll come back with posts on the other disciplines soon and ultimately I plan to include a study guide post.

This discipline tests your ability to pick out the flag of a named country against a field of three (for the first three rounds) or six (everything after the first three).

1. Make sure you have a fast internet connection. Anything less than a high speed connection will not load fast enough for you to get a high score. With practice, your aim for this level should be near 10,000 - but don't get discouraged.

2. Find a "home" spot for your cursor. I use the middle flag and later the middle lower flag. After you click on a flag, immediately place your cursor in your home position. It's more important that your moves are deliberate and accurate than fast. Far too often I would try to move the cursor too fast, over shoot the flag and click on empty space. When you get faster, a click on nothing is a high score killer.

3. Sometimes what you don't know can help you.

Notice that earlier I said you need the ability to pick out a flag against a field, NOT know the flag. Knowing the flags certainly helps but it is not the only way. For example, I constantly mix up the flags of Spain and Mexico (I'm waiting for some interesting comments on that) knowing them doesn't' help me at all. I know both of them but something in my brain seems to mix them up.

This is most helpful when you get in to the later rounds. Remembering the difference between the flags of Senegal and Congo might be hard but if you need to find the flag of Congo, you'll be able to eliminate the ones you do know, giving you a much better chance.

For the first ten or so rounds, you'll want to have a pretty good base knowledge. Here's the ones you need to work on actually knowing and memorizing and they'll help you later on. United States, United Kingdom, England, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Mexico, China, Japan, Germany, Albania (trust me).

4. Its written all over the flags

This is not only the easiest tip but will likely help you the most, especially in the early stages of practice. Most of the more obscure flags have hints about their name right on the flag. Central African Republic has a stripe down the middle, making it stand out from all the rest of the African flags. Solomon Islands has stars to represent islands. Most of the countries with two names i.e. St. Kitts and Nevis have something that denotes "2". Tonga has pluses on the flag that look an awful lot like a "T". This isn't a sure fire measure but it will greatly improve your chances of guessing right. Antarctica? The flag used in this game is just a picture of the continent. The Vatican...money in the bank.

5. Continental divide

For a continent so diverse, the flags of Africa sure look an awful lot a like. Many of those used in the game incorporate green yellow and red/orange. Just by looking at a flag in this game, you can guess with about 80% certainty if it is from Africa. The good news is that most of the time there aren't two African flags in a series of six.

The same is true for many Central America flags. I couldn't pick out the flag of Honduras vs. the flag of Nicaragua but you can spot a flag from Central America in less than a second and the chances of two flags from the same area being in a grouping of six are slim. Use this to your advantage.

The trick is that you have to use these tips together. When you come to a screen, pick out the ones you know its NOT, figure out if the country name sounds like it is from Africa or Central America and if so, pick one of the African flags or the Central American flags. Be deliberate and take your time. It's probably better to let the game remove a few flags than to guess wrong blindly. But with these tips in mind your guess will be an educated one.

6. Seeing is believing - Its easy to sit back and take a passive approach to suitcase shuffle but you have to squeeze every millisecond out of each question. When the flags begin to descend so to does the name and you have to know what your looking for prior to letting your brain pick up on the subtle visual cues in each flag. Don't wait for the flags to settle before you start to read the name!

7. Don't be discouraged. Out of all the countries in the world, there are only fifty or sixty you're likely to run into. Pay attention to the ones you miss and after a few times you'll find that when you see "Palau" you know that its teal with a yellow circle even though if someone asked you what the flag of Palau looked like you might not have a clue. You will inevitably mix up the flags of Romania and Chad or Belarus and Portugal, let it go!

Good luck, have fun and let me know how you do and if you have any tips. I'll get to the other disciplines as well as more tips for here soon.