Geo Challenge Tips and Tricks Part II - Map Mayhem

This is the second in a series of posts on the Facebook application Geo Challenge. This post will give you a couple of pointers on getting your score up in the second discipline, Map Mayhem. Again, our goal is to get you to 30,000 points.

Remember that these tips will help you increase your score, these are not cheats, but rather techniques to help you nudge your score just a touch higher. Nothing replaces a basic knowledge of Geography. HOWEVER, learning the ins and outs of how the game works can make you a BETTER player and earn a higher score than even a seasoned globe trotter. Who cares if you can't find Cambodia on a map? What you need to know is that when you see the straight line on the right side of the circular country you click the Ca...... on the right side of the screen!

This level displays the outline of a country and you have to pick the name of that country out of a list of four. Since there are only four choices this level can move fast and thus be a great point generator. However, this level is very tricky.

When you are looking at a map you have several cues to help you with what country you are looking at. The big two cues are location relative to other countries and size. At the beginning of each Map Mayhem round, these two cues are removed and you are left to base your decision by shape alone. This is harder than it sounds.

The good news is that, much like the Suitcase Shuffle round, you don't need to know every country. You're not going to need to know the differences in shape between Rwanda and Burundi. You will however need to be able to differentiate between Japan and New Zealand. While that may be easy on a map, with none of the normal cues, this is pretty hard.

So here are a couple of pointers.

1. Repeats of correct answers are infrequent - The exceptions I can think of include South Africa and South Korea. In general though, once you pick out a country, it won't be the correct answer again. So if you've already found Slovakia, you can pretty much forget about it for the remainder of the round.

2. Go to your home, that's your home...are you too good for your home? Answer me! - Cursor placement is again critical. You have to be ready to deliberately move to any of the four options. I suggest your home position in this discipline to be just off the left side of the country names, just above the middle of the third country down. This way you can see the whole country and read all the answers and still have to make a deliberate move both up or down and slightly to the right.

3. Don't think, react - This can backfire on you but to get a top notch score you have to rely on a little luck. When the country appears, if you know it, say the name in your head. If you see that is is Ireland, scan the choices for an I. You'll sometimes get Iceland, but the time advantage you can gain from a touch of luck will be what helps you get a higher score.

4. Associate shapes and names - This is probably just a fancy word for learning. Figure out a way to remember the shape and the word you see on the right. With practice this becomes like second nature. You probably do this in your daily life anyway. Italy is a boot, Michigan is a mitten, the state of ohio is a joke, etc. This game is no different except you don't need to know where these countries are, you just need to learn the names of some new shapes. Just like in Flag Spotter, you aren't going to need to know every country, only about 60 or so.

Here are a couple examples of how I relate shapes to names

Croatia looks like a C
Kyrgyzstan is the backwards C
Ecuador is the goldfish that swims to the top
Latvia is that f'ed up L
Austria has the panhandle
Afghanistan is the backwards Austria


You don't need to use these, this is just to give you an idea of how it all works.

5. Don't waste your time. The longer you wait, the more the cues on location and size come in to play. By the time this occurs though you're already losing valuable time. If seeing that Zambia is to the East of Angola is really going to help you, then go ahead and wait but chances are if you don't know it....you don't know it. I always struggled with Mongolia for this reason, it doesn't look like anything and without a size reference I could never figure out what it was. So, to fix this I've added it to the list in number 4 and now when I see "the one I don't know what it is" I click on Mongolia. Even Steven.

6. Trial and error - In the end you're going to have to learn, the key is to not realize that you're learning. For the purposes of this round and this game its not about knowing the countries its strictly learning the names of new shapes.

I hope this helps boost your score in Map Mayhem. Remember we still have TWO more rounds to get you to 30k points in Geo Challenge. Keep practicing and come back soon for not only more tips and tricks but a study guide I'm working on.

Happy Geoing.

For more Geography fun and a place to test your new found knowledge check out www.geosense.net

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.

This Michael Phelps thing

In August of last year Michael Phelps was the unequaled star of the Olympics in Beijing (and remember its Bei- JING). I would still argue that Usain Bolt's accomplishments were more remarkable but I wouldn't guess that the giant of a Jamaican hasn't had his share of mistakes and transgressions, like Phelps.

There are a couple things about the fallout from this incident that I find fascinating.

-From a somewhat juvenile standpoint, I find it funny when adults (my self not included) use the words "marijuana pipe". It just sounds funny and misplaced.

-The fact that Michael Phelps only receives an 1800/month stipend from USA swimming (at first this sounded like a lot but then I actually realized how little it is).

-That people refuse to believe that someone who was the face of the nation for the duration of Olympics can actually have faults and that the aww-shucks media coverage might not actually be reflective of the actual person.

-And lastly, that I'm actually writing about this. After all, the Olympics were what, 6 months ago? Who cares about swimming anymore :)

One Pavilion to Another

Blogging is fun. It requires a certain amount of dedication and time. I'd say the last post on about half the blogs out there deal with apologies from the author about how they've neglected their audience...and those posts are often a year old (I've also found this to be the case with b-list star's websites - why I know that we'll leave up to your imagination).

So I guess this is my version of that so common post. But I had a good reason (and now it sounds even more like all the rest). I don't have a desktop at home, only a laptop and one that is about 4.5 years old at that! In part due to its age and in (large) part due to the visiting of sites not suited for work and some sites that are REALLY not suited for work, my computer was rendered ultimately useless and pathetic. My old HP Pavilion served me well, but it was time to move on.

...to ANOTHER HP Pavilion. Installation was a breeze and I have a computer in good enough shape to type blog posts again. Given that, and the ever changing soap opera that is my life, you'll be hearing more from me once again.

6 weeks to Africa!