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