WorldGuessr

WorldGuessr sets you down somewhere on Google Maps with no label, no compass and no hint, and asks you to work out where in the world you are. Most of the time it is an obscure stretch of long, winding road, so the game is really about what you can find by moving: a coastline, a mountain range, a street sign, the shape of a roof, the language on a billboard.

You can wander as far as you like. Read the small things - which side of the road the traffic drives on, how the markings are painted, whether the trees and the soil look like anywhere you know - and when you are ready, put your guess down and see how close you came. The nearer you land to the real spot, the better the round.

It runs in your browser with nothing to download, and it is played with a mouse, which suits a desktop: the game is a map, and a map wants room. Every round starts somewhere new.

Tips for reading a road

• Start with the language. One sign can narrow the world to a country, or a handful, faster than anything else on the screen.
• Note which side they drive on. That single detail halves the map before you have read a word.
• Follow the road. You are rarely as lost as the first frame suggests - a town, a junction or a signpost is usually a short distance away.
• Guess rather than dither. Sitting still teaches you nothing; a wrong guess only costs the distance you were going to lose anyway.

WorldGuessr is an educational game made by Coder Gautam and published on GameDistribution. It plays with a mouse on desktop.