PDD Geoguessr Challenge #5: Independent Booksellers of Northern Minnesota

When the days get shorter and the nights get colder, curling up on the couch with a good book becomes one of the best ways to spend an afternoon. But first you have to find yourself a good book. This GeoGuessr Challenge is all about independent bookstores in Northern Minnesota. And for the purposes of this challenge, Northern Minnesota is any city or town at or above Highway 2.

Play the challenge to test your knowledge of booksellers in the region or just play to discover your new favorite bookstore. The challenge consists of five rounds with a time limit of four minutes per round. A more detailed description of the Geoguessr game rules appears below the challenge links.

PDD Geoguessr Challenge #5: Independent Booksellers of Northern Minnesota

PDD Geoguesr Challenge #6: Don’t Look Back

Enger Tower, as seen when facing away from Enger Tower

As stated in the introduction to the PDD Geoguessr challenges, these first three posts have been a test to see if people are interested in playing. If there is enough of a response, the series will likely become a twice a month feature on Perfect Duluth Day. If very few people play, the series will end with the challenge below.

Since this may be the final challenge, I decided to make it a real challenge. The rounds are only 90 seconds long and the rules are incredibly restrictive: no moving, no panning and no zooming. You will see a still image and have to guess the location. If that sounds impossible, there is a bit of a twist that may be of some help. In every round, if you were able to look behind you, you would see a place in Duluth that you would almost certainly recognize immediately. Except, as stated above, you can’t turn around, which makes these locations considerably less recognizable.

PDD Geoguesr Challenge #6: Don’t Look Back

How to Play Geoguessr

GeoGuessr can be played on a laptop or desktop and on Android or IoS mobile devices with the GeoGuessr app. Just click on the link that fits how you play and create an account to start playing.

Every game consists of five locations based on a theme chosen by the game creator. You are shown a Streetview image stripped of all the informational labels that are normally overlayed onto the image. Unless the challenge specifically restricts it, you can move around and look for clues like street signs and business names to find out where you are. The image below shows a basic overview of the Geoguessr screen layout and controls.

Once you think you know the location — or are nearly out of time — you use the inset map to place your marker where you believe the round started. After you hit “Guess,” you will see how close you were to the correct location and how many points your guess earned. The closer you are to the location, the higher your score, with a maximum score of 5,000 points. On a map that covers a small area, like the Gary-New Duluth neighborhood, being off by a few blocks will cost you a lot of points. On a map that has locations from around the world, you will get nearly all the points just for finding the right city. The maximum error for a perfect score also changes by map size, but in general if you are within 50 feet (15 meters) you will always get the full 5,000 points.

Not often, but every now and then, GeoGuessr gets a little buggy. If the underlying Streetview imagery has changed since the game was made, sometimes it repeats the last round, gives a black screen, or doesn’t allow a guess to be made. If that happens, please let me know and I’ll update the challenge.

At the end of the five rounds, an overview screen shows your score for each round in addition to your guessing time and how far off you were from the correct location. The correct locations and your guesses are also shown on a map and you can click on any of the round numbers to review the locations. Additionally, the final screen in a challenge will show how you rank compared to the top scorers of the challenge. When choosing your user name, keep in mind that your user name and score per round will be visible to other players of the challenge.

If you have ideas for future challenges, please share them in the comments below. Unless, of course, this is the end, in which case, thanks to those who participated!