I am missing something. It started me in Ireland - I am in North America
Show HN: A game that tests how well you know your local area
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Re: Show HN: A game that tests how well you know your local area
#22This is great! > The map tiles are loaded in from two OpenStreetMap tile providers (one with street names, one without). You probably don't need to do that. You can use the same tiles, the same stylesheet even, and just hide the street names layer in code: https://docs.mapbox.com/mapbox-gl-js/example/toggle-layers/
I'll look into this. Since I wrote that initially, the no-streets OSM map was discontinued so I switched to Mapbox & Maptiler. But I do use two full layers (one custom one without street names) rather than doing what you suggest. Hopefully it's not a paid feature.
Re: Show HN: A game that tests how well you know your local area
#23I am missing something. It started me in Ireland - I am in North America
It must not have been able to detect where you are located. You can zoom out and click/tap the map to choose the location. And it'll remember that location next time.
It defaults to Ireland in this case because I'm Irish.
Re: Show HN: A game that tests how well you know your local area
#24adam, I loved this and also shared it in my family WhatsApp group. we all had a lot of fun playing it, thanks for the great idea and execution! one minor suggestion: consider adding a cross or some other indicator at the circle of the screen during the map selection stage. I found that sometimes you want to move the circle a few metres in some direction, but it's difficult to guess/tap where the new center should be…
Great to hear! Thanks for the feedback. An alternative might be to make the circle draggable
Re: Show HN: A game that tests how well you know your local area
#25Fun, but you know what would be really cool ? A Blue Book mode. For those unfamiliar Blue Book refers to test "runs" done by London taxi drivers when they do The Knowledge[1]. It would be fun to be given, say "Australian High Commission, WC2 to Paddington Station, W2" and have to place multiple pins on the map and then graded on your result. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=my4lDxOCCyg
So is the goal is to mark the route you would take? Sounds interesting.
Semi-related, it could show you two pins and ask you how long it would take to drive between them at a given time of day. It would compare your guess to Google Maps or similar.
Re: Show HN: A game that tests how well you know your local area
#26I am missing something. It started me in Ireland - I am in North America
It must not have been able to detect where you are located. You can zoom out and click/tap the map to choose the location. And it'll remember that location next time. It defaults to Ireland in this case because I'm Irish.
Thanks. Using Firefox on Windows laptop, FYI.
Re: Show HN: A game that tests how well you know your local area
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
It must not have been able to detect where you are located. You can zoom out and click/tap the map to choose the location. And it'll remember that location next time. It defaults to Ireland in this case because I'm Irish.
Thanks. Using Firefox on Windows laptop, FYI.
Thanks. It's a third-party server-side API I use so it would be just based on your ID address I think. You can go here to see where it thinks you are: https://cloudflare-pages-geolocation.pages.dev. However, this can change if you reload it minutes apart or if you turn on/off WiFi, etc. It's not 100% reliable
Re: Show HN: A game that tests how well you know your local area
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks. Using Firefox on Windows laptop, FYI.
Thanks. It's a third-party server-side API I use so it would be just based on your ID address I think. You can go here to see where it thinks you are: https://cloudflare-pages-geolocation.pages.dev . However, this can change if you reload it minutes apart or if you turn on/off WiFi, etc. It's not 100% reliable
That give me a very accurate location! Not using any VPN, etc.
Re: Show HN: A game that tests how well you know your local area
#29Hey Adam! This is awesome! Have you ever considered using something like MapLibre as an open source alternative to MapBox?
Re: Show HN: A game that tests how well you know your local area
#30This is crazy hard it covers my whole city and parts of the metropolitan area. I guess you will have to play this a lot to get any good at it if you are living in a medium sized city in central Europe. :) Edit: I think you should be able to make the radius a little bit smaller or add an option to choose from different radii.
Great feedback, thanks. I also considered factoring in street length for difficulty modes. My dad has gotten a perfect score a couple of times. Cork isn't huge but that's still very difficult. He's a human map
There's a tiny distance between this game and actual mnemonic techniques used by world champion memory athletes. Method of loci capitalizes on the fact that the brain stores memories using a map like structure, as a result of grid cells.
If you can, get a cabby in London with "The Knowledge" to do a session. Such cabbies are among elite humans, of a handful of disciplines known to alter the structure of their brains in a predictable way. Like Shaolin monks, Australian aboriginal shamans, and others, they've got an amazing superpower.
Neat game, and fascinating peripheral subjects, thanks!