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Where in the USA is this?

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Re: Where in the USA is this?

#181

Post by TeMPOraL »

sbierwagen wrote: post #180
TeMPOraL wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manuals in the 90s were sometimes actually fun . I still occasionally reminisce about that time in primary school, when one of the classmates bought (well, his parents did, I suppose) an original, boxed copy of StarCraft. He used to briefly lend the CD, and at some point copies of the CD started circulating, and he would just share the CD key with a few people - but in between, he lent me the manual . I think I was t…

I fondly remember the manuals for Homeworld 1 and Homeworld Cataclysm. More than a hundred pages each, the second contains extensive in-universe descriptions of the units, talking about dispenser jamming issues in the minelayer corvettes and the odd center of gravity on the interceptor fighter due to its offset gun. Complete fluff, of course, with zero impact on gameplay. Perfect nerd bait, like those giant books of…

Thanks for the link; I played the OG Homeworld a bit, but got it IIRC from one of those game magazines with CDs, and if there was a copy of the manual there, it must have been digital, and I didn't notice.

Skimming from the dozens of pages I would love to have read back then, I think this may be the case of writers creating a detailed setting for the game early on - only fraction of it could become part of the gameplay, but presumably designers and writers were using it as a reference. And, come release time, it didn't hurt to include the world-building bits - it might just get some players to enjoy the game more (I know it would've had this effect on me), while the alternative, back then, was for those details to never see the light of day.

And/or maybe they hoped to make some follow-up games, or tie-in novels, etc. - then including those details was both important to solidify the fictional universe, and would drive some secondary sales for the game itself.

Re: Where in the USA is this?

#182

Post by atleastoptimal »

bhaney wrote: post #60

The most interesting part of this to me is the UX feedback from the comments here. Many people, myself included, say they had no idea at first that the photos were all meant to be from the same location, even though the very first sentence of the instructions was "There are five photos from the same place." I'm pretty sure I read the instructions, I guess that just didn't register? An opportunity to reflect on how ha…

An option would be to change the name so it communicates the goal as clearly as possible. People read it and interpret "this" as referring to a specific photo, not that the photos come from the same place.

Re: Where in the USA is this?

#183

Post by RheingoldRiver »

tofof wrote: post #100

Unimpressed by this game. The accuracy on the scale is off by as much as 25%, as can be seen here: https://i.imgur.com/NOvqCnV.png . As the only information you're given other than a new photo is the distance, this is a serious problem. What's worse, the 'correct' location radius doesn't even include the locations where all the photos were taken! SPOILER FOR GAME #60: Game #60 has a clue that shows YOU ARE HERE: http…

Man AND the ruler isnt the same size every time.

I kept getting wrong answer after wrong answer despite the fact that I was CONVINCED I was triangulating properly.....

But no! The size of the ruler kept changing!! I was using a constant 80px for it, and it was changing by as much as 30px as you zoomed in and out.

What a waste of time.

However I did get within 7mi once despite this terrible UX, because I saw a pic and was like "goddamn if that's not in non-Chicago Illinois" so I was within 200mi on my first guess and knew how to constrain my further guesses.

Re: Where in the USA is this?

#184

Post by [deleted] »

bhaney wrote: post #60

The most interesting part of this to me is the UX feedback from the comments here. Many people, myself included, say they had no idea at first that the photos were all meant to be from the same location, even though the very first sentence of the instructions was "There are five photos from the same place." I'm pretty sure I read the instructions, I guess that just didn't register? An opportunity to reflect on how ha…

[deleted]

Re: Where in the USA is this?

#185

Post by Zandikar »

ethanbond wrote: post #140
tasuki wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Interesting concept, but poorly communicated. It was communicated in the very first sentence of the instructions. It's just that both you and me failed to read the instructions. We have no one to blame but ourselves.

No, this is a design problem. The fact that so many missed it is just evidence of how subtly tricky good design is.

Correct, this is a design problem, but no one's pointed out what the specific problem is: The "Instruction" that most people perceive is the title of this post on HackerNews.

By the time you actual visit the site you ALREADY have an idea of what it's supposed to be about, the colors draw your eyes to "Here's how you can tell your score, press here to start" and skip the fine print entirely. People MIGHT skim the "fine print" that is the actual instructions with key details, and what do you read when you skim? The first part of a paragraph/sentence to establish a subject and action. And what's the First part of that sentence? The same thing the title of this post told you.

"Oh, yeah, I already know this"

Skip to the pretty colors telling you how to score your guess and start the game.

EDIT: Also, the UI after you click through to start also assumes the user read the instructions, instead of trying to organically guide them to the same conclusions. /EDIT.

Cue so many people wondering how they could miss something laid out so clearly in front of them.

Re: Where in the USA is this?

#186

Post by stephen_g »

bhaney wrote: post #60

The most interesting part of this to me is the UX feedback from the comments here. Many people, myself included, say they had no idea at first that the photos were all meant to be from the same location, even though the very first sentence of the instructions was "There are five photos from the same place." I'm pretty sure I read the instructions, I guess that just didn't register? An opportunity to reflect on how ha…

Ah, that explains why it only showed one flag at the end - I was thinking, "but where were all the other photos from?" I totally missed that information!

Maybe if I hadn't played things like Geoguesser and was expecting it to work the same way, I would have read it a bit more carefully.

Re: Where in the USA is this?

#187

Post by jorisboris »

Arainach wrote: post #64

It's an interesting site, but why do so many of these guessing games have single page applications without state in the URL? https://guessthe.game/ functions the same way - please include the day in the URL so that if I want to go back through your backlog (or show someone something from your backlog) it's easy. If I snoop the traffic and watch the redirects I sometimes can: https://guessthe.game/?fpg=110 But this si…

noob question, but which frameworks would you recommend to use instead?

I'm using React because it's easy to re-use components. Which alternatives are there for that?

Re: Where in the USA is this?

#188

Post by Arainach »

jorisboris wrote: post #187
Arainach wrote: post #64

It's an interesting site, but why do so many of these guessing games have single page applications without state in the URL? https://guessthe.game/ functions the same way - please include the day in the URL so that if I want to go back through your backlog (or show someone something from your backlog) it's easy. If I snoop the traffic and watch the redirects I sometimes can: https://guessthe.game/?fpg=110 But this si…

noob question, but which frameworks would you recommend to use instead? I'm using React because it's easy to re-use components. Which alternatives are there for that?

I would expect all frameworks to have support for URL parameters.

For React I've used react-router for this:

https://ui.dev/react-router-url-parameters

Re: Where in the USA is this?

#189

Post by ethanbond »

Zandikar wrote: post #185
ethanbond wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is a design problem. The fact that so many missed it is just evidence of how subtly tricky good design is.

Correct, this is a design problem, but no one's pointed out what the specific problem is: The "Instruction" that most people perceive is the title of this post on HackerNews. By the time you actual visit the site you ALREADY have an idea of what it's supposed to be about, the colors draw your eyes to "Here's how you can tell your score, press here to start" and skip the fine print entirely. People MIGHT skim the "fin…

That’s a great diagnosis! Though yes I agree, that should all be moot because of the solution in your edit.

Re: Where in the USA is this?

#190

Post by bnralt »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #171
allannienhuis wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for some, reading the manual was also fun. For most, reading the manual was an admission of failure.

Manuals in the 90s were sometimes actually fun . I still occasionally reminisce about that time in primary school, when one of the classmates bought (well, his parents did, I suppose) an original, boxed copy of StarCraft. He used to briefly lend the CD, and at some point copies of the CD started circulating, and he would just share the CD key with a few people - but in between, he lent me the manual . I think I was t…

Also interesting that if you read the original Starcraft manual, you'd notice that there were massive retcons as early as Brood War (particularly with the Terrans).

Some board games come with pretty hefty manuals, still. Twilight Imperium comes with a whole separate lore booklet that has nothing to do with playing the game.

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