Location Taken: Seattle, Washington
Time Taken: June 2008
I followed a link to a unique online game a few days ago, and well, my Mom and I have been somewhat addicted to it ever since then.
It’s called Pursued, and has a fairly simple premise. You’ve been kidnapped, transported via who knows what path, and now you’ve escaped and must figure out where you are. You’ve only got a limited amount of time to wander around looking for any clues, lest you be caught once more.
The really interesting thing is that it used the Google Maps Streetview images for the places you’re dropped into. These are real cities, with all the clutter and oddities that real life brings. And if you fail, they do not tell you the answer. The only way to figure it out is to look around for a while until enough clues fall into place to tell you where in the world you are. It’s a real test of your navigation and perception skills.
And these aren’t just the big cities, like Rome or Paris (though both of those are certainly in there). There are also smaller cities, and even some times when you’re dropped into what looks like a rural area and the first step is finding the city in the first place.
I got through all of the basic set of levels without missing a one.
Some of them were very close though, and I have missed one in a later set. Only one, and only because I was tired and my brain was convinced I was in the country of El Salvador rather than the city of Salvador, Brazil, but still, I’m glad my geography skills are as strong as ever.
To add to the fun, people can create their own levels, so there are over 1500 places to be lost in. It’s not a game you can exhaust in 10 minutes. Heck, some of the levels give you 20 minutes to figure it out and you need every last one of them.
Well, unless you’re lucky and happen to turn down just the right corner to find the repair shop van that tells you the city in Spain you’re in is Madrid, which you had narrowed it down to because everything is in Spanish and that one website listed on that advertisement ended in “.es”…
It gives a really interesting look at how similar and yet different the lives people live around the world are, and hey, if you ever actually get so lost you don’t know what country you’re in, much less the city, these skills can come in handy! So give it a whirl and see how far you get!
