Panoramio Hangout game

In a nutshell

The Panoramio Hangout Game lets you compete with your friends to find out where a photo was taken while traveling around the world with Google Maps through stunning Panoramio photos. If you are the best, you get to choose your next destination.

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Game mechanics

The goal of this game is to guess where a photo was taken from. You compete with your friends to make the best guess.

The game is played in rounds. In every round, one player is the round master and the other players are the guessers. The round master chooses a photo. Then the other players take guesses at where the photo was taken from. When the time is up, the player who made the best guess wins, and becomes the round master for the next round.

In more detail…

1. The round master sees a map. He or she can drag and zoom the map, or enter a place name in the search box. Meanwhile, the guessers need to wait.
2. Next to the map, the round master sees a selection of photos from the area shown in the map.
3. The round master chooses a photo by clicking on it.
4. If the round master is satisfied with the photo, he can click on "start round with this photo" to start the round.
5. Then all the other players will see the photo, a world map, and a countdown.
6. Each guesser can drag and zoom the map, or enter a place name in the search box. Once he thinks he knows where the photo was taken from, he can click on the map to drop a pin at the chosen position. Until the round ends, he can click more times to change his guess. Meanwhile, the round master will see the guesses of every player.
7. When the countdown reaches zero, the round ends. The player whose guess is closest to the place where the photo was taken wins. Every guesser gets some points based on how good his guess was. The winner becomes the round master for the next round.

Tips

• You need to guess the place where the camera stood when the photo was taken, not the place that is shown on the photo. So you thought this was an easy round, because you recognized the Empire State Building in New York? Think again. All other players will recognize it too, but who will find the exact corner where the photographer was standing?
• You can change your guess any number of times until the time runs out. So start with a rough guess, and get closer and closer if you have time. It's better to be wrong by a thousand miles, than not to guess at all!
• Precision counts. We have designed our scores so that every little improvement counts. Once you've found the right country, try to guess the city too. Then the building, then the exact point on the street. Or, if it's a countryside picture, try to find the correct point in the path, not just the correct mountain. That is, if you have time. Every little improvement will give you a score boost that can be very valuable, if you play multiple rounds, to make up for an unlucky guess later.
• It's in a Hangout! You can ask the round master for hints, you can send other players on the wrong track; you can all gang up against the round master, and instead of competing to make the best guess, try to be the round master that chooses the most difficult picture. It's your game.
• You make it fun: If you are the round master, you need to choose a good photo. Sunsets look the same everywhere, so the game will be boring if you choose a photo of one. If the photo is too hard, you may want to give some hints.
• The more people you play with, the higher the scores get. If you want to improve your high score, play with more friends. You'll see that you will get higher scores even though your guesses are equally successful if more people take a guess in that round.

The photos

The photos used in the game come from Panoramio, a community-powered web site for exploring places through photography: cities, natural wonders, or anywhere you might go. Panoramio is a showcase for the talents of its contributors, a place to see the world, and a community to discuss about photography.