Geoguessr is addictive; it really, really is

 Posted by at 1:09 am  2 Responses »
May 232013
 

geoguessr1My name is Evan and I’m a Geoguessr addict. There I’ve said it.

Geoguessr is one of the simplest, cleverest and most addictive games I’ve stumbled across in ages. Combine a travelogue with a treasure hunt with some real-life detecting and you come close to describing this little gem.

Basically you are taken to a point in the world in Google Streetview. You then have to try to guess where you are. The closer your guess is to the actual position, the more points you get. On it’s face that might sound simple, and sometimes it is. If you land outside a clear landmark like a sign-posted hotel it’s not to difficult to work out where you are. But if you end up in an open stretch of road surrounded by hills it becomes more challenging.

The fun part is trying to extract clues from your surroundings to work out where you could be. Look for signs; see if passing cars are driving on the left- or right-hand side of the road; look at how people are dressed. It’s a real puzzle-solver using the real World. And to top it off you get to see views of places you’d otherwise never look. I particularly like some of the obscure places like tiny Alaskan towns or road-side stops in Africa – places I’d never think you look at in the ordinary course of events.

Really the only criticism I have of the game is that there is clearly a limitation on destinations. I’m guessing that that’s because a completely random system would have you landing in the oceans a lot. As it is, Europe doesn’t pop up as often as I’d expect or like and the only Asian destination I’ve hit is Japan. But this is a little thing.

Geoguessr is completely free and runs in a web browser. Just steer yourself to geoguessr.com.

Part of what makes this little game so addictive is the urge to get a slightly better score each time around. Each round consists of five places and the best I’ve managed to score is around 26,000 points. But each time a round finishes you’re immediately presented with another destination and the urge to try to do better is almost irresistible. Please, someone help me. I need an intervention.

ABS creates a game: contains real data, traces of comedy and some very dodgy puns

 Posted by at 7:01 am  No Responses »
May 212013
 

runthattownI’m not entirely sure what the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) was thinking when it decided to create a game, but it’s a pretty neat piece of work as it turns out.

Run That Town is an iOS game that’s a little like SimCity but based on real census data. You choose a suburb or town and then make a series of development decisions. The correct choices get you money and influence to spend on further decisions, incorrect ones leave you increasingly politically impotent. Because the algorithm behind the game uses real data it provides an absolutely fascinating insight into the place where you live. In my first attempt I failed horribly as my instinctive decisions were hated by the reality of my fellow residents. The second time around I paid attention to the demographics and rejected anything that smacked of public transport or schools and managed to achieve maximum money and influence for most of the game. Clearly playing in a different suburb would require a different approach.

Now I actually was on my local Council for some time and I couldn’t help being struck by how true-to-life some of this decision-making was. Do we really need another pre-school? Yes but it’s not going to be popular with the older child-free people who make up most of the community. A cinema complex looks good from a distance, but not when you’re dealing with increased traffic and parking. For what’s basically a simple game it can be quite thought-provoking.

Don’t download this game expecting endless hours of gameplay. It’s entertaining and thought-provoking for a couple of plays, but you soon realise what it takes to win and the challenge evaporates, especially if you play your own suburb. But, while it’s no Plants vs Zombies or Angry Birds, it truly is worth a look and a few minutes spent thinking about how demographics influence political decision-making.

Outside of the game-play the graphics are charming and the voice-over from Shaun Micallef is witty. The disclaimer at the front says it all really: “WARNING: This game has been made for fun, and while it contains genuine Census data from your selected postal area, it also contains traces of comedy, complete generalisations and some very dodgy puns, which we’d like to apologise for now.”

I’m still not sure why the ABS went to the effort of making the game: Likely it was to demonstrate the utility of census data. While I’m not certain they entirely achieve that end, I’m glad they gave it such a good shot. The data is in: this is a great little game.

Run That Town

Run That Town

View in ITunes. $free

Flexischools new mobile site leaves me wanting more

 Posted by at 12:26 pm  1 Response »
May 202013
 

flexischoolsFlexischools has just launched a new mobile site. It appears to be a mobile skin on their web pages so it is platform neutral – which is a good thing. Sadly it’s not fully functional compared to the desktop site.

I like Flexischools a lot and use it all the time. I was really hoping that their announced changes would address some of the quibbles I have with their approach. The good news is that you no longer have to buy an app to go mobile, and that’s certainly an improvement although I never could understand why they charged for the app in the first place.

The bad news is that they haven’t addressed what I consider to be one of their major weaknesses. Even on the desktop there’s no way to order something for a range of days. I can’t be the only parent whose child wants the same thing for several days in a row but something different the following week. On the desktop I can select an existing order and then add it to another date, one day at a time: It’s far more clunky than I’d like but it can be done. The mobile version doesn’t even have that degree of functionality: Every day’s order has to be created from scratch – which is a complete deal-breaker for me.

On the desktop this update doesn’t address my concerns from my initial review that “My only criticism is that the interface design could do with some work. It functions, but it’s not entirely intuitive or pretty.” They’ve put a lovely new login screen up but haven’t addressed the interface and functionality once you get behind the shopfront.

It’s great to see Flexischools is not resting on its laurels. Going properly mobile is a great move. The whole thing remains a wonderful service which uses technology to make a chore enormously easier. But I can’t help being a bit disappointed with this update and hoping for more next time.

Review: Walk Safely to School Day app

 Posted by at 10:35 am  No Responses »
May 102013
 

walksafelyappThis app aims to encourage kids to walk to school on the upcoming Walk Safely to School Day.

The app appears fairly straightforward. You start it up and press the big green arrow button and the app will track your walk via GPS and end up telling you how far you’ve walked. It keeps a record of your walks although I struggle to see enormous utility in this. If you’re only walking on the one day, the official Day, an on-going record isn’t much use. Even if you walk every day, you are presumably walking the same route. Perhaps seeing if it takes you different times might be a challenge but then having some metric or table to indicate that would be good. I’m guessing that isn’t there partly because having kids rush to school doesn’t seem all that clever given road-crossing and so on; and, realistically because this is aimed a primary school kids, in most cases the app will be being carried by an accompanying parent who may well not want to rush like a mad thing. There’s also a point system

The interface is simple and nicely designed. The tracking seems to work well. There is a bog limitation in that the app seems to need to be open and at the front of your screen on an iPhone to work. So if you check your mail,. take a call or do anything else the app stops tracking you until you bring it back to being centre of attention. Especially given that this app is focused on results on a single day, i can see that being frustrating.

More concerning than these quibbles is the aggregation facility. You can register your details and your information will be captured and sent to your school via somewhere. That allows the school to see who’s walking and how far they’ve walked. It’s in this area that things get a little hazy. It’s not clear who you are sending the information to – the information on how old you are, where you live and the route you take walking to school. It’s not clear how long the information might be held and what if anything might be done with it. It’s not clear how securely it is being held. It’s not clear if you’re dealing with the developer, under whose name you downloaded the app, or the Pedestrian Council who organise Walk to School Day. The app does not appear to include a privacy policy.

Look, if this app encourages people to walk then it’s a good thing. It looks good and works fine, especially for something designed to be used in limited circumstances. A little more thought abound the privacy issues wouldn’t have gone amiss though.

If you are simply looking for way of seeing how far you have walked just search iTunes for “GPS tracker” to get a range of free and paid-for apps that will do the job. For more information on Walk Safely to School Day, an initiative I heartily endorse, see: www.walk.com.au.

Walk Safely to School Day

Walk Safely to School Day

View in ITunes. $free

A curious thing at the library

 Posted by at 2:44 pm  No Responses »
Apr 172013
 
Ned Kelly wanted poster

Ned Kelly wanted poster

Amaze is a wonderful sampling of some of the rare items held in the State Library’s collection. From one of Captain Cook’s letters, to a WW recruiting poster; from the only Ned Kelly wanted poster to Banjo Paterson’s poetry; from one of Henry IV’s great seals to a convict jacket – the range is enormous. The exhibition, however, is lovely and small: Rather than rambling on forever it’s a carefully chosen selection. Amaze is well worth a visit.

Adding to the interest is the Library’s new app, Curio. This free app, for iPhones and Adroid, is “location aware and streams interesting facts, surprising stories and multimedia directly to you as you roam the galleries and Mitchell building”. You can also play back your visit on the saved tours website. And if you missed anything, the app allows you to view collection objects and architectural features from the comfort of the coffee shop or your own home.

Recruiting poster

Recruiting poster

We found the app worked fairly well. It certainly added depth to the experience of visiting the library. The biggest issue with it was that the location awareness was not entirely precise so you would be given a list of nearby things to look at which were obscurely described – “wall 1″ or “display case 6″ for example. The problem was that we couldn’t see any labeling telling us which one was that particular wall or display case. Big labels would have made the whole thing very easy. While using the app is not necessary to enjoying the exhibition, it’s entirely worthwhile and adds a fascinating dimension to the experience.

Where will this go when we all go digital?

Where will this go when we all go digital?

If you don’t have the app on your own phone or tablet you can borrow a device from the library. Sadly we found that both the units we borrowed had technical problems, one had to be restarted several times before loading the app and both had issues with sound. I would put that down to teething problems and wouldn’t let it deter any potential visitor – but would recommend getting the app on your own device before setting out to avoid the whole issue.

You can also view the Amaze collection online – but that’s not the same as seeing the things for real.

Curio - State Library of New South Wales tour guide

Curio - State Library of New South Wales tour guide

View in ITunes. $free

Flexischools impresses with school lunches online

 Posted by at 11:25 am  2 Responses »
Mar 062013
 

flexischoolsI don’t like making school lunches. There, I’ve said it. And now I have an easy way of not doing it.

My younger son just changed schools and his new school uses Flexischools for its online ordering. I must say I’m very impressed.

The uniform shop and the canteen are both on the system. Ordering is simple and efficient. I can place a canteen order up until mid-morning on the day – so even someone as forgetful as me has a fall-back. Thus far the system has been seamless and neat. I set up online ordering at my son’s old school a few years ago and so have some idea how complex this task can be. To have created something that appears to scale so well over many, many schools is a nice achievement.

Of course there were old-fashioned ways of doing this. But they generally involved sending in money with the kids which was both fiddly and prone to error along the way. This is dependable, cashless and easy.

My only criticism is that the interface design could do with some work. It functions, but it’s not entirely intuitive or pretty. It took me a while to work out how to repeat a lunch order for the whole week, for example.

Flexischools does also have a mobile app available. But it’s a bit rich asking customers to buy it given the company makes its money on each transaction undertaken through the system. I don’t see why they went down that road and, on principle, I’m not prepared to pay even the $2 asking price to try it out.

All in all, Flexischools is a boon for parents and for the schools involved. It’s a great idea that fulfills its promise of actually making life simpler – and it means I’m not making school lunches any more!

See here for the May 19 2013 upgrade.

The Room: beautiful, intricate and compelling

 Posted by at 12:13 pm  No Responses »
Feb 192013
 

room1The Room is beautiful, intricate and compelling. It’s simply the best game I’ve played on my iPad in an age.

The premise is simple: You are in a room and you have puzzles to solve that give you access to these amazing constructs full of secret compartments that tell a developing story. At its most basic it is a puzzle game. But the puzzles are set around these wonderful, stunningly rendered objects. They are the sort of device you’d give your right arm to have sitting on your desk in the real world.

The puzzles are engaging and can be complex but they are also intuitive. I played this with my kids and we never got frustrated although we were often puzzled and temporarily stumped. I don’t think I’ve ever played a puzzle game that’s so well pitched in terms of the balance between complexity and compelling game play.

OK I’m running out of superlatives. I only have two negatives about the game. First, the ambiance shifts to being a bit scary later in the game with a background soundtrack of distant, ghostly screams – not a big deal but it is strangely disturbing in a game that’s otherwise relaxing. Secondly that once you’ve played it through there’s no point in replaying it – so all you can do is wait for the next edition to come out. And that can’t happen soon enough as far as I’m concerned.

The Room

The Room

View in ITunes. AUD $1.99

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