Geotripper - the Traveling Salesman Game

Only a few days after the release of the flight sim game Travel Cat the prolific TripGeo is back with another entertaining geographical map game. GeoTripper offers players a unique challenge: charting the shortest possible route through a series of random destinations around the globe! 

GeoTripper is a lot of fun to play. I was fortunate enough to get a sneak peek of the game over the weekend, and I’ve been hooked ever since. It is an original concept for a game which also manages to be very addicting!

Remember that - as I'm now going to get a little technical in exploring the dynamics of the game - 

Here's how it works:

1. You are given a list of locations.
2. You plot a route to connect them all in the shortest distance.
3. You submit your route and earn points based on how close your plan is to the optimal solution.

In essence, GeoTripper challenges players to solve a series of Traveling Salesman Problems (TSP). 

The Problem:

The TSP is a classic optimization problem in mathematics and mapping. Imagine a salesperson who needs to visit a number of cities. The challenge is to determine the shortest possible route that visits every city exactly once. The TSP has clear real-world applications, such as optimizing delivery routes for goods.

The Solution:

There are several methods for solving a TSP, including the Held-Karp algorithm and the Christofides algorithm. GeoTripper uses a brute force approach. This method involves calculating all possible permutations of the listed cities and determining the total distance for each route.

It's Fun!

You don’t need to worry about solving complex TSP algorithms while playing GeoTripper. Instead, you can just use your geographical knowledge to plot the best-looking route on the map. Your score depends on how close your route is to the optimal one.

With 12 different routes to complete in various regions of the world (plus a global challenge), GeoTripper offers plenty of variety. Players earn points and gold cups for each route, and the ultimate goal is to collect gold cups for all 12 routes.

A Race Against Time

Geotripper resets every 15 minutes (at :00, :15, :30, and :45 past the hour). This means you have only a quarter of an hour to complete all 12 routes - but it also means there are 12 new rounds to play every 15 minutes!