GeoGuessr for Photos

MapaPhoto

In my never-ending quest to find alternatives to GeoGuessr, I want to like MapaPhoto - however, this latest 'geoguessing' game has just one too many annoying quirks to satisfy my wanderlust.

MapaPhoto’s basic game concept is solid. If you’ve ever played GeoGuessr or any of its many imitators, you’ll be familiar with the idea: identify the location shown in a given image by clicking on a map. Points are then awarded based on how close your guess is to the correct location.

So far, so good.

But this brings me to my gripes with MapaPhoto.

This first one might be a personal bugbear, and maybe it won’t bother you - but it really bothers me that MapaPhoto requires you to press Ctrl to zoom in and out on the map. I’m racing against the clock here - don’t make me mess around with awkward key combinations!

Another frustration is that the game never seems to reveal the actual location in a photo. When you get close enough, your marker turns green to show you're in the right area - but the game never confirms exactly where the photo was taken. FFS, just tell me where I was supposed to click!

My final and perhaps biggest complaint: although MapaPhoto uses the Google Maps API, it doesn't include Street View. That seems like such an obvious feature for a visual game about real-world locations. Even if you don’t want players using Street View to search for the photo’s location (which might feel too much like GeoGuessr), you could at least reward correct guesses by showing the same view in Street View side-by-side with the original photo.

Despite these frustrations, MapaPhoto is still a fun game to play. If you're a fan of GeoGuessr, then MapaPhoto is definitely worth a try. The core idea is engaging, and with just a few improvements, it could become yet another strong contender in the geoguessing genre.