Scavengeroogle: A Google Maps Scavenger Hunt To Waste More Of Your Time On

Ok, this is going to be a bit of an experiment… you can probably tell just from a quick glance at the clue that this isn’t going to be in the U.S. I was sent an international clue by Pak W the other day. But I did a little scavengeroogling nearby and found this one that I thought was even better! However, I liked his word clue so I’ll be using it for this clue.

I am hoping that no one has already found this one. It is becoming more and more difficult to tell as new google sightseeing sites pop up and older ones stock up on locations. Sometimes I find our older clues on these sites, especially “writing” ones like this. This clue is an asian language character repeated twice on what looks like two cylinders. I actually know what this character stands for, so that will probably be a secondary drop in case people have problems.

The clue is not visible extremely far out, probably 15/18 or so. The word clues that Pak sent in are:

“Fragrant Harbour”

So, I am trying to figure out what level of region to drop, like how detailed to get. I’ve already basically told you it’s not in the U.S. but we shall see what additional clues are needed…

[Edit: 10:15 PDT - We seem to be doing OK w/out a region clue so I won’t drop it for now. I think just knowing it’s not in the U.S. is a region clue in itself…]

Clue Name : “Asian Writing”
Submitted by: Scavengeroogle Admin
Status : Solved (11)
Duration: Mon 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. PDT

Solved By: Chris R, Ken S, Andy K, Judy B, Mike Z, Justin, Shawn D, Trecherus, Josh W, Jeremy R, Adam M

Word Clues : “Fragrant Harbour”
Magnification Needed: 15/18

SOLUTION TO “Asian Writing”

Happy, glorious Friday! OK, before you all start in on this clue, please take a look at the post below about starting a mailing list. You can weigh in with your opinion on whether the game would be OK switched to that way…

I got a large submission of decent clues from Mike M. the other day, including this one. Also regarding clue submissions, there haven’t been a lot of international clues yet, I think because in many places even thought there is hi-res satellite photos, there aren’t street level maps so it’s very difficult (for US players anyhow) to tell where you are. I also think it’s VERY difficult to come up with suitable word clues for international areas, unless you happen to be familiar with the area. In any case, there’s no rush to find clues outside of the U.S. I’m thankful that there is that opportunity now though!

Mike’s clue is called, quite appropriately from the picture, “Footprints in the Sand”. No, not that cheesy poem that nuns like to hang on their walls. This is a honest to goodness Paul Bunyan sized set of footprints. There is another clue submitted by one of you that is also a footprint that I have been meaning to use too… I’ll try get to that. I recall that I thought it would be extremely difficult though, which is why I shelved it.

The Footprints are available for viewing a good distance out, maybe 14/18 max. For word clues, you are going to get Mike M.’s suggestion which I thought were quite cool:

“Good Grief”

I have a feeling this won’t be too tough… but we shall see! If it is, look for a region clue.

[Edit: 11:05 PDT - hm… near zilch players today! Or it seems like it. I’m not sure but anyway I will drop: Northern California]

Clue Name : “Footprints in the Sand”
Submitted by: Mike M.
Status : Solved (8)
Duration: Fri 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. PDT

Solved By: Moose, Judy B, Shawn D, Steve M, Jon G, Ryan F, Luke P, Ann M

Word Clues : “Good Grief”
Magnification Needed: 14/18

SOLUTION TO “Footprints in the Sand”

Hi Scavengeroogles, a side note for your perusal: As I mentioned in an earlier solution, I’ve been considering starting up an informal email list for Scavengeroogle clues. I’d like to find out your opinion on whether this might work.

I have been having a hard time keeping to the regular schedule of 3 clues a week. It’s not so much the overall workload, but the set times that are difficult for me. It would be good if instead of releasing a clue at a certain time, I could just release it at any time.

The problem with this is that many of you visit the site on a regular basis - Pacific Time Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, because you know that’s when a clue drop will occur. If I changed to a non-regular clue release, you’d have to visit the site more regularly (hehe, how’s that for getting more traffic, huh? No, I digress…) because you wouldn’t know when the next clue would appear.

So in order to counter that problem, I was thinking of doing two things: start up an optional mailing list and increase the “open solve time” from just a few hours to 1 day.

Now, I don’t particularly like mailing lists myself, even the non-spammy useful ones. But this mailing list would be used only for notifying you if a clue was launched, for those that WANTED to be notified. You could still just come check the site periodically instead, or just subscribe to the RSS feed through Bloglines or MyYahoo. Getting it by email would just be an option.

And because people wouldn’t necessarily get the notification email about a clue launch right away and in fact might get it HOURS afterwards, I would increase the time until a solution is posted to be a day long so more people would have an opportunity to play.

These two things actually have some beneficial side effects: With a longer solve time, more east coasters and people at work would get to “play” (you can of course “play” even if a solution has already been posted). The second side effect is mostly for me… I wouldn’t have to sit and “moderate” a session and write up a solution in such a short amount of time. I would of course check in periodically but would not have to be around the whole time. Though, it would mean that the “solutions pending” would not increase in near-real time as it does now (I do that by hand).

So the changes in the game would be non-regularly released clues and a change to a day long open clue instead of 3 hours.

Let me know what you think because I know some people really like the “timed” aspect. But I think I would still list names in the order that solutions came in… so maybe that’d be enough of incentive? =)

Scavs, how are you? Maybe I should say “Roogles” instead since scav sounds too much like “scab”. So, what up Roogles?

Anyhow, here is a clue from Trecherus that I hope will not be treacherous for you all. Well, I don’t think it will be at all. The clue looks like two gigantic “Ps”… interestingly they are almost identical in shape but very different in color. They are visible quite far out, I would say nearly 12/18. If that doesn’t seem like it’s that big, remember we are on a new plus 3 scale, so that’s the old 9 of 15 magnification!

For a clue, you will get Mr. Trecherus’s direct word clue:

“Penguin Water”

I don’t imagine any problems, and if there are then too bad… I’m kidding! Region clue will probably be coming soon enough provided I can think of one to give. Hey, remember now that Google has Hi-res in other parts of the world, it’s open season on clues… feel free to submit clues from any part of the world!

[Edit: 10:30 PDT - Not a lot of solutions yet, but I still think giving out the region clue would be too easy. So let’s give a general one … Northeast U.S.?]

Clue Name : “Double P”
Submitted by: Trecherus
Status : Solved (6)
Duration: Wed 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. PDT

Solved By: Ken S, Judy B, Andy K, Tina, Mike J, Josh W

Word Clues : “Penguin Water”
Magnification Needed: 12/18

SOLUTION TO “Double P”

Woohoo! I had earlier postulated that the reason for the expanded google map slider magnification was to get ready for hi-res areas in the rest of the world. Sure enough, Luke P just took a look and saw that much of Europe and some of Asia is now at hi-res. Finally, Scavengeroogle is ready for the rest of the world!

As far as I know, this happened today because all those hi res satellite pics in Europe certainly weren’t around right when the Google maps slidebar was updated to 18/18 magnification earlier. I made sure to check that. In addition to Europe there are a ton of other countries represented in hi res, including some in Asia. Just a quick glance around, I saw Japan and Thailand had some squares.

What does this mean for Scavengeroogle? Well, in general it’s good because it gives us more regions to look for clues in. But it may make it more difficult as a game for players because they have to worry about looking in other countries, and it will make it more difficult for clue creators because the number of herrings is now increased exponentially. I guess we will see!

So, I’ll be expecting some clue submissions from the rest of the world, and in fact I’ll give those priority. Remember, you can submit planes, ships, airports and famous landmarks but I tend not to use those…

Hey you Scavengeroogles! How have you been? Me, I could be better. I dug up this particular clue myself, but sort of owe its origin to Tony A., who had submitted a particular clue before that I sort of used to find this one.

I’m still getting used to the new 18/18 slider that Google has changed to, but am already pretty happy with their new city labeling algo. The river labeling algo needs work though! So anyhow, this particular clue is called “Jo and Face”. The “Jo” is the usual “buildings that look like writing” hack that finds me a lot of clues. However, I didn’t notice until I screengrabbed the pic that there is a “face” in the light brown area of the picture! Kind of cool, you can see the two eyes and the mouth in grey (the mouth is at the bottom of the light brown portion).

As for word clues, this particular one is going to be interesting because it’s a little different than your ordinary location. I’m not going to say more than that because it might give it away. But anyhow, you may find this easy, or you may find it hard… all depends on whether you figure out:

“Onion Triangle”

Hehe. I think I am clever with these word clues when in reality I’m such a sluggggard. If that’s a word. I actually took part of Tony A’s suggestion for word clues and changed them a bit. And we all know what happens when I do that: Herring FEST!

Thusly, you may want to look for a region drop soon. But I am trying to figure out how to drop this region, may be difficult…

[Edit: 10:00 PDT - Whew, so the consensus is this is not too tough… I’m sort of glad about that. Therefore, no region clue drop needed!]

Clue Name : “Jo And Face”
Submitted by: Scavengeroogle Admin
Status : Solved (13)
Duration: Mon 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. PDT

Solved By: Ken S, Brian G, Andy K, Chris R, Jon G, Jeremy R, Adam M, Shawn D, Ryan F, Alex P, Luke P, Trecherus, Judy B

Word Clues : “Onion Triangle”
Magnification Needed: 15/18

SOLUTION TO “Jo And Face”

Mark L alerted us to an interesting change in the appearance of the google map: an increase of notches in the magnification slider. I think it JUST happened today, in fact I am sure of it because I happen to have a screenshot that includes the slider from yesterday when I was doing the “dragonfly” clue. As you can see, they seem to have added 3 notches, making it a maximum of 18/18 instead of 15/15 for full zoomed in.

Now, I am not 100% sure but when I did a zoom in of today’s slider to match with yesterday’s it seems as though the relative scale has not changed but for us the numbers will change. That is 13/15 is now 16/18. The slider is still 2 notches from the top, but because we have traditionally counted from the bottom in our game you just need to add 3 to adjust. Note, I am not 100% sure about this, would need to check each clue to compare it.

I am not sure that anyone else except the people who play here may have noticed the increase in notches, and that is only because it is important to the way Scavengeroogle is played…

Even more interesting is, the extra 3 notches added seem to be there to include the rest of the world? So I was thinking, is this a precursor to an inclusion of more high res satellite imagery elsewhere in the world? In fact, is it just my imagination or did they not have “country” names in the street map view before? Interesting… anyone else know if there have been significant changes in Google mapping of the rest of the world. I must admit I haven’t been paying attention because I’ve got my hands full with clue creation.

Also, did they have little “red dots” for major cities before? I think I am losing my mind here…

In any case, I will have to start getting used to 18/18. I guess the other thing we could do is reverse the scale, so that fully zoomed in is 1/18. Ahh… I’m too lazy though, let’s just leave it for now. =)

Hello Friday. I’m actually starting to run low on clues, so if you’ve got any more submissions send ‘em in. I had to throw out a whole bunch of them because many had a wrong URL that didn’t show anything, or weren’t suitable (i.e. planes, ships, well known landmarks) so it ended up I didn’t have as many backlogged as I thought.

Also, I’ve been a bit lazy… if there’s no word clues submitted I generally don’t select it unless the actual picture clue is fantastic. Then I’m apt to try come up with one. So it’s a combination of a good picture and a good clue that will get your clue on here.

Alas, this isn’t the best of pictures and not the best of word clues. I mean, it doesn’t really look too much like a dragonfly but I figured I might as well use it since I had found this earlier and stockpiled it for such a time as now. The only really good thing about it is that it is visible far out at 10/15. As for word clues, gah. I have such a hard time coming up with these. But let’s try:

“A french monk runs close to it”

I already see so many potential slippery herrings just from googling that I will most certainly need to drop the region clue early. So sit tight if you’d rather not strain the brain because help will be coming soon.

[Edit: 9:42 PDT - Wow, nary a response in sight. Here is the region clue then: Iowa. If that doesn’t help I’ll have to reconfigure that word clue…]

[Edit: 10:38 PDT - Ahh… LOL. This is shaping up to be another one of those, “what are you trying to pull on us?” word clues. OK here are two clarifications, “A french monk runs SORT OF close to it”. And secondly, I just read about some apparent controversy regarding whether or not it IS french monk. So, egg on my face again. You may just want to look up what “monk” means in French and search near there… ]

Clue Name : “Dragonfly”
Submitted by: Scavengeroogle Admin
Status : Solved (7)
Duration: Fri 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. PDT

Solved By: Mark L, Moose, Jeremy R, Katie N, Steve M, Jon G, Judy B

Word Clues : “A french monk runs close to it”
Magnification Needed: 10/15

SOLUTION TO “Dragonfly”