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Show HN: Name That Nation

201 pointsby andrewtbhamover 1 year ago
I made this map game. react, material ui, hosted on vercel cdn, no back end.

47 comments

fifticonover 1 year ago
This is already written elsewhere, but this game screams to work efficiently with the keyboard, so one can just type country names and hit 'return'. I can already mostly navigate it with TAB + shift-TAB, but as the game loop is simply 'type name, get feedback', it seems weird the keyboard flow has not been polished in its otherwise quite polished design. I am at two minds about the drop-down matches covering the beautiful prompt map. I realise I should be able to carry on typing even though I then can no longer look at the country shape, but for the design purity of it, I would prefer the drop-down to not cover the prompt. Maybe by allocating less space to the candidates, at max showing 2-3 options, or showing them _beneath_ the map. Still, very beautiful compared to a version I made 20 years ago for my private use (CIA world database map says hello!).
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_xiviover 1 year ago
Nice project<p>Gameplay wise, I find the feedback loop to be lacking tho. Right now, there&#x27;s no much feedback other than &quot;You got it wrong, actually, it&#x27;s X. Anyway, moving on...&quot;. This makes it less of an educational game and more like a test.<p>For me, I&#x27;m always close, so revealing neighbor countries on the map along with the answer (especially for small countries) can add a &quot;spaced repetition&quot; element to the game, it help your brain connect the dots and feel more productive and fun
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youngNedover 1 year ago
Its good, but I was expecting a rotate&#x2F;zoom<p>I <i>really</i> like travle.earth: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;travle.earth&#x2F;challenge&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;travle.earth&#x2F;challenge&#x2F;</a>
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asimpletuneover 1 year ago
I love it, my only feedback was the I didn&#x27;t really understand which I was supposed to pick when it showed me N. Korea. Because all I saw the Korean Peninsula, and the north was dark green and the south was light green.
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pmontraover 1 year ago
The positions of the Pacific islands and the smallest nations of the Caribbean are difficult to remember. For Central America it&#x27;s hard to remember the north to south sequence and the same for the equatorial region of the coast of western Africa. Everything else is pretty easy.<p>Considering how many countries are there in those regions I expect that I should achieve at least 50% but not close to 75%. That&#x27;s surprisingly bad for an European that thinks to know geography.
adithyassekharover 1 year ago
You can make this more educative by showing 4 or 5 options to choose from for a particular country.
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crvdgcover 1 year ago
For those who want to learn map, capital, and flag: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;anki-geo&#x2F;ultimate-geography">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;anki-geo&#x2F;ultimate-geography</a>
forintiover 1 year ago
I liked it. Maybe you could add some facts about each country as a tip or after the answer was checked.<p>And the tiny countries such as the Vatican or the Pacific Island states could be zoomed in.
skorover 1 year ago
Nice, enjoyed seeing how I don&#x27;t know the political map as good as I thought.<p>If I click &quot;Check&quot; without typing anything and then click &quot;Correct&quot; my score goes up.
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tempestnover 1 year ago
You could do easier difficulty by making the questions multiple choice. (I mean, technically it&#x27;s already multiple choice, but say 5ish choices.) Potentially could have multiple levels of difficulty by varying the number of choices, or by selecting options by proximity.
ruggeriover 1 year ago
I liked it a lot, especially the UI.<p>I disagree with any suggestion that makes the game easier. There are a lot of websites with name-that-country games. For people who are <i>pretty good</i> at locating and naming countries, they want to improve their ability, and they need a tougher game to do that.<p>It would be fun if there were some country factoids or images, probably. But for people who are trying to get <i>really good</i> at locating countries, they probably already do know facts about various countries, so there isn&#x27;t a lot of value there.<p>Spaced repetition of mistakes would be valuable. Very few alternatives offer this.<p>Maybe you could also offer to filter on a population cutoff? I frequently cut off countries with less than 200k population, because I am not that interested in the various island countries.<p>Here is my very half-assed version I built once upon a time: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;ruggeri&#x2F;world-map-game">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;ruggeri&#x2F;world-map-game</a>. Yours is a lot better.
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midasuniover 1 year ago
What do the colors mean Why was North Korea in dark green and South Korea in light green, and which should I name?
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thih9over 1 year ago
My score was 7&#x2F;20.<p>I enjoyed it; I like that you can use this without entering the country name, i.e. do just &quot;Check&quot; -&gt; &quot;Correct&quot;&#x2F;&quot;Wrong&quot;. This is such a fast and rewarding loop, reminds me of flash cards or spaced repetition apps.
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progvalover 1 year ago
I&#x27;m having issues with keyboard navigation on Firefox:<p>* Typing a few letters then pressing tab closes the dropdown instead of selecting options in the dropdown<p>* when the text box is selecting, pressing enter does nothing; I need to press tab then enter to submit the answer
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AdamH12113over 1 year ago
For learning geography, I like:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jetpunk.com&#x2F;quizzes&#x2F;how-many-countries-can-you-name" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jetpunk.com&#x2F;quizzes&#x2F;how-many-countries-can-you-n...</a><p>I ran across it years ago and decided to use it to practice naming countries. For a harder challenge, try this one, which doesn&#x27;t give you a map:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;andys.org.uk&#x2F;countryquiz&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;andys.org.uk&#x2F;countryquiz&#x2F;</a>
vehemenzover 1 year ago
How about a hard mode that doesn&#x27;t tell you what the answer is until you&#x27;re done?<p>Process of elimination makes the last 50 pretty easy if you look through the dropdown.
benjijayover 1 year ago
Fun! A little too easy to check the filenames of the images if stuck for an answer but I imagine most people aren&#x27;t dirty cheats like me :P
pvinisover 1 year ago
Nice! One thing to note is that typing on the search is case sensitive. Please make it insensitive, so I don&#x27;t have to type M instead of m.
retwertettover 1 year ago
On Firefox if I type the answer and tab to the continue button, It&#x27;s counted as correct, even if it&#x27;s false.
trurl42over 1 year ago
Keyboard accessibility could use some love.
sabzetroover 1 year ago
This is legitimately great! Would love it if there was some sort of session persistence (even if it&#x27;s just an array in localStorage of countries I&#x27;ve already covered.) that way I could play through all the countries without having to keep the window open. Simple and effective game! Nice job :)
dvhover 1 year ago
Give partial score for close guess, I called Benin a Sierra Leone, or art least show my guess and target country
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fastaguy88over 1 year ago
An interesting demonstration of the difference between number averages and mass&#x2F;size averages. Did great on the big countries. No idea where San Marino was, so lots of relatively smaller countries pulled my average down. By mass&#x2F;size, probably 90+ %. By number, only 70%.
tiktaktowover 1 year ago
Hey you are missing Mauritius!<p>Nice game. Would be great if the gameplay moved on to the next country after a correct or wrong answer, without the need to hit the &quot;Continue&quot; button.<p>Got 182&#x2F;195! Hate the Oceania and Caribbean for always making me lose points in quizzes :D
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ukuinaover 1 year ago
Well done!<p>What are these types of web apps that have no backend called?<p>You still need the CDN, so they&#x27;re not classically serverless (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sqlite.org&#x2F;serverless.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sqlite.org&#x2F;serverless.html</a>)
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baryphonicover 1 year ago
Great work! Only feedback would be to make the drop-down search aware of the abbreviations for various countries. For example, St. Lucia rather than <i>Saint</i> Lucia, DPRK for North Korea, or even CAR rather than Central African Republic.
wscourgeover 1 year ago
Cool one, especially for kids. It&#x27;d go well with naming the capital city, too.
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StopTheTechiesover 1 year ago
This seems to conflate the idea of a nation (ie a people) with that of a country or state, which I find pretty odd. Many countries are composed of many constituent nations, many of which will cross state borders.
KomoDover 1 year ago
I wish the dropdown didn&#x27;t cover the entire map when you focus the text box, another nice feature would be being able to select multiple regions (e.g. just Europe and Asia)
prmoustacheover 1 year ago
Oh irony is that first country I had when visiting the site was Palestine.
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BeetleBover 1 year ago
I&#x27;m guessing this was inspired by the following thread (by Derek Sivers)?<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=39169197">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=39169197</a>
john-radioover 1 year ago
Excellent! Small bug: null responses are considered &quot;correct&quot; in the right&#x2F;wrong counter. I&#x27;ve skipped 3 and gotten 3 wrong, and it&#x27;s showing 3&#x2F;6 correct.
Tainnorover 1 year ago
I got 128, which I guess isn&#x27;t too bad. I&#x27;m just totally hopeless when it comes to most of Africa, and there&#x27;s just way too many small island states.
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namphibianover 1 year ago
Very cool. Are you collecting data on guesses? Would be interesting to see a ranking of countries by how many people can ID them
S_Bearover 1 year ago
A hint with the capital would be nice, especially for the tiny island nations. Otherwise I thoroughly enjoyed it!<p>(129&#x2F;195)
SalimoSover 1 year ago
Btw on safari on iOS long press the image will show the name of the country from the Wikipedia link
mklover 1 year ago
155&#x2F;195. Struggled with Pacific and Caribbean island nations, and some of Africa.
taconeover 1 year ago
Very nice and well executed. Would love to be able to zoom in a bit.
getwiththeprogover 1 year ago
Thank you for highlighting my ignorance of geography :)<p>Keep up the great work.
praveen9920over 1 year ago
Good work.<p>I couldn’t name 98% of the countries. Realised my geography sucks
lloydatkinsonover 1 year ago
Fun game! That material UI looks dated and clunky though.
poulpy123over 1 year ago
nice ! I have a big problem with pacific island, central america and subsaharan africa
croisillonover 1 year ago
why is south korea another shade of green when the question is north korea?
Halanover 1 year ago
Good example but what adult doesn’t know all the countries of the world?
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hasty_puddingover 1 year ago
you lost me at the drop down on mobile.<p>I&#x27;d suggest on mobile just having a selection of four to eight options that you can touch with your finger.
geoelkhover 1 year ago
Nice game :)
personjerryover 1 year ago
Why&#x27;s it so slow? When I press Continue it takes like 1 second to load the next country?<p>It&#x27;s like 195 jpegs, just pre-load them please. I can&#x27;t continue like this after 3 countries, it&#x27;s too tedious.