I was bored with the usual routes for my daily walk, so I made a "Random Adventure Generator" that creates a bunch of random coordinates to reach. When you reach one of the coordinates you level up and then a new set of coordinates is generated. For the first level there are a bunch of coordinates nearby, but for later levels you need to travel farther and since it's all random, you will explore places you probably have never been to.
Here is the link to the game: https://earthquest.net
The locations of the randomly generated coordinates change every day so that you can go outside every day and have a new experience and discover new places. Also, all players have the same coordinates, so when playing with your friends, you all can go to the same places!
I made a small trailer video (Animations and all are also pure Javascript):
Before building EarthQuest, I played some other geolocation games, but was always annoyed that they require a lot of interaction. Maybe it's just me, but I find it awkward to stand around outside and having to interact with my phone for several minutes before moving on to the next goal. So for EarthQuest it's just: "Go to this coordinate; touch the Level Up button; Go to the coordinate for the next level". This let's you focus on your surroundings and get moving.
The game runs completely in the web browser. At first I was considering building a native app, but with the Geolocation API I can just use plain old Javascript. And as an additional bonus I don't have to deal with the walled gardens that are the app stores. Plus, it's a PWA (Progressive Web App), so you can still install it on the Homescreen.
This is one of my most ambitious projects so far, so please try it out and let me know what you think!
Top comments (5)
Looks potentially fun. Associates a goal with what might otherwise be a random long walk. Does the distance between levels stay about the same? Or does it increase? For example, the first level from my current location is about a mile away. If I actually went to that location, should I expect next to be about a mile from there? Or even further?
The difficulty increases exponentially. If I just go for a walk, I usually reach level 2 or 3 if I am lucky with the coordinates. Levels 4 and 5 are well suited for a bike tour and if you want to reach level 6 and onwards, you have quite a journey ahead of you.
There is also a maximum level (15). For that, there is only one goal on the whole planet.
Are the locations all drivable points along roads, streets, etc? Or can it give destinations on walking/hiking/biking trails, such as within public parks?
The destinations are random. They might be in a field, a forest, a city or even in the middle of a lake. Getting to it is part of the adventure. But since there are multiple destinations for each level, you can choose one that is easy to reach.
Of course you should not enter restricted areas, so you don't need to be exactly on the given coordinate, it's enough to be within the threshold radius to win a level.
Thank you! I already found some nice places I did not know of in my neighborhood. And it definitely made my walks less samey.