Geo Racers: the most fun web travel game since GeoGuessr

I was sent this a few hours ago in a messenger group, and it’s brilliant: Geo Racers, a kind of web based version of Race Across the World the TV series. It’s made by Chris Pattle – more about him here, and you can donate here.

You have a limited virtual budget – £500 in the first version of the game – to get from Carnarc Point in Inverness, Scotland to the Rock of Gibraltar. You can walk (free, slow), take taxis (faster, very expensive), and use public transport to get yourself to your destination. And you need to change money as you go.

The basics of this are excellent – it works really well already, and above all the kind of learn and iterate heuristic that is so familiar to me from all my #CrossBorderRail trips is built right into this from the start. And it has the sort of decision making modelled in – do I go Glasgow / West Coast or Edinburgh / East Coast from the start? Where are the niggles going to be crossing the France-Spain border? And how do you get around the shortage of night trains in France and Spain?

You can see there are some things that need some tweaks, but these don’t – largely – impact the game play.

I’d like it to default to faster speeds for the longer trips for example, and how some stations are presented – notably Glasgow and Madrid (but possibly others too) is a bit complicated to follow. And – most seriously – there is some major issue with the rail data in France meaning you cannot get a TGV further than Bordeaux or Lyon. I also had a few legs that calculated wrongly – one walking route to a Parisian bank never ended, and some train times look a bit off. One of my followers on Bluesky was quoted more than €12000 for a Eurostar ticket in the game, although I am not sure whether that is a bug or political commentary on that company. But I digress. I assume those issues will be ironed out in later editions.

A few game playing tips:
– change money when you are passing a bank *anyway*
– you can do a 1 minute change at one Spanish station, but I don’t think it helps you in the end
– when to take a taxi (or not) is really a fine decision (or was in the route that gave me close to the best time)

Anyway, at the time of writing, my best time is 1 day, 15 hours, 25 minutes, 0 seconds. This is 18 minutes slower than the best time. But I am not at all sure where I can shave off time!

Top work though – this is an excellent game!