Slashdot Mirror
Google Maps Meets Carmen Sandiego
Craig Miller writes "What better way to end the weekend than by playing a game of Brewster Jennings Protects America? This new game is a Google Maps mashup with the classic 'Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego' style of game. Run around the world trying to stop a terrorist from carrying an attack. Pretty amusing game and it shows what you can do with the Google Maps API and a little imagination." Despite the jingoistic title and concept it's a lot of fun, and quite challenging on hard.
so here's a sexy first post
Wow, this is amazing. Shows what innovation and imagination can prduce.
What You Think It Does.
Google is God
If we don't fight for ourselves no one will.
Yet they haven't managed to slip a terrorist into Microsoft with a dirty bomb..tsk tsk...When will these silly corporate companies learn to kill the bad man..
Carmen Mannitoba?
Brewster Jennings gets an anal reaming from Slashdot. Geez, up for 2 posts, and it's already slashdotted.
It doesn't sound like it includes the history that Carmen Sandiego included in its games. I always valued those games due to there ability to include teaching the player some history. Will this game simply play off of September 9/11 events/fears or will it include teaching the player some history as well?
is a 'Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego' style of game?
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
now that its slashdotted its rather difficult to play
I have dialup you insenstive clod!
Yet another example of perfect marketing by Google:
1.make a more-than-average type of product, and establish it on the market.
2.Make everyone use it.
2.1Do that by quality
2.2 by offering the best possible solution for someone who just wants to USE it
2.3 by being the one who lets other people use it (by offering an API)
TADA
3. World Dominance
I don't hate Google, but isn't it a bit a strange thing that "fair use" methods like "letting others use your product for both's advantage" leads to some kind of strange quasi-monopolism?
is that something the Open-Source-Community has to worry about?
Don't let the facts bite you. Get bitten here instead.
This would be so much cooler with real time satellite feeds and orbital laser command at your control
just curious... :)
Arash Partow's Philosophy: Be a person who knows what they don't know, and not a person who doesn't know.
Jingoistic? So the desire to protect America is extremely nationalistic?
Either that, or Zonk has no idea what the word means.
...Brewster Jennings couldn't stop the incoming terrorist attack on his server...
Lick my ass and suck on my balls...
America fuck yeah!
Lick my ass and suck on my balls!
Ok so NASA World Wind gets high resolution terrain mapped Moon data, lots of people submit the article to /. all get rejected, someone makes a game for google and /. say "WOW OMFG how cool we mustwrite an article"
Is that Bostons roads are REALLY messed up.
Carmen Electra?
OgleEarth points to three games involving GoogleEarth, Earth Contest, GoogleEarthing and GEwar. Taken from http://industry.slashgisrs.org/article.pl?sid=05/1 0/07/134251
Animoog.org
Despite the jingoistic title...
Why does Zonk hate America?
Zonk: Stop, stop, stop hating America.
Zonk either needs a healthy dose of remedial English or is revealing his/her sick and probably hopelessly incurable anti-American sentiments. "... Protects America" doesn't even begin to rise to the level of jingoism.
OTOH we can be reasonably sure that something truly jingoist, like "... Protects Sacred Islam Against the Repulsive Onslaughts of Filthy, Decadent Western Infidels for the Total Destruction of all Unbelievers and the Greater Glory of Allah" would have elicited no such politically correct label from Zonk.
It's so difficult to find good help these days.
extreme chauvinism or nationalism marked especially by a belligerent foreign policy (source m-w.com)
I don't really think of this as Jingoism. Fighting terrorists to prevent them from killing people in your country (particularly after they've done things like, say that they want to kill people in your country, is pretty natural.
Jingoism might be things like shooting illegal immigrants trying to run across the border from Mexico, such as the Minutemen are accused of doing. Notice the difference.
Update (Oct 30, 2005): Oh crap, here comes the Slashdotting.. The server probably won't be able to take the beating so if the game doesn't work now bookmark us and return in a few days time. Sorry! - Craig
This is from BrewsterJennings.com.
Run around the world trying to stop a terrorist from carrying an attack. Expect a full-fledged investigation from the Patriot Act police soon.
I think he knows what it means. I just think that he is an unpatriotic pinko commie bastard that doesn't deserve to enjoy the protections that he does by living here.
Frankly, I think he needs a two week Gitmo vacation to cure his antagonistic nature.
Such games never really taught history. Yes, they taught you dates and names, but nothing serious. They never were able to delve into the complex socio-political situations that caused or arose from historic events. They never taught how to discern tainted or biased historic information from legitimate reports.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Google helped me found her.. She's in Cairo, Egypt.
would you submit your site to slashdot when you already know you can't handle a slashdotting? Seriously, he submitted the article then writes on his site "here comes the slashdotting, come back later".
Just my $0.02
If you want to find out where she is hiding herself right now, just ask Google: Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
I do like the game, but like all games it's a bit silly and makes you wonder what if the real world worked like that.
CIA operative: All right Rashid! We know Ali has the detonators so where did he go?
Rashid: He said he wanted to visit the Windy City! Maybe he's going to going to Dallas.
or
CIA operative #1: So, Akbar went to a city famous for gambling.
CIA operative #2: We're heading to Las Vegas.
Two days later a nuclear weapon is detonated in Atlantic City.
Well, holy fuck, it's a game, not a goddamned graduate level course at Yale!
You kids are adorable! It think it is the cutest thing; the way you kids are innocent/ignorant to the ways of the world, you are so certain you will change the world, you think that a protest or sit in will change the course of a nation, the way you think that your opinion's have any significance. It's almost sad when you out grow your childish notions and get a grasp of reality. But, until a few years after you've graduated university, you are just adorable! Come over here and let me hug you, you cutie!
Sure looks to me like the Bush Administration knows what the definition is and you and Zonk don't. Nothing perverted or twisted here, except by yourself.
When you eliminate threats, whether provoked or not, you are protecting yourself. Nothing about being provoked or sovereign stands in the way of protection.
You don't have a leg to stand on. Go back to school, boy.
Please stop RTFA Im trying to play the bloody game!
So the American military was just walking down the boulevard one day, window gazing, and then all of a sudden the meander into a full-fledged war with Iraq? Of course they deliberately attacked Iraq!
America has never expressed a desire to eliminate an entire way of life or people.
We hear on a daily basis how America would like to eradicate various extremists. Like it or not, they are people, and they have chosen a particular way of life. Yet you're all into destroying them. Frankly, I'm appalled by all such behaviour, be it from an American or an Arab.
And thank you for the ad hominem attack. That seals the victory for me!
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Except as any intelligent person knows, Iraq was not a threat to America. That was well-known before hand, and proven completely true afterwards.
There was no threat to be eliminated, and as such it was not an act of protection.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Brewster Jennings and co. is a "real" company. The CIA agent Valerie Plame, whose cover was blown for political reasons, "worked" for Brewster Jennings.
I am pretty sure America was very big on Eliminating all traces of Communisn from the world in the last half centuary.
Don't be an ignorant twat. "Eliminating communism" and "killing all the communists" are two very different concepts. The US NEVER advocated killing all the communists. Islamic "representatives" have consistently and repeatedly stated that they will not stop until all of the "infidels"(their preferred word for Jews, Americans, and anyone that does not subscribe to their extremist point of view) are dead.
Why don't you take you grade school arguments home and try to refine them a bit. Perhaps you could come back and offer something to the debate in 15 or 20 years. In other words, grow up!
Can we play where in the world are the Bush White House ethics? (Hint, look up Halliburton.)
Dumbass mods. MOD parent up as funny for funny "Team America, World Police" reference!
I had many a naughty fantasy about Carmen Sandiego in my youth.
http://www.flashback-aw.net/games.php?GameID=9
Fantasy Football
ass.
i c%20
/. for this, but you are a prick.
"jingoistic"
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=jingoist
Seriously, go to hell. Its a funny twist on a painfully realistic problem the world faces. Terrorism doesn't exist because of "belligerent foreign policy" it exists because of fanatical extremists, at present almost entirely fanatical Muslims. They are religious zealots. And the societies affected by the terrorists are victims... not victims of "chauvinistic patriotism".
The more I think about it, the bigger an ass I think you are for that comment. I'm sure I'll be flamed to shit on
Plame was outed. What were the consequences?
As an spy operative, her primary goal was to obtain information. To accomplish this, she needed to develop contacts within the administration of other nations' governments and large corporations. These are the people who make it possible to spy: they have direct knowledge of, or direct access to, important information, and they are careless enough or traitorous enough to leak it.
So immediately, outing Plame outed dozens of the CIA's primary sources of spy information. Everyone she has dealt with under the pretext of a Brewster-Jennings corporate executive or research assistant or disloyal secretary (counter-espionage). In the harsh regimes, all the people she treated as friends and companions will also be under suspicion.
This is a major loss: primary contacts don't come a dime a dozen.
Not only that, but outing Plame also outed Brewster-Jennings as a cover story. Every CIA spy using that cover has also been outed. What a fuck-up! That means at least three to six spies have been lost: Plame's cover story undoubtedly included co-workers who posed as her assistants or her bosses.
This is an extremely major loss: it is multiplied by the number of spies working under that cover.
And to make things even worse, any corporations, research labs, wholesalers, arms dealers, government officials, etcetera -- they're all going to be running a tight security check on those areas Brewster-Jennings was known or suspected of contacting. This places other CIA spies and other nations' spies at risk of being discovered. Oh, for fucks' sake, what a fucking mess!
Now you know what they mean by treason: the USA's most important asset in Africa, the spy network that keeps tabs on what's going on with the uranium, has been blown wide open.
Oh joy.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
My end to the weekend was taking my 5 year-old son and his 5 year-old 'girlfriend' (the 'girl next door') to a farm park to see the animals, play on the inflatable bouncy castles, ride on the boats and generally get some fresh air. Welcome to the real world.
AT&ROFLMAO
Lets get all the CIA/FBI hooked to this and they might get a bit better at their jobs. BTW, I have failed in saving 3 major cities in my attempts at this game. My apologies to the residents.
In case you're wondering what the name Brewster Jennings refers to, it's the CIA shell company that was exposed along with Valerie Plame's identity.
My favorite part of this game was looking up the word "jingoistic".
So says ToeNipples
The story so far: You are an undercover CIA agent claiming to work for the fictitious "Brewster Jennings & Associates" company. You were just awoken at three in the morning by a phone call from The Chief telling you to report to your office immediately. From what he told you it looks like a terrorist is set to attack today and you are the country's last and only hope. Click "Start New Game". It's time to save America.
Turns out, your husband has just exposed the president as a fraud and the president's office has just exposed you as a CIA fraud.
Sucks to be you.
Thank god this has Slashdot's attention, maybe now someone can tell me where Charles Manson is imprisoned?
It's the first step in one of the sequences, and I could not find it. I tried 4 different major California prisons, each of which had been indicated by some research (via Google, natch).
On a related note, how does hinting work? I turn it on but I see no effect.
One simple rule for its versus it's
That's right - somethis is missing! A terrorist has stolen the White House! Your job is to track the theif to his hideout, arrest him, and recover the loot! A white man was seen leaving the scene of the crime...
--LWM
This new game is a Google Maps mashup with the classic 'Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego' style of game.
What is wrong with something like:
"It is a 'Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego' style game that implements google maps."
Although I hate the word 'podcast', for example, it at least fills a void where a new term was needed. 'Mashup' is a stupid buzzword that essentially means 'combination of', we already have plenty of more informative ways to express this idea (see above).
Sometimes, SlashDot articles read as though the posters are actually embarassed to be American.
Wearing a flag is jingoistic. Or maybe this storeis. Unless it's a hippy wearing a flag. Then people assume it's anti-jingo, whatever that is. Okay, he might not be a hippy, just a slob. Whatever.
I18N == Intergalacticization
This is an awesome game! Me likes.
http://www.brewsterjennings.com/hs.php?m=300000000 0000000000000000000000090000000&s=25&level=e&len=l &scenario=1
:)
level = e, h, m
for easy, hard, medium
len = l, m, q
for Long, Medium, Quick
Scenario = 1 for nuclear attack
scenario = 10 for biological attack....
Aside from that, have a blast putting your slashdotness in the score
Of course, one should not deem themselves experts on a subject because they've played a game. Nobody is suggesting this. Did anyone ever suggest that? Nobody ever has, for all I know, and if they did, I'd be all up in their ass instead of yours. I've never heard anyone call himself or herself an expert in anything related to a game, besides being an expert at playing the game, and that's a fair metric if it's based in reality. Playing chess professionally doesn't make one an expert military strategist, and playing professional golf doesn't make one a good landscaper. Why should playing game designed for 6th graders make one an expert historian?
The game is designed to stimulate interest in and open the mind to the subjects of geography and history (and astronomy, English, math in later games) by presenting a cursory and entertaining overview of each. For any kid remotely interested in the topics, it's a step in the right direction, isn't it? By that virtue, I'd say the games did just as they were designed to do, and in fantastic style.
It is assumed that this is all the game was supposed to do, and assuming or suggesting otherwise is idiocy at best and ad hominem at worst. Unless, of course, you appreciate the in-game experience as training exercise just in case you somehow happen to get a job as a detective chasing a long legged brunette hottie in a red trench coat and broad brimmed hat, whom also likes to leave obvious clues--then you've really got a leg up on the competition, haven't you?! It's not a failing of the game designers, and it's not a failing of primary education in the western world to not present the subject in way you feel is appropriate. If anything, the people who keep track of teenage suicides should be thankful you're not in charge!
I guess it's all relative, right? Still, I bet some of those kids on the PBS contest show could've wiped the floor with you, pretty much all of the US, and many history majors, just for the fun of it and, of course, that prized trip around the country/world.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
Full article
First rate trolling, sir. Congratulations.
Or, in the off case you're serious, I'd like to point out that we *can't* win a war by eradicating everyone who sees America as an irresponsible and arrogant world citizen. I'm not saying the solution is to go hug them, but you can't treat life like a game of Counter-Strike.
Telltale Games: Bone, Sam and Max
... but all I got was this error message!
Read my blog.
I guess Google's satellite view isn't high-res enough yet.
Waldo made an appearance in my Computer Engineering class last Friday.
The game seems fun and all, but I found it impossible to play, specifically with the counter in place. That is, I think that when you take into account factors such as the speed of google maps, the area of the map which you could click on, the rate of zoom, etc, it is very, very close to the 10 minutes allotted. This is of course, ignoring the human controllable factors such as the time it takes to read the clues or make up your mind onto where to click next. I've tried twice, playing with nearly dead-on "top-level" clicking, reasonable zoom levels (to not get lost out in the middle of nowhere), and yet I still can't win. But I do have to wait a lot for Google's maps too load.
Robert Bindler
A Computer Science student's views on technology.
A Jingoist is an ultra-nationalist. Savage, rabid and ignorant. His spinal cord is not actually connected to his brain, rather to the CNN newsfeed which comes directly from the Presidents anus. He is incapable of thinking for himself and is handed all his ideas by media and state.
A NeoCon is a particularly virulent type of trash. They are conservative extremists who insist on forcing their beliefs on the wider community while simultaneously wiping their ass with every commandment their god gave to Moses. NeoCons, Muslim Extremists and any others who murder while hiding behind their "god's" petticoats are cowardly scum who should be loaded into a spaceship and shot deep into the centre of the sun so the rest of us can live in peace.
I'm still looking for Waldo.
Warning: Could be fatal if taken seriously
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynne_Thigpen
I can't find the location of the clue "mickey, donald and the rest of the gang" I've looked at Disneyland and Disney World, but I can't find it.
Because there aren't many clues, this one keeps popping up and keeping me from finishing
No doubt. I'm going to use this opportunity to pimp my blog entry on the subject - I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine whether this action is ironic or not.
concrete5: a cms made for marketing, but strong enough for geeks.
What I learned from this game:
But did you bother to check EuroDisney or Disney HongKong?
-Now, to unleash screaming temporal doom!
The peace loving nature of your Muslim upbringing shining through again, no doubt. Nice!
This POS wouldn't stand a chance of being picked up by a real games publisher. The totally inadequate control mechanism, the pathetically inadequate time-limits, the lack of the slightest concept of gameplay or balanced difficulty levels, all make it a worthless waste of time. Games should be fun, exciting and entertaining. This one is unusable and dull. It really shows that it was designed by an amateur with no experience of games design.
0 out of 10.
The Google Maps API is so open and easy to develop, this has caused stuff like this to develop. You have to hand it to Google for creating such an easy to use tool like that, I expect to see some great innovative sites based around different ways to use this API. Congratulations to everyone involved.
Business Voyeur
epcot center
Kennedy indeed escalated the war in Vietnam, which probably also met the definition of invasive.
You couldn't be more wrong.
He was publicly slaughtered by your own people because:
(a) he attempted to initiate a complete withdrawal from Vietnam
(b) he refused to send US soldier to invade Cuba at the Bay Of Pigs
Attention moderators, you are a pack of ass sucking date pounders. The silencing of dissenting views has well and truly taken hold in Slashdot. I can finally see the kind of brainless drones that must be modding. If you are a US citizen, you should be ashamed of the brutality of your own government.