Games and Quiz Page

There are three types of game and three quizzes currently on this website. The games are two memory matching games, a drag & drop jigsaw puzzle and two wordsearches. The quizzes allow you to guess countries, cartographers and brand names from map covers or extracts.

Games

Memory Games: Easy Game and Difficult Game
In the memory games, the computer hides two copies of each of 8 (easy game) or 15 (difficult game) map covers. You have to click on the buttons to reveal the maps beneath - if they are a matching pair, they will stay on display, but if they are different the computer will cover them up again. The aim of the game is to remember where all the covers are, and to find all the pairs in the lowest number of tries. The easy game usually takes between 15 and 25 tries, but the harder one can take up to 50 tries!

A Jigsaw puzzle
The jigsaw puzzle has three map covers cut up; dragging and dropping the pieces into place will reveal three scenic Esso covers from the 1950s. This game requires the Java Virtual Machine to be installed and Java to be enabled.

Wordsearches:
Map Features
This fairly easy wordsearch contains 24 of the main features that can be found on road maps. A list of the words to be found is included; they can run horizontally, vertically or even diagonally and they may be in the normal or reverse direction.
Issuing Brands: Easy Version and Harder Version
There are two versions of the same wordsearch on this site: each uses 40 names of petrol and oil companies that have issued road maps in Europe. Names can run horizontally, vertically or even diagonally: they may be in the normal or reverse direction. All the brands selected have maps shown on this site and are at least four letters long. The easy version gives you a list of the brands; the harder version doesn't so you have to work out what they are. Both versions use exactly the same grid and so have the same solution.

Quizzes

Quiz 1 - Identify the missing Brand Name
The first quiz shows five typical maps issued between 1955 and 1972. All are of commonly used styles by the companies involved, but none of the exact maps are shown elsewhere on this site at present. I have removed the company logos and names from the maps: you can try and work out which brand they came from.

Quiz 2 - Guess the European Country
This quiz shows six small extracts from 1957 Esso maps of different European countries. All you have to do is to guess which country the map comes from. There are hints included, and it's always possible to cheat by using an atlas of Europe!

Quiz 3 - Guess the Issuer and Cartographer
The third quiz concentrates on maps of a single locality - Bournemouth on the South Coast of England - and asks you guess which company issued the maps, when and using which cartographer.

The quiz pages all use simple JavaScript optimised for IE5 and so may not work on older browsers. The correct answers are covered up under a box that needs to be clicked to reveal the answer. To cover up answers again, you can use the browser's Refresh (or Reload) button.

The Jigsaw pages uses a small Java applet, but should be quick to load on most connections.

Have fun, and good luck!

Feedback?

I would welcome any comments you may have on the quizzes. Please feel free to send me an e-mail with your comments - but I'm afraid there are no prizes for getting them all right!

Text and layout © Ian Byrne, 2000-7

All original copyrights in logos and map extracts and images are acknowledged and images are included on this site for identification purposes only.