What is GeoChain — Country Name Chain Puzzle
GeoChain lays out a row of countries joined by arrows and then takes a few of them away. Every link obeys one rule: a country's name must begin with the last letter of the country before it. Portugal ends in L, so Latvia can follow; Latvia ends in A, so Argentina can follow. Two to four links are left blank, and for each blank you are given four countries to choose from. Pick the right one and the gap closes in green; pick wrong and the true answer appears in red. The chain starts six links long and grows to ten as you play more games.
What makes the blanks awkward is that all four options normally start with the required letter, so the letter itself tells you nothing. The information you need sits on the far side of the gap: whatever you choose has to feed the country that comes after it. If the next visible link is New Zealand, the answer must end in N. Country names also change shape between languages — Germany, Alemanha, Alemania, Allemagne — so the same map yields four different puzzles. The Daily Challenge is therefore built on the English names, with your own language in brackets, so everyone solves the same chain.
How to play
- Press Play. The chain appears with arrows between the countries and two to four dashed boxes, each marked with the letter its answer must start with.
- Take the last letter of the country before the blank and the first letter of the country after it; the answer starts with one and ends with the other.
- Tap one of the four options. Correct fills the gap in green and scores; wrong shows the true answer in red, costs fifty points and drops the combo to one.
- Work through the blanks from left to right. The game ends when the last one is answered, and your score, time and accuracy go to the leaderboard.
Strategies that work
- The four options nearly always share the same first letter, so the hint above them filters nothing. Look past the gap instead: the country after the blank is usually visible, and your answer must end with that country's first letter. A Denmark after the gap means a name ending in D.
- Some letters force the answer. Exactly one country starts with D, one with O, one with Q and one with Y: Denmark, Oman, Qatar, Yemen. When a blank asks for those, the other three options are padding that does not even start with the right letter. Seven names end in Y.
- Skip is never the better move. It costs fifty points and resets the combo exactly like a wrong answer, but gives up the one-in-four chance of a hundred points from a blind guess. Its only use is the Flawless achievement, which counts wrong clicks and ignores skips.
- The combo adds twenty points per consecutive correct answer, so four in a row pay 100, 120, 140 and 160. A mistake in the middle of a run hurts most: on a four-blank chain a clean game is 520 base points, an error on the first or last blank leaves 310, and one on the second leaves 270.
- The clock is gentle. Each correct link adds up to sixty points for speed, and the elapsed time is divided by the number of blanks before it is subtracted, so with four blanks the bonus only runs out after four minutes. Read the whole chain first.
A little history
Chaining words by their last letter is an old parlour game: the Japanese call it shiritori, and English-speaking children play a version restricted to place names, usually just called Geography. GeoChain is an original game written for puzzle-me.com that turns that pastime into something you can score. Instead of taking turns you are handed a finished chain of real countries with links removed, and instead of recalling a name you choose between four that all fit the letter rule. The atlas supplies the pieces, but the spelling decides the puzzle.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to install anything or create an account?
No. GeoChain runs in the browser on a computer and on a telephone, where the options stack into one column. Your nickname, best score, streak and achievements live in the browser's local storage, so clearing site data resets them. No account is needed.
Is the Daily Challenge really the same for everybody?
Yes. The seed comes from the date in UTC, the difficulty is fixed at eight links and three blanks whatever your history, and the chain is always built from the English country names. Your own language appears in brackets beside each name, so nobody gets an easier chain.
How is the score worked out?
Each correct link pays a hundred points, plus up to sixty for speed and twenty for every consecutive correct answer before it, up to ten in a row. A wrong pick or a skip costs fifty and resets the combo. The total never falls below zero.
