Imagine that you were kidnapped by persons unknown. Imagine you were dropped off somewhere completely alien to you – you could be anywhere in the world. You don’t know who captured you, and you don’t know where you are, but you know you’re being followed. This is the basic premise for Pursued, an ambitious online game that makes use of Google Maps as a game world rather than a tool for working out directions.
We’re big fans of conundrums here at Web.AppStorm, so we thought we’d take a look at this intriguing puzzler.
Pursued has something of a film noir feel to it and things are intriguing from the start.
You’re introduced to things in a fairly gentle fashion. After watching a brief introduction that lets you know roughly what has happened, you appear in the middle of a road in an unknown location. As the game is powered by Google Maps, it should come as no surprise that you are in Street View mode and that you can navigate through streets just as you would normally.
Know how to use Street View? Then you know how to play Pursued!
Your goal? Simply to work out where you are. You can do this by strolling, virtual style, through the streets of wherever it is you find yourself looking for clues. You may find a helpful street sign, a bus with pertinent information on it, or you may even recognize some landmarks.
The catch? As you are being pursued, this is a race against the clock. You have a limited time in which to work out where you are and type it into the box at the bottom of the screen. You will probably find that it doesn’t take you long to work out the first level, but there are more to contend with.
Five levels are available to start with, but more can be unlocked with a redeem code from Facebook.
The five introductory levels can be completed fairly quickly, but there are another ten to unlock through Facebook. If you find that things are just a little too easy, you can ramp things up a little. Ordinarily you only need to provide the name of the town of city you find yourself in, but this is not enough in Hardcore Mode.
To enable this mode all you need to do is click the Menu link to the upper right of the screen and then hit the Turn On button in the level selection area. Once enabled you will have to give the name of the street as well as the town – all within the same time limit. On the subject of extra options, you can also right click the map and enable a special 3D mode if you happen to have a set of old-school 3D glasses hand.
It’s a bit gimmicky and strange, but there is a 3D mode available if you want to use it.
In all likelihood you will race through the levels – particularly the first five – but the inclusion of a hardcore mode does make things little more interesting. Despite initial impressions, not all of the locations are within the US, making this a global game where no one should have a home advantage.
Hmm… Where could we be now?
Skipping around the world is fun, but don’t be concerned about the fact that there are only fifteen levels available. Even if you breeze through the readymade levels in next to no time – and you should find that there aren’t many levels that require you to hunt around too much – the challenge does not end there.
When these fifteen levels have been finished – and not until – you unlock community levels. These are levels that have been created by other users and, just as with all of the other levels, you can view the rating that has been assigned to them – this can often be an indication of the level of difficulty to expect.
Unlock and complete level 6-15 to gain access to community created levels.
If you’re feeling particularly creative, you can even go as far as creating your own level. You just need to provide a name and solution as well as the longitude and latitude of your chosen location. You can make things as tricky as you like!
Conclusion
Pursued is not the most taxing of games, but there are times when you just may not be able to find clues to help work out where you are. Thankfully, if this happens you can simply restart the level without any penalty. As you are in your web browser, there is little to stop you from getting a little help from Google, but this spoils the fun.
Let the timer reach zero and your pursuers will catch up with you and take you captive once again.
If you’re a fan of puzzle games, Pursued is definitely worth a look. You never know where you mind end up!