this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2026
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Animals

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Do you dare play "Wild Guess," the online animal-guessing game? (europe.pub)
submitted 2 weeks ago by JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social to c/animals@lemmy.world
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https://www.wildguess.co.za/

If I'm able to, I'll do a full run-down with pics in a week. In the meantime, you can jump right in. Here are some notes that might help:

  • This a detective-style game in which you'll receive five chances to guess a mystery animal per case.
  • It's based on animal sightings around the world, but those don't represent their total habitat. Just where a photographer happened to snap a pic.
  • Each question, you'll start by receiving the species name and geographical location. On the right you'll be given a helpful panel of animal types, including a useful search feature to help narrow things down.
  • If you miss the first guess, you'll be zoomed in to the exact sighting location and a roving binoculars which scans the habitat, showing the animal... somewhere in there.
  • The next two guesses, you'll be given a little more of various facts about the animal.
  • At the very last guess, you'll be given a list of five animals to choose from.
  • If you're correct on the first guess you'll get 5pts, all the way to 1pt for the final (correct) guess. You can play as many questions as you like, whenever you like. Your average will be tracked, and you can play as either guest or using an acct.
  • This is a TOUGH game, so don't feel bad if you only average around 1pt, which already suggests that you're pretty good with your animal ID's.
  • The game is fan-made, so there's a couple mistakes here and there which can be reported as necessary at the end of a question-cycle.

Finally, it's trivially easy to cheat if you really want to. The most obvious way is to simply look up the species name at the beginning! ๐Ÿ˜

https://www.wildguess.co.za/

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[โ€“] swooper@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Really enjoy this. I only had games in 10 that had a vague picture (distant picture of a tree (apparently with birds in it)). Maybe add the ability to flag a photo

[โ€“] JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social 2 points 2 weeks ago

When the photo's not very helpful, there's a cheat that may help:

Right-click (or copy-paste in mobile?) the image in to a new tab / window, and you'll be shown the whole thing. With distant stuff, that won't help too much, but with nearby stuff either blurry or partially seen, I find it's a big help!

[โ€“] LyingCake@feddit.org 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I cannot get the game to start. After the 3s countdown it just loads, seemingly forever. How long do you typically have to wait for a round to start, in your experience?

(Firefox on Android)

[โ€“] JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Ohhh... oh yeah.
I know what you mean. I've seen that before, but don't have a technical explanation for you.

What I can tell you (via FF on desktop) is that I toned down my javascript security, and the game worked, or I even hit up the website via different browser (Chrome or Edge), and the game worked. Does that help, any?

[โ€“] anon6789@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

That was tough, even when I limited it to North America! ๐Ÿ˜…

[โ€“] JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Oof, it's definitely not an ego builder, unless you're Sherlock Holmes.

IIRC, the very best I did was to average 3.4pts some weeks. That was playing global-mode, but I did tend to use some helpers. Check these out, if you will:

  • For the species name, copy-paste it in to a search or LLM, making sure to add "etymology" and "do not name animal." This will tend to give you a couple more whimsical details in Latin & Greek, which we all know a bit of via various ways.

(EDIT just above, "etymology"!)

  • When the binocs are giving you absolutely nothing, view that image in a separate tab or window. The photo will generally be much clearer.

  • Sometimes in the very last step you'll be given two animals amongst the five that are wildly similar. Two different types of kestrels, let's say. In cases like that, I sometimes treat myself to backing up a step, which will preserve the target animal while generating four new random mystery animals. I'm not proud of myself, but it works, haha.

[โ€“] anon6789@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

The most devious one it gave me was supposed to be a Cape Porcupine, an animal I very clearly know, as I was just talking about my choose encounter with one yesterday. The photo only showed a single quill on someone's pants leg, making me think it was some form of stick insect, as I expected the photo to be showing the actual animal. How silly of me! ๐Ÿคช

[โ€“] JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

That's pretty funny, and oof yeah, the game is truly humbling like that. :S

I really should have shared an easier game, in retrospect.

[โ€“] anon6789@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

It sure does a great job reminding us how many creatures we don't know.

[โ€“] JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social 2 points 2 weeks ago

Yeap, that's it exactly.