Who Knows Where?

Designed by: Uncredited

Who Knows Where? is a simple quiz game for families that focuses on geographic knowledge and learning.

The board shows a map of the world broken up into a grid: you can use the ‘easy’ side that shows countries, or the harder side that is a satellite image instead. On your turn, you roll the die and move your marker around the edge of the board a matching number of spaces. Wherever you stop there is a category, and another player reads a question from a card matching the category. Then every player gets a chance to guess the location of the answer (the answers are always locations!) and place another marker ( a pyramid) on the board to represent your guess. You can copy another player’s guess, but if they’ve guessed wrong there is a penalty for doing so.

If you guess right, you can move yourself a further two spots around the edge of the board. As soon as one player makes it back to the start, the game is over and they win. Players also have clue cards they can play to help themselves, limited to one per person per play.

Sam says

A lovely idea, though as it stands the winner can potentially be the person who answers nothing right but manages to roll high every turn. That's easily fixed by tweaking the rules - but despite the good intentions here, this wasn't a huge hit in our house - whether that reflects the one-note feel of the game (guess the location) or our shabby geographic knowledge (get the location wrong!) it's hard to be completely sure. But I'd say for quiz games both Timeline and Linkee are more fun, and if you want a geography-specific game (albeit limited to animal knowledge!) we'd recommend Fauna.

The guru's verdict

  • Take That!

    Take That!

    None really, although there is potential bad luck in the game itself (see Sam Says)

  • Fidget Factor!

    Fidget Factor!

    None: the fact that all players get to guess at every answer is a neat device.

  • Brain Burn!

    Brain Burn!

    There's no 'burning' as such, but the geographical knowledge required for many of the answers means it functions best as a learning tool for families, where knowledge can be shared perhaps.

  • Again Again!

    Again Again!

    There are two decks of cards to get through, so some variation in the questions and of course in the die-rolling. But the game itself is a bit of a repetitive affair, as quiz games tend to be.