Want to change how The Globe game works? Make games quicker? Make games longer? Add special bonuses? Maybe try to deal with fake pins? Play with the options!
Normally, there's no harm in guessing at an answer on The Globe. If your pin is close enough to earn points, you get points! If not, no harm no foul: you continue with the same score you had when the question was asked.
Lose Points changes that. For every 5km outside the question radius your pin lies, you will lose one point. If your pin is 100km off, you'd lose 20 points. If your pin is 10000km off (not impossible, particularly if you're trying for Antipodes!) you'd lose 2000 points. Ouch!
Lose Points is not enabled by default.
Sure, it can be satisfying to click very close to an answer. But are you good enough to click on the opposite side of the earth from the answer? Then Antipodes—and maybe heaps of extra points!—is for you! If you can place a pin close to the antipodal point of a question's answer, you get 50 percent more points than you you'd get for clicking that close to the answer itself. And if Lose Points is enabled, you get twice the points! In theory, that means a single question can be worth as much as 3000 points! Wow!
When you place your pin, The Globe sends you a private message with the latitude and longitude of your pin. If you're clever, you can use that information to find the antipodal point. Of course, you have to click near the (correct?) answer first to get that info, which might just give the answer away to other players!
How close to the antipodal point do you have to be? That depends on the Radius setting. By default, that's 1000km, but can be as small as 100km and as large as 2000km. And remember, if Lose Points is enabled, being too far away can be very costly!
Antipodes is not enabled by default.
If you're playing The Globe with six, eight, or ten other people (or more!), the placement and motion of pins can be chaotic and confusing. But if you're playing with just one or two other people, it can be pretty obvious whose pins are where. Ghosts changes that by semi-randomly placing pins during play. There's no obvious way to distinguish Ghost pins from those of real players…at least, not until the question wraps up and all the Ghost pins disappear! Ghost pins function essentially as a distraction, intended to mislead, confuse, and amuse.
Ghost pins do not earn points. Ghosts will never "take over" a player's pin, but if there are enough players a real player may "take over" a ghost pin for the remainder of the question.
Ghosts are not enabled by default. Ghosts cannot be used in conjunction with InvisiPins.
If you're playing The Globe with other people, you'll notice sometimes players place pins based on where they see other pins appearing. (That's one reason Ghosts can be so misleading!) InvisiPins eliminates that! With Invispins acvtive, no pins during a question! You'll still hear people placing and moving their pins&mdsah;and you'll still get private messages with your pin location—but the pin locations aren't revealed until the question is over, when they're all shown (along with the answer).
InvisiPins are not enabled by default. InvisPins cannot be used in conjunction with Ghost pins.
The Radius setting adjusts how close pins must be to the answer from to as little as 100km (so pins must be closer to the answer to earn points), or as far as 2000km (so pins can be further away and still earn points). Each question is still worth 1000 points (not counting any difficulty bonus)—points are awarded in proportion to their distance from the answer.
The Radius is set to 1000km by default. Note the Radius setting is independent from Lose Points and Antipodes! Changing the radius setting is one of the easiest ways to make games go faster (or make them last longer).
Time controls how long players have to place their pins, and can be set anywhere from 10 seconds to 120 seconds (two minutes). The Globe always does a countdown when there are just five seconds left to place (or move) a pin.
By default, Time is set to 30 seconds.