Sudden Death Geography: How Far Can You Go Without a Miss?

A normal round on DodoThinks is ten questions. Miss two and you still finish with a good score. Sudden death changes the deal: the round keeps going through the whole level, and the first wrong answer ends it. Your score is simply how far you got.

It is the most demanding way to play a map, and the most honest one. A lucky round of ten can hide the countries you do not really know. A sudden death round finds them for you.

The short version:

• Turn it on with the Sudden death switch under the levels: Off, 3 lives or 1 life.
• The round asks every place of the level once, until you run out of lives.
• Your score is how many you got right, out of the whole level, plus where you went out.
• Sudden death scores are kept apart from normal scores, and your best is saved on your device.

Where to find it

Every English map quiz has the switch: the world map, each continent such as Europe, the US states and the country maps. So does the Capital City quiz, where you name the capital of each country.

Pick 1 life for true sudden death, or 3 lives for a gentler start: two misses and you keep going, the third ends the round. The choice stays on your device until you change it, so you don't have to set it every time.

What changes in a round

Choose a level as usual. With sudden death on, the round is no longer ten questions; it is the whole level:

• Europe: all 38 countries on the map.
• The world map, Easy: the 40 best-known countries.
• US states, Easy: its 15 states.
• Capital City, Easy: 40 capitals.

Your lives sit at the top of the screen as hearts, and an empty heart appears each time you miss. When a miss ends the round, the right answer stays on screen for a moment, so you can see where you went wrong. Then you get your score, such as "23 / 38 · out on Moldova", or "the whole level without a miss" if you made it to the end.

Under the switch you will see your best score for each level with the lives you chose. Beat it and the result says so.

Scores kept apart

A sudden death round is a different game, so it is scored as one. Your sudden death rounds go on the leaderboard as their own entries, and a 23 out of 38 never mixes with your ten-question scores. Rounds with 3 lives are kept apart from rounds with 1 life too.

You can also combine modes. On the world, Europe and Africa maps, turn on No borders as well, and you get the hardest version of the game: no borders between countries, and one miss ends it.

How to last longer

There is no clock, so use it. Nothing ends a sudden death round but a wrong answer. Take a second on every place, especially in crowded corners like the Balkans or the Caribbean.

Learn the look-alikes first. Most sudden death rounds end on a pair people swap: Niger and Nigeria, Slovakia and Slovenia, the two Dakotas, Vermont and New Hampshire. Spend five minutes on those before you play, and your runs get much longer.

Use the magnifier for small places. On a phone, a tap near a group of small countries opens a magnifier instead of answering. Use it to make sure you hit Luxembourg and not Belgium; a miss by a few pixels counts like any other miss.

Climb the levels. Start on Easy with 3 lives. When you can clear it, switch to 1 life. Then move up to the next level, or to the whole map.

Look at your last answer. The place that ended your run is the one to learn next. Play the same level again straight away and you will rarely go out on it twice.

Good to know

• It is free, like every game on the site, on a phone or a computer, with no sign-up.
• Your best scores live on your device. Play on another phone and you start a fresh record there.
• Leaving a round ends it without a score. The ✕ at the top takes you back to the levels, and no score is saved.
• It works with your own quizzes. Make a quiz of the places your class studied with "Make your own quiz", turn on sudden death, and you have a short test with no second chances.
• It is a different challenge on every level. The world map's harder levels hold the small and lesser-known countries, so a long run there is a real achievement.

For teachers

Sudden death is switched off in class challenges, so every student plays the same ten questions and the class board stays fair. It still works well in the classroom as a projected warm-up: put a map on the board, turn on sudden death, and see how far the class gets together, one answer per student.

Try it

Start with the Europe map on Easy with 3 lives, then try 1 life. If you prefer capitals, the Capital City quiz has the same switch. See how far you can go without a miss.