All the countries of the world

This was a really fun project. As most interesting things do, this all started from some friendly competition with a close high school friend of mine. Now this friend is particularly good at history, geography, and pretty much all things that come from reading. I tried the game once, maybe got 60 of the 196 countries in the allotted 15 minutes and was pretty stoked… until he got 160-something on his first try. Demoralizing? Maybe. Motivational? For sure. I then took it as a personal project to beat his score.

So, for the next week or so, all through the school day (essentially every class), and for multiple hours at night, I would listen to music and play the JetPunk countries of the world quiz. By the end of the week (probably ~20 hours of game time) I had done it. All 196 countries in the 15 minutes. Man it felt good… until it took my friend about 6 more attempts to beat my score and do all 196 in 12 minutes. Fuck. More practice led to the times being pushed down to ~10 minutes, until I (temporarily) gave up. Trust me, it was a “Trojan Horse” surrender.

6 months pass by, and one day I am desperately bored in my calculus class at school. What should I do to pass the time? Definitely not pay attention. So I fired up the ol’ JetPunk and put up a disappointing 184 countries in 15 minutes performance. The fire was reignited. A week of practice later and I beat my previous time. 9 minutes or something like that. Sent the provoking text to the friend (who by the way went to a completely different university) that I was the new record holder. We went back and forth for the next week getting all time PR’s. In the end, I made it down to 6:44 for all 196 and he got 6:12. Crushing.

Overall, a really fun side project/competition, and now I know all 196 countries of the world from like 20+ years ago! Learning is learning.