Best Guess

About Best Guess

Best Guess is a browser quiz about numbers you probably do not know exactly: distances, outputs, populations, speeds. Its idea comes from Fermi problems. Instead of typing one figure, you bet a range. You set a lower bound and an upper bound, with buttons to divide or multiply each by ten and a slider that runs from 1 to a trillion, and the game shows the jackpot you stand to win and how risky your range is.

The Daily is five questions, the same set for every player that day. If the real value falls inside your range you score, and the narrower the range the more points, up to more than 1,000 for a question. Landing near the centre of the range gives the full jackpot, while an answer near the edges still counts at 30 percent. A miss scores nothing. After the five, your total goes on the global daily leaderboard, which shows each player's points and how many of the five they got.

Beyond the Daily there is Survival, an endless chain of questions where one wrong range ends the run and ranges are capped at 100 times their low end, and Party, a pass-the-phone mode for two to six players. There are more than 200 questions in all. A built-in calculator helps with the napkin maths.

The site is Italian and opens in Italian; the EN button switches the menus and the questions to English. It was made by Giuseppe Totire, who also makes the word ladder La Scala. It suits players who like estimating and want to weigh how sure they are, not just how close.

How to play Best Guess

1. Open the site, press EN for English if you want it, and choose the Daily.
2. Read the question and its unit, such as metric tons.
3. Set the lower and upper bound by typing, using the divide and multiply by ten buttons, or dragging the slider.
4. Check the potential jackpot and risk level, then press Lock Range.
5. See the real value and your points, then go on to the next of the five questions and the daily leaderboard.

Screenshots

Tips

• Work the order of magnitude out first, then narrow the range around it.
• When you are unsure, a wider range that still scores beats a tight one that misses and scores nothing.
• Aim to put your best estimate in the middle of the range: the centre is where the full jackpot sits.
• Use the built-in calculator for quick multiplications, such as people times consumption per person.
• Watch the unit on each question; a range in tons and one in kilograms differ by a factor of a thousand.

Questions