A new guessing game has burst on the small handheld screen and it is called Housle:
Much like the widely popular game Wordle, Housle gives players six tries to predict the asking price of any house currently listed in the United States. Every day, a new listing appears on the Housle website as players are given just one photo for their first guess.
With each wrong answer, new photos and details are revealed about the home, including its location, square footage, or number of bedrooms and bathrooms. After each guess, players are told if their answers are higher or lower than the listing price. To win, users must guess within five per cent of the home’s asking price.
I gave it a whirl and the first property it showed was a handsome modern structure set on an ample greenspace. After one wrong guess and an note that I was low, I was given this prompt:
An inside shot of a modern home looking out onto green grass is not a lot of new information. The location is very helpful- Buckinghamshire UK. But still, we’re missing a lot here. And for that reason, I don’t think this game will evolve in the same manner as Wordle.
As with many things, the word game is contained by very tight restrictions. There are only 26 letters in the alphabet. The solution must be an English word. Once you’ve guessed the position of one letter the use of the space for another letter is eliminated drastically paring down the solution set.
In the house guessing game the price may have eight or nine digits (or more). It’s not like the TV game The Price is Right where the contestant is rewarded with an acknowledgment when the right number is placed in the correct one’s ten’s hundred’s…space saver. There are simply too many permutations of the numbers. And that’s assuming you have a general grasp of the real estate market revealed in the photo.
Home Economics 