What game (isometric perspective, showing buildings and trees) is shown in this newspaper snippet?

Question

In my local newspaper there is a blurry picture of a game. They didn't mention the game at all.

What game is shown here?

I love the pile of unknown chip crumbs on the desk, and the artfully arranged glass of pretzel sticks. Really adds to the decor. — nightsurfer, Jun 14 '17 at 12:29
@JPhi1618 actually if you check the edit history, you can see that it was worse before but was edited with a better quality picture: https://gaming.stackexchange.com/posts/311110/revisions — ave, Jun 14 '17 at 15:29

ave · Accepted Answer · 2018-01-11T00:06:06.547

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The game is Anno 1404: Dawn of Discovery.

Here's a screenshot (that screenshot) from the game:

edited Jan 11 '18 at 00:06

answered Jun 14 '17 at 05:14

ave

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If it's a screenshot, then that means the game they're playing is the Photos app? :P – curiousdannii Jun 14 '17 at 09:19
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It is almost certainly photoshopped in. Taking good pictures of a computer screen is difficult. Also, the blur is all wrong. – mattdm Jun 14 '17 at 10:35
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You can tell by the pixels – Steve-O Jun 14 '17 at 13:21
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This answer blew up overnight, nice! If anyone wonders how I found it, here's a screenshot of me kind of live chatting about it on chat. – ave Jun 14 '17 at 15:27
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This makes me think maybe the suggestions pane when writing a question ought to do a reverse image search and prompt the user with 'does this answer your question'. That or have a bot that automagically does a reverse image search and posts an answer, then goes away if it's downvoted or a moderator steps in. – Pharap Jun 14 '17 at 15:58
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It looked a lot like Age of Empires. I'll try this one as well. – hjpotter92 Jun 15 '17 at 14:23
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@mattdm Yup, Moire patterns are formed, because of the interferance between the pixel grid in the camera sensor, the computer screen, and also by the device you are viewing it on. – Noah Cristino Jun 16 '17 at 00:32
@Noah That, and lighting/dynamic range, and reflections.... – mattdm Jun 16 '17 at 00:52
@Ave That link is dead. – pppery May 13 '20 at 16:57

score 45 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 14 '17 at 18:08

45

Taking a snippet of the screen, like

And going to Images.Google.com, using it in a search, yields a Wikipedia entry for Anno 1404, as the first result.

I would've done this in a comment, inspired by @Pharap, but my reputation isn't high enough.

answered Jun 14 '17 at 18:08

DrLime2k10

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I'm not sure it was necessary to write out another answer for this. This doesn't really provide anything substantial to the answer; it just explains the process of how the answer was found. This is also explained in the comments of the other answer, so it's not like it's even new information. – JMac Jun 14 '17 at 18:22
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You are entitled to your opinion. I think it serves as a more general solution to the question and an explicit example of what's suggested in another comment. – DrLime2k10 Jun 14 '17 at 18:30
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You can just put the whole image on google and it still gives "anno 1404". – ave Jun 15 '17 at 02:38
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Would that be in part because of this page question now? I'm conflicted: on one hand this answer doesn't add anything, but demonstrating how to obtain the answer is worthwhile. It's reflected well in the saying "teach a man to fish..." – Tas Jun 15 '17 at 03:57
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Bing has a crop tool that allows you to upload the entire image and just search for parts of that image. – Nicke Manarin Jun 15 '17 at 21:50
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@JMac I disagree, it's a great answer. As they say, give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he'll eat for the rest of his life. Teaching people how to solve their own problems is useful, especially when the solution is so simple. And it still answers the question. – mrr Jun 18 '17 at 22:36
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@MilesRout I'm not saying reverse image search isn't a useful tool. I'm saying in the SE format it's not really a good answer to take a question already answered and say "Here is the same answer; you can use this tool". I could go through game identification threads and add a new answer saying what the game is and then explain a reverse image search. I don't think it would be overly productive. – JMac Jun 18 '17 at 22:50
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@JMac It's not like this answer bumps a whole lot of ancient questions, I don't think that would be appropriate. But I think this case it's probably okay, because it was answered on the same day. I don't think the first person to answer gets a monopoly on their answer and I think this answer is much more helpful. – mrr Jun 19 '17 at 05:06
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(maybe adding an 'have you tried reverse-image-searching this?' popup when someone tries adding an image to a question tagged game-identification would be helpful) – mrr Jun 19 '17 at 05:07

What game (isometric perspective, showing buildings and trees) is shown in this newspaper snippet?

2 Answers2