I started doing it and immediately felt like I was optimizing for minimal moves like a video game, rather than what I'd actually do which is not the same strategy. There's a handful of things different

- The direction you mow leaves a pattern that I generally try to stay parallel to, and mow alongside, and go for long strips even if I have to do a bit of running over already-mowed parts

- I may go diagonal at times

- I've never had a yard that's a maze of rocks

- If there's a small patch I need to mow around, like a garden, I'll likely do a circle around that and use the edge of that mow line as a new edge

I'd bet the vast majority of people who did the game input a series of moves that doesn't reflect that closely to what they'd do in real life.

Yeah not realistic until:

* You need to pick up dog poo, dog toys, kids toys and clothes pegs

* You need to move the trampoline and mow that part and put it back.

* Some of the grass is so thick you need to whipersnap it first.

It wasn't even clear how they were going to score it, or if it was said then I didn't see it.

I kinda guessed they would score it the way they did - the number of squares you traveled through, but at the same time I was half aware of doing what I would do in real life which is to minimize the number of direction changes, not distance traveled.