A round
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Study the faces
Each round opens with two composites, one male and one female, each an average of many photographs of people from one group. Tap either face to see both larger, and tap again to shrink them.
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Place your pin
Tap the map where you think the group comes from. Pinch or scroll to zoom and drag to pan; the map wraps around the Pacific, so you can pan straight across it. Move the pin as often as you like, then press Confirm guess.
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Read the verdict
The group's region appears in Pompeian red, with a dashed line from your pin to its nearest edge. You see the distance, your points, and notes on the group from the source. Then on to the next round.
Scoring
A pin inside the region scores the full 5,000. Outside it, distance is measured to the nearest point of the region's outline. Anything within 200 km still earns full marks; beyond that the score falls away on a logarithmic curve and reaches zero at 5,000 km.
| Distance from the region | Points |
|---|---|
| Inside, or up to 200 km | 5,000 |
| 500 km | 3,577 |
| 1,000 km | 2,500 |
| 2,000 km | 1,423 |
| 3,000 km | 793 |
| 5,000 km or more | 0 |
Some groups also show paler, dashed areas where they live in smaller numbers. Only the solid region counts for points. Ten rounds make a perfect day of 50,000.
The day
Everyone gets the same ten groups. A new day begins at midnight UTC. Your progress is saved on your device as you go, so you can close the page mid-game and pick up where you left off.
When you finish, you see how your score sits among everyone who played the daily today, worldwide.
Your plate
At the end, Save image sets your whole day as a single atlas page: your total, a map with all ten regions, each round's face, distance and points, and today's distribution. It's made to be posted to the group chat as it is.
Share link sends a link instead. Its preview shows your ten round scores and nothing else: no answers, no regions, so it never spoils the day for anyone who hasn't played.
With friends
Open your record with the people icon, top left, to invite friends or start a group for your chat. Once paired, you see each other's daily scores and a running head-to-head record. A friend's score only appears once you've finished your own game, so nobody spoils anybody. Scores between friends are end-to-end encrypted. How it works explains exactly what goes where.
Playing well
- Look at the whole world before you tap. It's easy to commit to the first place that comes to mind. Zoom out and consider two or three candidates first.
- Partial credit is generous. A pin 1,000 km off still earns half marks. When torn between two areas, a pin between them can beat a confident miss.
- Aim for the middle of what you believe. Distance is measured to the region's edge, so a pin in the heart of a plausible area loses little if the region is nearby.
- Read the notes. The verdict notes are the quickest way to learn the map, and the same groups come round again.
- Play daily. Your record keeps a streak and a five-week calendar of your scores.