Play
RankedFive rounds, five places, one score. Your best game is the one on the board.
- 5
- rounds a game
- 5,000
- points a round, at most
- 3:00
- on the clock each round
- 1
- GAIA hint a game
EARFguessWhere on Earth
are you?
You are dropped onto a real street somewhere in the world. Read the signs, the road and the light, put a pin on the map, and score by how close you land.
Free to play. An account keeps your scores and puts you on the leaderboard.
Three ways to play
Ranked for the board, Practice to learn the world, and Endless to see how long you last.
Practice
UnlimitedAs many rounds as you like, with no clock. Nothing counts, so try things.
- ∞
- rounds
- No
- clock
- 1
- GAIA hint every round
- 0
- effect on your ranking
Endless
Soon™One health bar, wave after wave, until it runs out. How far can you get?
- 50,000
- HP to start
- 2:00
- on the clock each wave
- +2,500
- HP back for a perfect guess
- #1
- on its own board, by wave
Built and in final testing
How close is close enough
A round is worth up to 5,000 points, and they fall away with distance. The right city earns almost all of them, the right country around half, and the wrong continent next to nothing.
- 5,000
- for the exact spot
- 25,000
- for a perfect game
- Distance
- is all that counts. The clock only matters if it runs out.
Round scoreby distance from the answer
Endless Mode
Soon™No five-round limit and no second chances. One health bar, wave after wave, until it empties.
Health50,000 HP
Every wave takes the points you missed by. Only a near-perfect guess gives any back, and nothing takes you above full.
Wave scoreHealth
5,000Pinpoint+2,500 HP
4,800+Near perfect+1,000 HP
3,000Right region−2,000 HP
1,000Wrong country−4,000 HP
0Timed out−5,000 HP
A tighter clock
Two minutes a wave instead of three, and a fresh GAIA hint every wave instead of one a game.
Ranked by highest wave
Your record saves to your account and sits on its own board. Reach wave 80 and you are above everyone on 79.
Play stays Play
Nothing in Endless touches the ranked board, your best score or your games played. The one thing the modes share is which countries you read well and badly.
StatusIn final testing
Endless is finished and being played hard before it opens. It opens to every account Soon™, which is to say when it is ready and not a moment before.
Leaderboards
The best ranked game each player has played, and the furthest anyone has got in Endless.
RankedBest game
- 1
Shynie
20,662 - 2
Jake11,342 - 3
Redacted
8,215
EndlessHighest wave
Soon™
The Endless board opens with the mode. Every wave you survive will count from day one.
Reading a round
The first moves the best players make. Each one either halves the map or names the country.
- Script
Read the script, not the words
Cyrillic, Greek, Thai, Hangul, Devanagari and Arabic each cut the world to a handful of countries before you have read a single word.
- Traffic
Check which side they drive on
About a third of the world drives on the left. One passing car, or a glimpse of a driver’s seat, and half the map is gone.
- Street furniture
Bollards give it away
Roadside bollards, kilometre markers and utility poles are designed nationally and almost never change. Learn a dozen and you can place an empty road.
- Road lines
Line colour beats road quality
Yellow centre lines point at the Americas, Japan or Korea; white ones at Europe, Africa and most of Asia. Road quality only says how wealthy an area is.
- Sun
Let the sun pick the hemisphere
The sun tracking through the southern sky puts you north of the equator, and the other way round. Shadow length gives a rough latitude on top.
- Camera
Look at the car you are riding in
Camera rigs, blur patterns, roof racks and snorkels vary by region and survey year. Some countries were only ever shot with one rig.
Questions
Is EARFguess free?
Yes. It runs in your browser, there is nothing to download, and there is nothing to pay.
Do I need an account?
Yes, a free EARF account. It is what keeps your scores, your record and your place on the leaderboard, so every game you play counts for something.
How is a round scored?
Only by distance. A round is worth up to 5,000 points and they fall away the further your pin lands from the real place, so a perfect five-round game is 25,000.
What is Endless Mode?
A survival mode: one health bar that every wave chips at by the points you missed, and a leaderboard ranked by the highest wave reached.
When does Endless open?
Soon™. It is built, it is in final testing, and it opens to every account the moment it is ready.
Your next round is out there.
Somewhere on Earth, on a street you have never seen.