THE EXPLORER'S FIELD GUIDE
How to play Farflung
Read a clue. Trust your sense of place. Put a pin in the world.
Updated · Independent edition
How to play Farflung in five steps
Farflung is a clue-based geography game. Identify a city or landmark, place a pin on an unlabeled world map, and earn points for getting close. These are the rules of this independent edition.
- Choose your mode. The daily challenge is one shared five-round selection per UTC date. Farflung unlimited offers another selection whenever you finish.
- Read the clue. It describes the destination through geography, culture, architecture, or history. The answer is a fixed point, such as a city center or landmark.
- Place your pin. Click or tap the map. Move it before submitting. Use + and − to zoom, arrows to pan, and ↺ to reset.
- Lock in your guess. The game reveals the destination, distance, points, a short explanation, and a source link. Submitted guesses cannot be changed.
- Finish all five rounds. Your final score enters this device's personal leaderboard. Share a spoiler-free result, or start another unlimited game.
No timer. No login. Just a place to find. Take time to think before each guess. Extra hints are optional.
Play today's Farflung →How Farflung scoring works
Each round starts with a possible 5,000 points. The shortest surface distance between your pin and the target is calculated with the haversine formula and an Earth radius of 6,371 km. This is great-circle distance, not road distance.
A pin within 25 km earns 5,000 base points. Farther away, the base score is round(5,000 × exp(−distance in km / 2,000)). Each extra hint subtracts 250 points, with a minimum round score of zero. There are two optional extra hints per round.
| Distance | Base points | One extra hint |
|---|---|---|
| 0–25 km | 5,000 | 4,750 |
| 100 km | 4,756 | 4,506 |
| 500 km | 3,894 | 3,644 |
| 1,000 km | 3,033 | 2,783 |
| 2,000 km | 1,839 | 1,589 |
| 5,000 km | 410 | 160 |
A five-round game has a maximum of 25,000 points. The 25 km full-score allowance makes close guesses practical on a small map. Country borders do not affect scoring: proximity to the specific location decides your score.
Daily reset and saved progress
The daily game changes at 00:00 UTC. The UTC date shown above the game can differ from your local date. If a new UTC day starts during a game, the game opens the new day's challenge before your next selection.
Daily progress is saved in this browser when local storage is available. Returning on the same UTC date restores your game. Completed daily games remain completed, so the shared challenge cannot be replayed for a replacement score. Unlimited mode is always available for practice.
Keyboard and coordinate controls
Tab to the map and use the arrow keys to move your pin. Press Enter to submit. For precise entry, open Keyboard controls & enter coordinates beneath the game. Enter latitude from −90 to 90 and longitude from −180 to 180, select Place pin, then lock in your guess. Positive latitude means north; positive longitude means east.
Your personal leaderboard and sharing
The leaderboard ranks completed games on this device, with daily and unlimited entries labeled. Scores are not verified or compared against other players and do not sync between devices.
After finishing, use Share your journey. A supported browser opens its share sheet; otherwise the game copies your result or displays selectable text. The result includes your points and round performance without revealing destinations.
When something is not working
- Disabled guess button: first place a pin on the map or through the coordinate form.
- No interactive game: enable JavaScript and check that local asset files are available.
- Progress does not survive a reload: local storage may be blocked or cleared in private mode. You can still play during the current visit.
- Hard-to-see island: zoom in or enter coordinates. The simplified map cannot show every island in detail.
Read our Farflung geography tips for a closer guess, or see about this edition for map sources and privacy.