Map Guess

Updated by Darryl Waterhouse on 3 November 2026 6 min read

Show visitors a photo and ask where it was taken. They drop a pin on a map, and the closer they get, the more points they score. Use the built-in world map, or upload a map of your own - a town map, a venue or office floor plan, a campus, even a fantasy map. Map Guess is a Pro Tool, and can be gifted to a site.

What it does

Rounds of photos: each go draws a few photos at random from the game's photos (you choose how many), so a big pool keeps it fresh.
Two kinds of map:
- The world map, built in. Players pin anywhere on Earth and the distance is measured round the globe, in kilometres or miles. No map service, no account, no key - the map is part of the Tool (made with Natural Earth, which is free for anyone to use).
- Your own map picture: upload any picture and give its scale ("100 pixels = 50 metres"). Distances come out in metres, kilometres or miles.
Points for being close: up to 1,000 a photo. Full points within a distance you choose, none from a second distance, and in between they fall evenly, quickly at first, or slowly at first.
A reveal after every guess: the player's pin, the right answer, a line between them, how far away it was, the points, and your note ("The old mill").
Pan and zoom: drag the map, pinch or use the + and - buttons (or the mouse wheel) to zoom. On a keyboard: Tab to the map, arrow keys move a cross, + and - zoom, 0 shows the whole map, Enter drops the pin, then Tab to Guess here.
Optional time for each photo: out of time scores 0 for that photo.
Leaderboards of the best scores for today, this week, this month and all time, best go per name. The most points wins; a faster time breaks a tie (only the time spent looking at the photos counts, not reading the answers).
Personal best and a Share button on the finished screen.
Opening and closing times, a limit on goes per name.

The answers stay secret. Where a photo was taken never reaches a player's browser until they have made their guess for it. And every photo is copied into the Tool with all its hidden details removed first - a phone photo's GPS location, the camera, the date, even the file name - so nothing inside a photo gives its answer away.

Making a game

Switch Map Guess on in Tools.
Open Tools > Games > Map Guess and choose New game.
Give it a title and choose the map (see below).
Press Add photos… and choose some photos (several at once is fine), or From Media… to use one already in your Media.
For each photo: choose it (click its picture or Place answer), then click the map where it was taken. Zoom in for a precise answer. Green is the chosen photo's answer; pale rings are the others.
Optionally give each photo a caption (shown with the photo - a clue or a question) and an answer note (shown after the guess, for example "The Radcliffe Camera, Oxford").
Set the rounds and scoring, then press Test and play it yourself (see below).
Set the status to Open and save. A game only opens when every photo has its answer placed.
Put it on any page:

[map-guess id="where-in-the-world" /]

Right-click a photo (or its ⋮) to move it up or down, clear its answer, or remove it.

Your own map

Choose Your own map picture under The map, then Upload the map picture… (or From Media…). Any picture works: a scan of a town map, a floor plan, a drawing.

Then set the scale: how far on the ground a number of the picture's pixels is, as on a scale bar. The easy way:

Press Measure on the map.
Click the two ends of the map's scale bar (or of anything whose length you know).
Type how far that really is in the box after "pixels on the map =", and choose metres, kilometres or miles.
Press Done measuring.

If you later upload a new version of the map picture at a different size, the answers and the scale are moved with it - check them before saving. Switching between the world map and your own map clears the answers placed (they cannot move from one to the other); you are asked first.

Every setting

The game: title, short name (used in the shortcode), status (Draft, Open, Closed), introduction, opening and closing times.

The map: the world map or your own map picture, and for your own the scale.

Rounds and scoring:

Photos a go (1 to 20): drawn at random from the game's photos. With fewer photos, a go plays them all.
Seconds for each photo (0 to 600): 0 means as long as they like.
Distances in: kilometres, miles or metres.
Full points within and No points from: the two distances that set the scoring.
In between, points fall: evenly; quickly at first (only close guesses score well); or slowly at first (near enough is good). The line under these says what a guess at a few distances would score.

Players and leaderboard: goes per name (0 = as many as they like), leaderboard on or off, its size, which period it opens on, and Animations (the map glides to each answer and results pop in; visitors who asked their device for less motion never see them).

Settings for new games: the cog at the top of Map Guess sets what a new game starts with - the map, distances on the world map in kilometres or miles, photos a go, seconds for each photo, how points fall, the leaderboard and animations. Games already made keep their own settings.

Shortcodes

The game, with its leaderboard below it:

[map-guess id="where-in-the-world" /]

board="hide" - the game without its leaderboard.
board="only" - the leaderboard alone.

The leaderboard on its own, anywhere:

[map-guess-leaderboard id="where-in-the-world" period="week" limit="5" title="This week's best" /]

period is today, week, month or all (left out, it opens on the game's own setting); limit is how many rows (up to the game's leaderboard size); title is the heading.

Testing

Test (in the list, the editor, or the play button at the top) plays the game exactly as your players will, whatever its status. A test go is never on the leaderboard and never counts as a go; the finished screen says where it would have come.

Looking after the board

Open a game's Plays to see every go (your own test goes are not shown), with the rounds each one played. You can hide a play from the leaderboard, delete it, or reset the leaderboard.

Moving games between sites

Export a game from its menu in the list (right-click it, or ⋮), or from the download button at the top of its editor. Export all puts every game in one file. The file holds the games and their photos and map pictures (already without their hidden details) - never who played.

Import… at the top of the list adds the games in such a file to this site:

Each arrives as a draft. Test it, then set it to Open.
Every photo is checked and stored again on this site.
Nothing already here is changed. A game whose short name is taken gets one of its own (where-in-the-world-2), so check the shortcode before putting it on a page.
A photo missing from the file leaves its round out, and you are told.
Up to 50 games at a time.

Notifications

Map Guess new top score - someone has gone top of a game's all-time leaderboard.

Switch it off, or send it to more people, in Notifications' settings. The Map Guess count in the sidebar shows how many games were finished today.

Good to know

A photo you use From Media… is copied into the Tool without its hidden details, but the original stays in your Media as it was. If it carries a location and you would rather it did not, delete it from Media.
Photos are stored at up to 1,600 pixels across, map pictures at up to 4,096.

Who can do what

The Map Guess permission has two parts: See (open Map Guess and see the games, plays and leaderboards - never the answers) and Manage (make, change and delete games, their photos and answers, change the settings for new games, hide or remove plays, reset a leaderboard). Admins have both.