The day

• One Daily a day: 5 rounds, the same 5 countries for every player worldwide.
• Resets at midnight, your time. One scored attempt; practice is unlimited but never ranked.
• Difficulty ramps: rounds 1–2 are well-known shapes, 3–4 mid-sized, round 5 is the hard one.
• No country repeats within 30 days.

A round

• 20 seconds. The mystery country is printed in bright pink on an unlabelled globe.
• Pick from the dropdown (type to filter; common names like "Ivory Coast" or "Czech Republic" also match).
• Unlimited guesses, but each wrong one burns 3 seconds, which also jumps the reveal forward.
• Typos are caught: "Saidu Arabai" gets Did you mean Saudi Arabia? Press Enter again to submit it. The suggestion itself costs no time.
• Time out and the answer is shown; you score 0 for the round.

Scoring

• Correct: 1000 × time left ÷ 20, rounded, minimum 100.
• Max 1,000 a round, 5,000 a day.
• Ties on the leaderboard break on total time, then on who finished first.
• Streaks (days in a row with a score) show on your profile but don't add points, so missing a day only costs the streak.

Share card

Spoiler-free text, like the other daily puzzle games. Each square shows which stage you guessed at, so a friend can see how you did without seeing the answers.

Accounts

• Sign in with a 6-digit email code. No password. Pick a display name.
• Optional: you can play without one. After a daily, you're asked once whether to put the score on the board, and it still counts.
• Sign out or delete your account (and every result) from the account panel.
• Try it with the Sign in button above. It's in preview mode until Supabase is set up: no email is sent and any 6 digits work.

One game a day

• The daily locks once started. Reload mid-game and you carry on at the next country; the one on screen counts as played.
• Done for the day? The start screen shows your score and offers practice.
• The server reruns the day's countries and replays your guesses to work out the score. The first result of the day stands.
• Leaderboards: Today and This week. Friends' leagues can come later.

Modes

• Head-to-head: two players, same outline, first correct guess takes the round.
• Continent packs: "Africa only" or "Europe only" practice to learn a region.
• Reverse: you're given a name and have to tap it on a blank map.
• Sudden death: keep going until your first miss.
• US states / UK counties packs, same engine.

Presentation

• Outline style options: solid silhouette, black-and-white line, or "coloured anew" with a random fill each day.
• Rotate or mirror the outline on hard rounds (an optional "Hard mode" toggle).
• After each round, a one-line fact card: capital, population, what it borders.
• Rivers or a coastline-only view as a stage-zero clue.

Retention

• A "passport" that stamps every country you've named correctly.
• Weekly recap: your best and worst regions.
• Badges: 5 Solo reads in one day, a 30-day streak, every country in Africa.

• Is 20 seconds right? Raised from 15 after the first playtest. Still worth checking whether round 5 needs longer, or whether easy rounds now feel slow.
• One guess or many? Many guesses with a time penalty keeps people playing; one guess is purer but harsher.
• Which list? 193 UN members plus a few common extras (Taiwan, Kosovo, Palestine). Disputed borders need a deliberate, documented policy.

• Overseas territories: France's outline includes French Guiana in this data. Keep it (accurate, and a nice twist when you zoom out) or show only the mainland?
• Microstates: Monaco and San Marino are nearly invisible as outlines. Leave them out of the target pool but keep them in the dropdown.
• Accounts: play anonymously and only ask for a name when you join a board?

1 · Prototype free

This page. Static HTML, Natural Earth outlines (public domain), all in the browser. Good enough for playtesting with friends.

2 · Accounts + boards free tier

Same set-up as Overbooked: Cloudflare Pages hosting (free) and Supabase for sign-in and scores (free plan, about $25/month only if it ever outgrows it). Email codes need a mail service before launch: Resend is free up to 3,000 emails a month. The code is written; setup takes about 20 minutes (docs/SETUP.md).

3 · Apps costs money

Wrapping it as an iPhone/Android app means store fees: Apple charges $99/year, Google a one-off $25. A web app you add to your home screen is the free alternative.