Questions and answers

A free daily geography game you play in your browser, with nothing to install. Every day there are six new questions, the same for everyone: name a country whose flag has green on it, a river in Africa, a mountain over 8,000 m, a sea on the coast of Italy, a capital south of the equator. The more obscure your answer, the more points it scores.

The last question of the day is different every time: guess a size or a distance, put five places in order, drop a pin on a world map, or name a place from its outline in five guesses (right on the first is worth the most).

Every day at midnight, your local time. Everyone plays the same six questions for that date.

By how many players would think of it. Before a day's puzzle is made, every answer gets an estimate of that share, using data from how well known the place is: how often it's looked up and written about. Well-known places (e.g., USA, Germany) are Common, places few would name are Rare, Ultra rare, or Legendary (e.g., Sao Tome and Principe, Heard Island and McDonald Islands).

Nope! You can play without one, and your games are kept for this browser. An account (just an email address, no password needed) keeps your Journey, streak, and scores on every device, and puts you in the league: without one you only see where you'd stand. See Privacy for what's kept.

That's your username: it's on your Journey book and in the league, where other players see it. The game makes one up for you (a colour, a nationality and an animal); change it whenever you like in Account.

Every day you play increases it by 1; miss a day, and it goes back to 0. Without an account it's kept for this browser; sign in to keep it on every device.

A new league starts every month. Every daily game you finish on its day counts: its points go to that month's total, and the league ranks everyone with an account by total. Players with the same total share a place. Without an account you see where you'd stand; sign in to take your place (your games so far come along). The scroll on the homepage opens it.

A sticker book of the world's countries (sovereign states) and territories (places with an ISO country code of their own). Every place you name in a game gets its flag stuck in, the first time you name it. The percentage on the book is how much of it you've filled. Collect 'em all.

Through test-user feedback, I settled on a time that balances stress (gotta have some) with the ability to answer.

x: Time per question
y: Level
Stress: 100 to 0, dotted
Ability to answer: 0 to 100, dashed
meet: 40 s

From open-source data: Wikidata, the United Nations, Natural Earth, the CIA World Factbook, and more. The full list is on Sources and credits.

Following WCAG's (Web Content Accessibility Guideline) guidelines, people with disabilities (e.g., Dyslexia) should be entitled to extra time. Turning on extra time in the settings increases the timer by 25 seconds. To keep things balanced, the time bonus (+5pts) is removed if this setting is turned on. This system is trust-based; only turn it on if you actually need it.

The score at the end of a round is your points, with the day's maximum beside it. Maximum points range day by day, so a score of 300 on one day does not represent the same as a score of 300 on another day; the curve with your score shows how you did against everyone else that day. Grading is hard, so as a rule of thumb, consider about half the maximum as quite good. There is no concept of pass/fail. Rather, your score reflects how rare your answers are.

Once a question set is generated, each question gets a score based on the average tier of its answers, and the day's score is the average of those.

Good eye. Having a real map could give a slight edge for questions involving distances, scales, and latitudes between countries/capitals.

The Daily Atlas is an independent game, made and run by one person who loves maps. It's free to play.

Email hello@dailyatlas.io: questions, ideas, a wrong answer that should count, or a player's name in the league that shouldn't be there. Every message is read.

The chicken.