A Note About Mapping Apps

(And Their Errors)

Easily playing this game is going to require using a maps app on your smartphone or other device. We'll just say right now: we recommend that you use Google Maps for playing this game. We designed the game, and our question categories, with Google Maps in mind, so you'll likely get the best gameplay when using it. It's also the only major mapping app where it is easy to measure distances, which will often be necessary for questions. In order to measure a distance, hold down anywhere on Google Maps that is not a formally listed location. A pin will pop up and if you scroll down you can select "measure distance," then drag to measure from that point. We will mention that Apple Maps has superior rail visualization, and occasionally more accurate timetables, so it is useful for certain game aspects. When we play, we use Apple Maps to see rail options and game out hypothetical routes, but Google Maps for everything else.

You'll notice that many of our questions reference various categories of businesses or locations: parks, zoos, hospitals, museums, etc. We chose these carefully–almost all of them have their own special categorization in Google Maps and Apple Maps, with their own special little icon to help you easily see them. Amusement parks have a ferris wheel icon, libraries have a book, and so on. You should be able to easily see all the places that fall under a given category by simply searching that category in your app and looking for those icons. Unfortunately, you'll notice there are sometimes categorization errors. A random parking lot will be erroneously listed as an amusement park. for example. Determining what is an error and what is not is often subjective, but given the need for objective rules, here is our criteria:

If you are using Google Maps:

Anywhere with 5 or more Google Reviews is assumed to be legitimate, unless all players can agree otherwise. Anywhere with fewer than 5 Google Reviews is assumed to be illegitimate, unless all players can agree otherwise.

If you are using Apple Maps, or another mapping app:

Everything is assumed to be legitimate, unless all players can agree otherwise.

Whatever app you choose, it's very important that the hider and seekers are using the same maps app when searching in these categories. If the seekers and hiders search on different apps, they will often get different results, leading to confusion.

In general, it is the responsibility of the seekers to clarify any ambiguity in what they are asking–for example, by sending a screenshot of everything they understand to qualify as an amusement park when asking if the hider is near one.