PinPonder Play free

How to play PinPonder

One game is five rounds of real photographs. Here are the rules, the timers and the scoring.

The shape of a game

A game is five rounds, each in a distinct area, drawn from a finite preview catalogue of 18 reviewed sample areas: 109 real panoramas from 16 countries across five continents. Free play prefers the areas you have played least recently, and avoids reopening on the previous game’s opening photograph when there is an alternative. Areas can come round again in a later game.

The daily challenge is the other way in, and it is always a deliberate choice: open the Solo menu and pick today’s daily. The same five-round plan is used for everyone on a given UTC day, played in Moving mode, so the street arrows and W and S work as they do in free play, with 90 seconds a round. One attempt is tracked per browser and device, saved in this browser with its own progress and XP, and it waits there until you choose the daily again; reloading the page or coming back to the game later does not reopen it on its own. There is no online account sync, and no ranked leaderboard is offered.

In free play the timer is fixed when the game starts: 30, 60, 90 or 180 seconds for all five rounds, or no clock at all. Changing it starts a new game.

Opening the game at /play starts a fresh random free game each time, so a refresh or a later visit never drops you back into an old location. Your most recent previous game — free or daily — is kept in this browser instead: choose Resume previous game in the Solo menu and confirm, and it returns on the same location and round, with your pin, the rounds already played and the round’s original deadline, replacing the game in progress. Only one previous game is kept, so a more recent played game can replace it — and if browser storage is blocked or full, there may be nothing to resume.

Looking around

The opening view is a real photograph, taken where the camera stood. Drag to pan, or use the arrow keys, and zoom in — a sign unreadable at first is often legible two steps closer.

  • Language and letterforms. Spelling, accents, diacritics, letter shapes.
  • Number plates. Colour, layout, the country strip on the left.
  • Road markings and signage. Sign shapes, colours, fonts, language order.
  • Plants. Species that only grow in particular climates.
  • Building materials and roof shapes. Brick, render, stone, tile.
  • Poles and wires. Wooden or concrete, and how the cables run.
  • Shadows. Angle and direction give the hemisphere and time of day.

Exploring a round

Every round opens on a real photograph that keeps its links to the photographs taken around it. Look around, zoom in and walk the route as far as it goes before you decide where you are.

  • Walk. The arrows drawn on the photograph step to the linked real photograph they point at, forward and back. W and S, or Alt with the left and right arrow keys, do the same while the photograph has focus.
  • Look around. Drag the photograph, or use the arrow keys, to turn on the spot. A new photograph opens on the direction you were already facing.
  • Zoom in. Zoom in for signs, plates and markings, and back out for the wider view.
  • Return to start. The toolbar’s reset control goes back to this round’s starting photograph, whichever photograph along the route that is, and resets the view when you are already standing there.

Movement pauses only while a round’s result is on screen. A step loads the next real photograph from the same finite preview catalogue, and a guess is always measured from the round’s starting photograph.

Timers

Choose 30, 60, 90 or 180 seconds per round, or no timer at all. The choice covers every round in the game.

A running timer starts with the round's first photograph and never pauses. Reloading the page, leaving it or walking to a new viewpoint cannot add time, and a game you resume keeps its original deadline. At zero the round scores 0 points and 0 XP, the reveal shows where the photograph was taken, and you move on yourself with Next location — nothing advances on its own.

Placing your pin

The map is where your answer goes. It loads its map styles, tiles and fonts from OpenFreeMap while you play.

  1. Drag the map, and zoom in until roads and city names are readable.
  2. Tap or click to place the pin. Arrow keys move it, and you can drag it again as often as you like.
  3. Switch the distance units between kilometres and miles whenever you want; the choice is saved for later games.
  4. Confirm when you are ready. Moving the pin first costs nothing.

Scoring

A round is worth up to 5,000 points, and a game up to 25,000. A pin within about 100 metres of the source location scores the maximum; after that the score falls away with distance.

A skipped round, or one whose timer runs out, scores zero points and zero XP. The reveal shows the source location before you continue.

A score measures your pin, not the place. An ordinary street corner can be worth 5,000 points, and a spectacular view on the far side of a continent can be worth none.

The passport

Rounds you guess earn experience, and experience moves your level along, so early levels arrive quickly.

  • A guessed round earns 20 XP, plus 1 XP per 250 points, up to 40 XP.
  • Finishing a game adds 50 XP.
  • The passport also counts your current run of consecutive days on which you finished a game.

Four badges mark the milestones:

  • First Detour — first game finished.
  • Five Horizons — five games finished.
  • Close Call — a guessed round within 25 km.
  • Pinpoint — 5,000 points in one round.

The newest 100 finished games are kept, and 20 are shown.

Everything is saved in this browser for this site: the game you are playing now, your most recent previous game, any daily attempt you started, your passport and your preferences. The Solo menu exports it as JSON or clears it in one confirmed step, and Privacy and storage has the detail.

When something goes wrong

Reloads, blocked storage, lost progress

Does reloading the page lose my game?

Reloading the page, or coming back to /play later, starts a fresh random free game. Your most recent previous game — free or daily — is kept in this browser instead, and Resume previous game in the Solo menu brings it back after a confirmation: the same location and round, your pin, the rounds already played and its original deadline, replacing the game in progress. Only one previous game is kept, so a more recent played game can replace it, and the daily challenge likewise starts or resumes only when you choose it in the Solo menu.

What if my browser blocks site storage?

The game still plays; what stops working is everything that has to be remembered: the passport, badges and units — and the previous game, so Resume previous game may have no game to bring back. If storage is only full rather than blocked, Clear all solo progress in the Solo menu frees the space the game is allowed to use.

Can progress be recovered elsewhere?

Nothing is uploaded, so there is no account to recover. Export progress (JSON) in the Solo menu gives you a personal copy to keep, but there is no import, so a different browser, device or web address starts empty.

What is here now

  • free solo play at /play, five rounds per game;
  • an optional timer of 30, 60, 90 or 180 seconds per round, fixed for the whole game;
  • a finite preview catalogue of 18 reviewed sample areas and 109 real panoramas from 16 countries across five continents, not worldwide coverage;
  • progress, badges and settings saved in this browser, and nowhere else.

Photographs are real camera images from Panoramax contributors, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 and credited through a Photo credits control that warns it can reveal the location. Site illustrations are generated promotional artwork: fictional, never a clue and never geographic evidence.

Reduced-motion preferences are honoured, sound is off, and nothing autoplays.

Five rounds are waiting

A new place. A fresh set of clues. Your next guess.

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