How to play StoryGlobe
Every day you get five clues from art, music, books and movies. Each one comes from a real place somewhere in the world. Your job is to find that place on a globe, using nothing but what you know about culture.
Play today's gameHow a round works
- Read the clue. It describes a painting, a song, a book or a film scene without naming the place.
- Spin and zoom the globe, then tap where you think it comes from. Tap again to move your pin.
- Lock in your guess. The line travels from your pin to the real place and you see how far off you were.
- Then comes the reward: a picture of the place or work, and the story of why it matters.
The globe has no city or street names on purpose. There is nothing to read off the map, so every guess is down to what you know, or what you can work out.
Four kinds of clue
- ArtPaintings, sculptures and the places that inspired them.
- MusicSongs, albums and the streets, studios and towns behind them.
- BooksNovels and stories, from real settings to the places authors wrote in.
- MoviesFamous scenes and the real locations where they were filmed.
The mix is random each day, so you might get three films and two paintings, or one of each and a song.
Example clues
Movies: In Rocky (1976), the boxer ends his gruelling training run by sprinting up the
steps of this famous art museum and raising both arms in triumph.
Art: Vincent van Gogh painted this lively café terrace at night while living in the
southern French town where the scene is located.
Books: In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, young witches and wizards board a
magical train from a platform hidden behind a barrier at this busy railway station.
Scoring
Each round is worth up to 100 points, so a day is worth 500. How strict the scoring is depends on how exact the answer is. Every clue carries a small badge that says what you are looking for:
- 🎯 Specific placeOne exact spot: a building, a bridge, a square, a statue.
- 🏘️ DistrictA neighbourhood or quarter inside a city.
- 🏙️ City / townA whole city, town or village.
- 🗺️ RegionA broader area: a valley, a stretch of coast, a desert.
Inside the full-points zone you get all 100. Beyond it the points drop off smoothly with distance, and they drop faster the more exact the target is. So a guess 50 km off is a perfect answer for a region, but costs you points on a specific place.
| Target | Full points within | at 100 km | at 1,000 km | at 5,000 km |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🎯 Specific place | 2 km | 91 | 37 | 1 |
| 🏘️ District | 8 km | 94 | 49 | 3 |
| 🏙️ City / town | 25 km | 96 | 58 | 6 |
| 🗺️ Region | 100 km | 100 | 70 | 14 |
A new set every day
Five new clues appear at midnight in your own time zone. Everyone who plays on the same date gets the same five, so you can compare scores with friends. When you finish, the Share button copies your result as a row of coloured squares you can paste anywhere. Play on consecutive days to build a streak. You can also catch up on days you missed from Previous results in the menu, but only today counts for the streak.
Frequently asked questions
Can I use miles instead of kilometres?
Yes. Open the menu in the game and switch Distances between km and mi.
Is StoryGlobe free?
Yes. There is nothing to buy and no account to create.
Do I need to sign up?
No. Your results and streak are saved in your own browser. That also means clearing your browser data, or switching browser or device, starts you from scratch.
Where do the pictures come from?
Most pictures are freely licensed photographs from Wikimedia Commons, shown with their photographer's credit and a link to the original page. Some come from public museum and library collections.
Are the places always exact?
Where a work has one clear location, such as a film's filming spot or a museum steps, the target is that exact spot. Where it is broader, such as a region that inspired an author, the target is the best-known place.
I think an answer is wrong. What can I do?
Tell us. Open an issue on the project page with the clue and what you think is wrong, and we will check it.