How GeoMusic works

The basics

• Five clues a day. Each one points to a real place in music history: where an artist was born, where a band formed, where a record was cut, where a genre began, where a legendary show happened, or where a label set up shop.
• One tap per clue. Drop a pin on the globe, move it if you like, then press Lock in guess. Once it's locked, it counts.
• Same round for everyone. A new round drops every day at midnight Eastern Time, so every score on a given day is directly comparable.
• About 90 seconds. No timer and no speed bonus. Take the time you need.

How a guess is scored

Each question is worth up to 100 points, based only on how far your pin lands from the real spot. Distance is measured along the surface of the globe (great-circle distance), not on the flat map.

Distances show in miles by default. Switch to kilometers on the result card or in My Stats.

The curve drops quickly at first and then flattens out: being 300 miles off costs you about 21 points, but the difference between 2,500 and 3,000 miles is only a few. k sets how forgiving a question is. Most questions use k = 2,000 km (1,243 mi). Continent-sized answers get more room, and precise ones (a single studio or venue) use a smaller k, so you need to be closer.

Colors

Every guess gets a color based on its 0–100 points, before multipliers. These are the dots in your share card.

• 🟢100Perfect pitch Dead on. The dot glows on your results.
• 🟢90–99In tune Basically there, usually within a short drive.
• 🟡50–89Close harmony Right region, wrong neighborhood.
• 🔴1–49Off key Wrong part of the map.
• 🔴0Wrong record Other side of the world.

Why later questions are worth more

The round gets harder as it goes, and so do the stakes. Questions 3 to 5 carry multipliers, so a perfect day is 1,000 points and the last two questions decide most rounds.

Example: 78 points on question 5 (×3) is worth 234 toward your total, but it still shows as 🟡 because the color uses the 78.

Leaderboards

• Today's Scores shows how everyone did: the full score distribution, the average, and where your score ranks. Today's answers unlock once you finish.
• Friend Groups are private leaderboards for friends, family or your office. Make one, share the link, and everyone joins with a nickname. No sign-up needed.
• Top Charts (Pro) ranks Pro players on the daily round. Players with the same score share a rank.

Only your first play of the daily round counts toward any leaderboard.

Streaks

• Your streak is the number of days in a row you've finished the daily round.
• Miss a day and it resets. You have until midnight Eastern to keep it going.
• Started before midnight? You can still finish after it, and it counts for the day you started.
• Back Catalog days, genre rounds and Shuffle Mode are just for fun: they don't affect your streak or the daily leaderboards.

My Stats shows your games played, average, current and best streak, best day, a score histogram and your history. Free players see the last 7 days; Pro keeps everything and syncs it across devices.

Fair play

• Answers never reach your browser until you've locked in a guess, and every score is calculated on our server from your pin.
• One guess per question. Refreshing or reopening the page picks up exactly where you left off.
• Questions are researched and reviewed by hand. Think an answer is wrong? Tell us.

Tips

• Pinch or scroll to zoom, and drag to spin the globe. State and province borders help you place a pin precisely.
• Tap once to drop a pin, tap again to move it. Nothing counts until you press Lock in guess.
• Hedging pays: if you're torn between two cities, a pin between them often scores better than a wrong guess.
• The clue usually narrows things down. "Port city", "desert", "on Lake Superior": read it twice.