Real places. Real competition.
Every street is a clue. Every friend is a rival.
Walk real streets. Read the clues. Drop your pin. Play five rounds solo or challenge up to 20 players—no account needed.
No account needed Free to play · Explore the game
Party rooms
20 players. Five places. One winner.
Everyone in the room gets the same five places in the same order, on the same starting photograph. Guess well, guess fast, and watch the leaderboard build round by round.
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20
Players in a room
A room takes up to 20 players. Two is enough to begin, either when the host starts it or when the automatic lobby countdown ends.
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5
Shared locations
Identical areas in an identical order for everybody in the room.
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90
Seconds a round
Ninety seconds per place to look, walk, decide and lock your pin, once your photograph and map are ready.
Start a room Guests join with a nickname and a six-character code. No login, no install.
How a party round runs
Countdown, guess, reveal — together
The room moves on one clock: the same countdown, the same photograph and the same deadline for everybody. Those deadlines are kept by the server, so a slow browser can’t buy extra seconds, and no reload or reconnect can add time during a round.
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Invite your people
Create a room, share the six-character code or the invite link, and wait for the lobby to fill. Up to 20 players can be in the room while the lobby is open; joining closes as soon as the shared countdown begins, and after that only players already in the room can reconnect.
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Find your bearings
When the second player joins, a full three-minute countdown starts, and the host can start sooner once two players are in the room. Either way everyone gets the same ten-second countdown, and joining closes while it runs. If the room drops below two eligible players, the clock waits and starts a fresh full countdown. The lobby lists who has joined, and the first photograph opens when the room is ready: a shared loading step gives everyone’s photograph and map time to arrive first.
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Lock your guess
Before each round the photograph and the guess map load behind a cover, and the round’s 90 seconds begin only once the room is ready. A player still loading when the loading limit runs out waits for the next round and scores zero for that one. Then everyone gets 90 seconds on the same photograph: drag, zoom and walk the street, then place your pin. A submitted guess is final, and it stays locked while the scene stays on screen waiting for the rest of the room.
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Own the leaderboard
A round is revealed once everybody has guessed or the 90 seconds run out. The location, the round scores and the standings stay up for 10 seconds, then the next round begins on its own. After round five the winner is celebrated first, followed by the full leaderboard and round-by-round breakdown. Equal top scores share the win. From there, Play again together moves everyone still in the room into a fresh lobby automatically, with the same names and the scores reset.
Inside a round
Follow one photograph from clue to answer
Three captures of the real game: exploring the street, placing the pin on the map, and the reveal that follows. Use the tabs, or just read down the page.
All three pictures are captures of the published solo game, not artwork. Source photograph, creator and licence: screenshot credits.
Ways to play
A quick escape. A daily ritual. A room full of rivals.
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Solo
Five rounds, your own pace
A fresh random game every time you open it, with a timer of 30, 60, 90 or 180 seconds a round — or no clock at all. Your XP, levels, badges and recent games are kept in this browser as a solo passport.
Play solo -
Daily
One challenge, one attempt
The same five-round plan for everyone on a given UTC day, played in Moving mode with the timer fixed at 90 seconds a round. It never opens by itself: find it deliberately as Daily challenge in the Solo menu, and it waits in this browser until you choose it.
Open the Solo menu -
Friends
A guest room in two clicks
Create a room, share the code, and race up to 20 players across the same five places. Everyone joins as a guest with a nickname — nothing to install and nothing to sign up for.
Play with friends
- 18 sample areas
- 109 original panoramas
- 16 countries
- 5 continents
That catalogue is finite and deliberately so: the current live areas are a sample rather than worldwide coverage, and free play prefers the areas you have played least recently. Solo progress stays in this browser — there is no cross-device sync.
Questions
The things people ask first
Is PinPonder free, and do I need an account?
Both the solo game and the guest rooms are free to play, and neither needs an account, an email address or a password. A room is joined with a nickname and the code your host shares. This build shows no advertising and runs no analytics.
How does a party room work?
One player creates a room and passes on the six-character code or the invite link. Up to 20 players can be in the room while the lobby is open. When the second player arrives, a full three-minute countdown begins, and the host can start sooner once two players are in the room; both paths give everyone the same ten-second countdown, and joining closes while it runs. Everyone then gets the same five places in the same order, with 90 seconds a round once their photograph and map are ready.
A round is revealed when everybody has guessed or the 90 seconds run out, whichever comes first. After the reveal the scores stay on screen for 10 seconds before the next round. When all five rounds are done, the winner is celebrated and the full leaderboard follows. From there, Play again together moves everyone still in the room into a fresh lobby automatically, with the same names and the scores reset.
Where is my progress stored?
Solo progress — your passport, badges, settings and saved games — is stored in this browser for this site only. It is not uploaded and does not follow you to another device or browser, so there is no cross-device solo sync.
A party room is different: while you are in one, your nickname, your room membership, your pins and your scores are held on this project’s server so the room can stay in step. Privacy and storage sets out exactly what is kept and for how long.
Are the photographs real?
Yes. Every scene you guess from is a real camera photograph from a Panoramax contributor, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 and credited in the game through a Photo credits control that warns it can reveal the location.
The screenshots on this page are captures of the finished game, not artwork and not a live feed. Any illustration used for branding is decorative: it is never a clue and never evidence of where anything is.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes. Solo play and party rooms both work on small screens in portrait or landscape, and nothing needs a mouse hover. A five-round game downloads a few megabytes of photographs and map data, so Wi-Fi is friendlier than mobile data.
Can I walk around before I guess?
Yes, and you should. The arrows drawn on the photograph step to the real photographs linked along the street, forward and back, and you can look around and zoom in as much as you like. Return to start goes back to the round’s starting photograph, and your guess is always measured from that starting point — in a party room too, where the round’s 90 seconds keep running while you explore.
Five places are waiting
Take them on alone, or bring the whole group.