World Imposter

About World Imposter

World Imposter is a choropleth game: a map where darker shading means a bigger number. Each day picks a region of the world and a real statistic from open data, labelled above the map, for example tea or coffee in the Middle East and Central Asia, darker meaning more of a tea country.

One country's colour is wrong. Its fake number has been chosen to sit comfortably among its neighbours, so you cannot spot it by colour alone: you have to know, or reason out, which country would really be lighter or darker than it looks.

You tap a country and press Accuse. A wrong guess hatches out more countries that are telling the truth, the same ones for every player, so the field narrows. You have six guesses, and the fewer you need the better. At the end you see the imposter's real number and why it stands out.

Maps can be zoomed and panned, names turned on or off, or the countries shown as a list. Puzzles are numbered, and the past week's days sit along the top to play. Axisless also makes Daily Shade and other data visualisations.

How to play World Imposter

1. Read today's statistic and what darker shading means.
2. Look over the map for a country whose shade seems wrong for it.
3. Tap that country and press Accuse.
4. After a miss, more honest countries are hatched out; guess again.
5. Find the imposter within six guesses and read its real number.

Screenshots

Tips

• The fake is chosen to blend in, so ask which country you would expect to be different from its neighbours.
• Use the List view when small countries are hard to tap.
• Think about the statistic itself: wealth, climate and history often explain who should be dark or light.

Questions