Mapster

About Mapster

Mapster turns the idea of Worldle around. Instead of naming a country from its outline, you are given the country's name and draw the outline yourself, with a finger on a phone or a mouse on a computer. There is one country a day, the same for everyone.

You can lift your finger as often as you like; the lines are joined up when you submit, and an open shape is closed for you. Undo, redo, an eraser and a restart button help you tidy up. If you are stuck there are two kinds of hint, each usable three times: one shows the whole outline for a few seconds, shorter each time, and the other reveals a new piece of the border as a dashed line that stays on the map. Settings can hide the cities and the hints for a harder game.

Scoring compares your shape with the real one: the area, how much they overlap and how much extra space you drew. The best possible score is 1,000 points, which the game admits even geography fans rarely reach. Afterwards it lays your drawing over the real shape, green where you were right and red where you were wrong, and you can share it. Medals run from Cartographer in Training to Master Cartographer.

It is from Teuteuf, the makers of Worldle, and works with a Teuteuf account; Passport removes ads and opens the archive. It suits anyone who wants to learn the map by heart, since drawing a shape fixes it in memory better than recognising one.

How to play Mapster

1. Open Mapster and read which country you are drawing today.
2. Draw its outline in the box with your finger or mouse; lines join up automatically.
3. Use a hint if you are stuck: a few seconds of the full shape, or a piece of the border.
4. Submit to see your score out of 1,000 and your drawing laid over the real shape.

Tips

• Start with the coastline or the longest straight border; they anchor the rest of the shape.
• The border hint stays on screen, so use it early on the part you are least sure of.
• Look at the overlay after each game; the red areas show which coast or border you misremember.

Questions