Nerd Play Compete Quiz

Bubble area is proportional to population

Flags Names

0.0% of the population of these cities explained

Your answers will stack up here, newest first.

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for LENS

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Time limit

Count cities of at leasteach map starts at the size that shows about 20–40 cities

Reachnaming a city takes every smaller city within

Sincethe timeline runs from this year to today

Starting point

What the score rewardsunder More, beside the map list

How the games work, and where the numbers come from

Rap — type the names of a place's cities, states, countries, capitals or languages before the clock runs out. Each right answer fills the pyramid with its share of what counts and marks the map. points for an answer = 1000 × share × (0.33 + 0.33 × speed + 0.33 × order) speed = 1 − time used ÷ time limit; order = the answer's value ÷ the biggest one you had not named yet. The dial shares the weight between the three parts, so a perfect round is always 1000.

Pin — the names come up biggest first; click the map where each one is. A pin inside the state or country, or on the city, is fully accurate; farther out, accuracy falls to nothing at 12% of the map's width (about 110 km on Germany, 750 km on Europe). The dial scores a pin like a Rap answer, times its accuracy: points for a pin = 1000 × share × accuracy × (0.33 + 0.33 × speed + 0.33 × order) Skip sends a name to the back of the queue; until you place it, it is the biggest left, so the pins in between earn less for order.

Domination — like Rap, but naming a city, a capital or a biggest city also takes every smaller, still unnamed one within its reach; a state or country takes its smaller neighbours, a language the smaller ones its home country speaks. Bigger ones still have to be named.

Stack — pile countries, states or cities widest at the bottom (tap a city's dot, or type it). Each tile is cut to its value, which you only see once it lands. A tile that hangs over the edge makes the pile wobble and costs one of your three lives; losing the last, or an overhang more than three times an earlier one, brings the top half down. Press Lock pile whenever you like; when the clock runs out, it counts as it stands.

Balance — a pair of scales beside the map, two places on each pan to start (drawn at random, at most 25% apart). Pick a place — tap it on the map, or type it — then a pan (or tap the pan itself; with a mouse, double-click a place on the map to put it straight on the left pan, right double-click for the right): its figure shows once it lands. Keep the pans within 10% of each other, measured on the heavier one; the beam joining them is the meter, its middle third the 10% either way. A pick that leaves them out of balance and no closer than before costs one of your three lives (a pick that evens them out, even short of 10%, costs nothing); losing the last tips the scales. 100 points for each pick that keeps them in balance, plus 1000 × the share of the whole on the scales if they end in balance. Lock scale ends the round with the scales as they stand.

Best across — go from a start (random, or chosen on the map) to a random finish half the map's widest crossing away (at most 14 moves), within the shortest route's moves plus 60%. Every place on the way is a waypoint, shown once you arrive; make their average as high as you can. Each step offers the three places in reach closest on the map (the finish always among them once it is in reach), shown on a dial like the scoring dial: a spoke and an arrow for each, pointing the way it lies, nearer the centre the closer it is — tap the arrow or the name, tap the place on the map, or type it (keys 1–3 take them nearest first). Only moves that keep the finish in reach count. Points, out of 1000 on the same scoring dial as Rap: your average against the best route's (coverage), the clock left when you arrive (speed) and each pick against the best place in reach (order). Afterwards the best route of all is drawn beside yours.

Rulers (Poli · Leaders, on the 18 maps of a single country) — whoever held the highest office over the capital's seat, from each country's start (Bismarck's German Empire, the Third Republic, Balfour, Mussolini, Franco, Lenin, Nehru, Mao…; the United States from George Washington) or a later year. A surname two or three of them share names them all: “Bush” both Presidents Bush, “Roosevelt” both Roosevelts. Rap: the map is a timeline in proportion to time, each ruler filling their years with the flag of the time. Pin and Domination: a strip of about equal area per spell in office, in time order, the years where they meet under the map (hover a strip for its years). Pin asks longest in office first and counts a pin less the more spells off it lands; in Domination a ruler takes the one before and after, two each side when longer in office than the average. Stack: a round black-and-white button per ruler, scattered over the map, piled longest at the bottom with the usual three lives. Balance: the same buttons on the map, weighed by time in office. Not in Best across.

Flags (Poli, free, on every map of several countries) — learn the countries' flags. The flags stay hidden on the map until a country is found; the menu's preview shows them all, to study first. Rap: a flag comes up, type its country (Skip, or Tab, sends it to the back). From the Languages layer, Rap shows a flag and takes any one of its country's official languages instead (Romanian for Moldova, any of Switzerland's four). Pin: a flag comes up, click its country. Domination: name a colour — red, white, blue, green, yellow, black or orange — and every country whose flag shows it is taken and ringed in that colour; the fewer colours, and the more each takes, the better. Stack: the flags are scattered over the map, nowhere near their countries; tap one, type whose it is, and it drops on the pile, cut to the country's population. Balance: the flags are scattered as in Stack; tap one, name its country, then put it on a pan — the pans weigh population. Best across: no flag shows until you step into its country; each step shows the flag of the next country on the way to the finish — name it (type it, or tap the country) and you step in. Each flag counts the same; a flag's colours are read from its image.

Cities are places of 100,000+ people (1,000,000+ for the world list) from GeoNames; Germany follows Destatis 2023. States, provinces and countries come from Natural Earth, with country population and GDP from the World Bank (2023) and areas from the map geometry. A city's GDP is estimated from its country's GDP per person with an urban premium; a state's or province's population and GDP are the sums over its 100k+ cities. Languages count their first-language speakers as their population: CIA World Factbook shares times World Bank population. Mean elevation: Wikipedia for countries, the USGS for US states. Unemployment: BLS for the US states and Eurostat or national offices for 40 European countries (August 2026). Accents are optional and common other-language names work (Munich, Wien, Bayern). One lens in each group is free in every game — population, GDP and Leaders; the lenses with a padlock — area, elevation, GDP per person, HDI, unemployed and unemployment rate — are played with a Pending account. The HDI is the UNDP's Human Development Index for 2023 (Human Development Report 2025).

Rap · Europe

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