Eyewitness account
Phase 1 · sound only
×2.0 if you lock in now
LatLongAgo
Ready
1:40.00
0
Where
When
Drag to scrub. Hold Shift for fine control. Click the year to type.
What happened next
Round score
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Place
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Year
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Time
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Set
Go!
A 360° scene from history.
You wake up somewhere in history.
Look around. Where are you? What year is it?
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Day 7!
Step 1 of 5
Inspect the scene
New here?
How to play
The 60-second version
- Look around. Click and drag the panorama to inspect the scene. Wheel to zoom. Click the cyan + markers for short historical factoids.
- Place a pin. Click anywhere on the map to drop your guess for where this scene happened.
- Pick a year. Drag the timeline at the bottom. Hold Shift while dragging for fine control. Or click the year label to type one in directly.
- Submit. You score on both place and time. Five rounds per session.
No login is needed. Your progress lives in your browser. To enter the public leaderboard you'll be asked for an email at the end of a run — that's the only time it asks.
The five modes
- Classic
- Five random panoramas from the full archive of 300 historical scenes. Play as many runs as you want.
- Daily
- The same five rounds for every player worldwide, seeded by today's UTC date. One attempt per day. Builds your daily streak, which earns freezes (skip a day without breaking it) every seven days.
- Duel
- After finishing any session, click Challenge a friend to generate a 6-character code. Send the link. Whoever uses it plays the same five rounds you just played and tries to beat your score.
- Eyewitness
- No panorama. You read a three-line first-person account from someone who was there ("we rise before the river god is bright and haul ropes…") and deduce where and when. The panorama is revealed only after you submit.
- Newspaper
- No panorama. You read a redacted newspaper clip with names and places blacked out. Decode the era and place from context clues. Same reveal payoff at the end.
How scoring works
Each round is worth up to 5,000 points. You earn a place score and a time score, then they're combined.
- Place score decays smoothly with distance. Within ~8 km is perfect. Pinning the right country gives +800 bonus; right continent gives +300.
- Time score decays based on the era. Ancient rounds are forgiving (within ±380 years scores well); modern rounds are tight (within ±22 years).
- The two combine non-linearly: place counts a bit more than time. The result curve for each round is shown at reveal.
Tip: the timeline supports several ways to dial in a year. Drag normally for fast scrubbing, hold Shift for ~5× finer control, click the year label to type one in (e.g. 1492, 500 BCE), or use the + / − zoom buttons in the timeline header for broader sweeps. Arrow keys nudge ±5 years (Shift+arrows for ±1).
Sharing and friend duels
At the end of a run you'll see four share buttons:
- Copy result — Wordle-style emoji grid for chat. No spoilers.
- Save card — a polished PNG of your run with the world map and pins.
- Save replay — a 12-second WebM clip animating your run round by round.
- Challenge a friend — generates a duel link your friend can play.
- Spectator link — a read-only URL anyone can use to see your finished run.
When you paste a daily or duel URL into Discord, Slack, or Twitter, it auto-renders a custom unfurl image with today's stats or the duel code.
FAQ
Do I need an account?
No. The first time you load the game it gives you an anonymous token in your browser. You can play, build a streak, and unlock achievements without signing up. Your data is local. You only enter an email at the end of a run if you want your score on the public top-of-screen leaderboard.
What happens if I miss a daily?
If you have a streak freeze available, it auto-consumes one and your streak survives. Earn one freeze every seven consecutive days (max 3 saved). If your streak breaks, you get a 1.5× comeback bonus on your next three daily runs.
How do hotspots work?
The cyan + markers in panoramas are clickable. Each one reveals a one-sentence factoid about something in the scene — a flying buttress, a market stall, an architectural detail. They're free to use and don't cost score. Not every round has them yet.
Why is my place score so low even though I picked the right country?
The score is based on distance to the actual location. Right-country gives a bonus floor, but pinning London when the answer is Liverpool still has a ~280 km penalty on top.
The year I want isn't in the timeline.
Click the year label (next to "When") to type any year directly. Format: 1492, 1492 CE, 500 BCE, -500, 1492 AD.
Can I play yesterday's daily?
Not yet — daily challenges are once-per-day to keep them comparable. Classic mode randomly draws from the full archive if you want more rounds.
How does the leaderboard work?
The scrolling ticker at the top shows the highest scores submitted with an email address. Filter by era and region in the leaderboard modal (Settings → Leaderboard).
How is my email used?
Only to attribute your score on the leaderboard and (if you check the box) to send occasional emails about new daily challenges or features. We never sell or share it.
Why are the scenes generated rather than photographic?
Most of the scenes pre-date photography — the daguerreotype was invented in 1839, but most of our archive is older. The panoramas are AI-generated reconstructions based on historical research. They aim for plausibility, not perfect accuracy.
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