Farflung is a daily geography game. Each day’s set is called an expedition. It contains five clues, and each clue asks for a country that fits. You answer by placing one pin on that country. After five pins you reach camp, where the game shows your total distance, every answer and a short fact about each country.
The daily round is not a race. There is no timer, no typing and no country list to memorise. The only thing that matters is choosing a country that fits the clue and, if you can, choosing one that is less obvious than the first name that comes to mind.
Five pins, one round
Read the clue and think of a country that satisfies it. Click the country on the map, or use the country list under the clue. The name of the country appears before you commit, so you can move the pin if you land somewhere unexpected. Press Drop pin to lock the answer in.
You get one answer per clue. When the answer is on the list, the game shows its rarity and adds the matching distance to your total. When it is not, the answer adds nothing and the round moves on. At the end, camp shows the five featured answers, the other accepted countries and the facts attached to them.
You can use the same country for more than one clue if it genuinely fits both. The clues are scored independently, so there is no penalty for repeating a country that belongs in two lists.
How the map works
The map has no country labels by default. It draws borders, coastlines and a small pin under the country you are considering. The country name is shown before you drop the pin, which is the moment to check that you have landed where you intended. The map uses an Equal Earth projection: shapes are deliberately not the same as a Mercator web map, and the north and south are not stretched to fill the frame.
If your pin lands in the sea, on a disputed area or on a territory that the map does not draw, move it onto the nearest land that belongs to the country you mean. A pin on water does not score. A pin on a territory counts for the sovereign country, not for the territory’s own name.
What counts as a correct country
A country counts when the fact in the clue is true of the country as a whole, including its territories. A border, a coastline, an official language, a flag or a capital can all be the reason an answer belongs on the list. The clue does not have to name the country, and the country does not have to be the first one that comes to mind.
Three examples show how the rule works in practice. For “a country that borders France”, Brazil counts because French Guiana is part of France. For “a country where German is an official language”, Luxembourg counts because German is one of its three official languages. For “a country that has hosted the Summer Olympics”, Finland counts because Helsinki hosted the Games in 1952.
A country does not count just because it is near the answer, shares a region or is culturally similar. The clue has to be true in the sense the answer list uses. When a border or a name is disputed, the archive follows the country data used by the map and explains the choice on the relevant answer page.
Scoring and rarity
Every accepted country has a rarity. The tier is not about how far your pin is from a target; it is about how unusual that answer is for the clue. Common is the answer most players reach for first. Farflung is the gem: the answer that makes the list interesting.
A correct Common answer adds 40 km. Uncommon adds 55 km, Rare adds 70 km, Elusive adds 85 km and Farflung adds 100 km. A wrong answer adds nothing. Five perfect gems would score 500 km.
| Tier | Distance | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Common | 40 km | The answer most players reach for first. |
| Uncommon | 55 km | A second thought, and a better one. |
| Rare | 70 km | A country that takes a little digging. |
| Elusive | 85 km | The answer that makes people look twice. |
| Farflung | 100 km | The gem. The answer almost nobody names. |
The table is rendered from the same configuration the game uses, so the values cannot drift between this page and the score. If we change a tier, the page changes with it.
Territories count as their sovereign country
Farflung treats every pin on land as an answer for the country the land belongs to. That rule matters for islands and overseas territories. Greenland counts as Denmark. Guam, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands count as the United States. The Falkland Islands, Gibraltar and the Cayman Islands count as the United Kingdom. Tahiti, New Caledonia and French Guiana count as France. Hong Kong and Macau count as China.
The rule also runs the other way. A clue about something a country does not have is not satisfied by a territory that does have it. If the clue asks for a country with no permanent rivers, a territory with a river does not make its sovereign country an answer. The country is judged as a whole.
When a new expedition opens
A new expedition opens at midnight in your local time, not at midnight UTC. That means two players in different time zones may see different expeditions at the same moment. The date on the page is the date of the expedition, and the answer page uses the same date.
The previous day does not disappear. Every published expedition stays in the archive, with its clues, answers, rarity breakdown and country facts. You can replay an old expedition from the archive at any time.
Practice and unlimited mode
The daily expedition is one set per local day. Practice is the rest of the game: a separate bank of prompts, one clue at a time, with a 25 second clock. Unlimited mode is for the part of the daily game you cannot repeat, which is the next clue. It keeps a session score and a streak, and it never changes your daily result.
The official Farflung game also describes a practice round before the daily expedition, and difficulty options such as a 60 second timer, hidden borders and hidden country names. This fan build currently runs the standard untimed daily round and a 25 second unlimited mode; the extra toggles are on our own list, not in the current build.
Keyboard, touch and accessibility
The map supports pointer and touch input. For keyboard and screen reader users, every round also has a country select control under the clue. Choose a country from the list and press Drop pin. The map is a visual aid, not the only way to answer.
The game viewport has a fixed aspect ratio so the page does not jump when the map loads. The clue, the selected country and the result are all text, not colour alone. Rarity is written as a label as well as a colour, and the score is shown as a number with its unit.
Common questions
Is the daily Farflung round timed?
Can I use the same country twice?
What happens if I pin the sea?
Do territories count for the country that governs them?
When does a new expedition open?
If a country you expected is missing from an answer list, the likely reason is the territory rule, a disputed border or a list we have not expanded yet. The contact link on the about page reaches us, and we correct lists when the geography supports it.