Cities leave traces.
URBANTRACE is a daily geography game about reading the shape of a city before reading its name.
The idea
Rivers, coastlines, roads and railways form a spatial fingerprint. URBANTRACE removes place labels and asks you to identify the city from that fingerprint in six guesses.
A wrong guess is still useful: it reveals distance, direction, a wider map view and another clue.
Ways to play
Daily mode gives everyone one puzzle per collection, refreshed at midnight in the player's local time. Practice mode offers unlimited random cities for learning and map testing.
Current collections cover South Korean cities, Japanese cities, world capitals and European capitals. English, Korean and Japanese interfaces are available.
The maps
The game uses real map geometry rather than hand-drawn silhouettes. Place names and most map labels are hidden, while useful structures such as waterways, major roads and urban transit remain visible.
Map data and rendering are provided through OpenStreetMap, OpenMapTiles and OpenFreeMap. Their work makes this experiment possible.
Still evolving
City framing, transport overlays and clues are reviewed continuously. New collections will be added only when the maps are accurate and the candidate pool is enjoyable to play.