Question 1

What is CityDrop?

Accepted Answer

CityDrop is a free geography guessing game played on a world map. Each round names a city, a country or a landmark, and you drop a pin where you think it is. The closer your pin, the more points you score. A game is five rounds, with up to 1,000 points per round.

Question 2

How does CityDrop scoring work?

Accepted Answer

Every round is worth up to 1,000 points and the game total is out of 5,000. City and landmark rounds are scored on the straight-line distance between your pin and the exact spot: within 10 km scores 1,000, within 50 km scores 900, and points fall away from there until they reach 0 beyond 1,000 km. Country rounds use a separate, much more forgiving curve: a click anywhere inside the correct country's borders scores the full 1,000, and even a few hundred kilometres outside still scores well.

Question 3

What are the different game modes?

Accepted Answer

There are three: Cities (pin the exact city), Countries (click anywhere inside the right country) and Landmarks (famous monuments, natural features and historic sites). Outside Countries mode you can also scope a game to the whole world, to a single continent, or to one of the playable countries — Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, China and India.

Question 4

What are the difficulty levels?

Accepted Answer

Easy uses famous, recognisable places and shows the country flag as a hint on city rounds. Medium drops the flag and uses less obvious locations. Hard uses smaller, trickier places. Hardcore removes political borders and labels from the map entirely and gives you 10 seconds per round across the whole world.

Question 5

What is the Daily Challenge?

Accepted Answer

One game a day, the same five locations for every player in the world. It resets at 12:00 AM Melbourne time, so a new challenge is always waiting once the previous one expires. Finishing it earns bonus XP, a perfect run earns more, and completing challenges on consecutive days builds a streak with milestone rewards at 3, 7, 14, 30 and 100 days.

Question 6

How does the Daily Challenge leaderboard work?

Accepted Answer

Each daily result is saved against that day's date, and the board ranks every player who has completed the current day's challenge. It clears automatically when the next day's challenge begins. There is a second, all-time leaderboard that ranks players by total XP earned across every mode.

Question 7

Do I need an account to play?

Accepted Answer

No. Every mode, including the Daily Challenge and multiplayer, can be played as a guest, and guest progress is stored on your own device. An account is what makes progress permanent and comparable: it saves your scores, statistics, XP and achievements so they follow you to other devices and browsers.

Question 8

What happens when I create an account?

Accepted Answer

You sign up with an email address and password, or with Google. You then choose a unique username — 3 to 20 characters, letters, numbers and underscores — which is the name shown on the leaderboards. From that point your games are saved to your account, you earn XP and achievements permanently, and you can track your statistics on your profile. Usernames are moderated, so offensive names are not allowed and may be replaced.

Question 9

How are achievements earned?

Accepted Answer

By playing. Achievements cover accuracy (guesses within 1 km, within 100 metres, perfect 1,000-point rounds), streaks, gameplay milestones, each of the three modes, Hardcore, the Daily Challenge, high scores and level milestones. Each one grants bonus XP the first time it unlocks, and XP raises your level from 1 up to 50.

Question 10

Can I play against other people?

Accepted Answer

Yes. You can create a private game for 2 to 4 players and share the code, join a Quick Match for a random 1v1, or — after a solo game — use Challenge a Friend to send a link that lets someone play your exact five locations. Challenge links stay playable for 24 hours, and both scores are shown side by side at the end.

Question 11

How can I improve my geography skills?

Accepted Answer

Start with regions rather than individual places: knowing roughly where a country sits turns a 0-point round into a 650-point one. Use Practice to play untimed games in the areas you are weakest at, read the reveal screen each round to see exactly how far off you were, and use the Geography Guide for city-name patterns, map-reading clues, borders and landmark recognition.

Question 12

Is CityDrop free to play?

Accepted Answer

Yes, CityDrop is completely free. There is no cost to play any mode, no account required, and nothing to download — it runs in a web browser on phones, tablets and desktop computers. The site is supported by advertising.

Question 13

How do I delete my account and data?

Accepted Answer

Go to your profile and choose Delete Account. Your profile, statistics, scores and XP are removed straight away, and you can request removal of the login account itself there too. You can also reach us through the contact page if you would like help.

CityDrop FAQ