Find the Mystery Country

One country is hidden. Every guess tells you how hot or cold you are and which way to go, shading the map as you close in. There is no guess limit — narrow it down at your own pace.

How to play

1. Guess any country to begin. Your first guess is free information, wherever it lands.
2. The guess is shaded on the map and added to the list below it, with its distance, direction and temperature.
3. Follow the heat. Move toward guesses that read warmer and in the direction each clue points.
4. Keep going until you find the mystery country. There is no limit on guesses.

How the temperature clues work

Each guess is graded by its distance to the mystery country, from Very Cold to Very Hot:

• Very Hot — within about 1,000 km. Usually a neighbour.
• Hot — within about 2,500 km. The right region.
• Warm — within about 5,000 km. The right part of the world.
• Cold — within about 9,000 km. Wrong region, often the right hemisphere.
• Very Cold — beyond about 9,000 km. Try another continent.

Temperature is always written out as words, never shown as colour alone, and the same clue appears in the text list under the map.

Distance and direction methodology

Distance is the great-circle (haversine) distance between representative interior points of the two countries, not a border-to-border or travel distance. Direction is the initial bearing from your guess toward the answer, rounded to eight compass points and written in words. Both are approximate gameplay clues rather than survey measurements.

Playing without the map

The map is a convenience, not a requirement. Every clue it shows is also listed as text, and you can hide the map entirely with the Hide map button. The game is fully playable with a keyboard and a screen reader: type a country, press Enter, and each result is announced.

Daily and practice

The daily mystery country is the same for everyone and resets at midnight UTC. It is never the same country as the daily country shape puzzle on the same day. Your progress is saved on this device. Practice mode gives you a new country immediately and does not affect your daily statistics.

Strategy tips

• Start with three widely separated guesses — for example one in South America, one in Africa and one in East Asia — to triangulate before refining.
• A Very Cold result is still useful: it eliminates everything within 9,000 km of that guess.
• Once two guesses read Hot, the answer usually sits between them, in the direction both arrows point.
• Watch for large countries. A guess landing on Russia or Brazil can read Warm from a long way off simply because the representative point is far inland.

Questions

How many guesses do I get?

As many as you need. Hot or cold is about narrowing down rather than racing a limit, so only the number of guesses you took is recorded.

Is it the same country as the shape game?

No. The two daily puzzles draw from the same country list but are scheduled so they never pose the same country on the same day.

Can I play on a phone?

Yes. The map scales to the screen and the guess list stays readable on small viewports.

Does a shared result give the answer away?

No. Shared text shows only the puzzle number, how many guesses you took, and a bar per guess. No country is named.

Keep playing

Data and sources

The world map and country coordinates come from Natural Earth public-domain vector data, projected with the Equal Earth projection so relative country sizes stay honest. Geometry is simplified at build time to keep the map light on mobile connections.