Rules
How CLOSER works.
One mystery European city a day, six guesses, no account. Everything you need to know is on this page.
Which cities count
A city qualifies for the accepted pool when it is a recognisable European place: a national capital, a regional or state capital, or a well-known city that people can reasonably picture on a map.
The working population threshold is roughly 200,000 inhabitants for ordinary cities. Capitals and regional capitals are always included, even when they are smaller — Valletta, Reykjavík, Luxembourg and Bern all qualify.
A small number of smaller cities are included when they are widely recognised, for example Venice, Florence, Geneva and Salzburg-scale landmarks of European geography.
Guess pool versus answer pool
The guess pool is deliberately broad: every accepted city can be typed as a guess, so you always have somewhere sensible to start. The daily answer pool is much narrower and curated by hand, so the target is always a city most players will have heard of. Every answer is a member of the guess pool, but most guessable cities are never answers.
Standard and Guided Mode
Standard Mode is the default. Each guess returns the straight-line distance to the target and whether you are hotter or colder than your previous guess.
Guided Mode adds a compass direction to every guess, pointing from your guess towards the target. You can switch it on at any point during a round without losing your guesses. Once it is on it stays on until the next city, and the result is labelled as Guided.
How distance is calculated
Distances are great-circle distances in kilometres between city centre coordinates, calculated with the haversine formula on a spherical Earth. Coordinates come from Wikidata and are never hand-authored.
Cold is more than 1,000 km. Closer is 350–1,000 km. Hot is under 350 km. Target is the city itself.
Daily reset
A new city appears every day at 00:00 UTC. Everyone plays the same city on the same day, and your round, streak and statistics are stored only on this device.