HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD?
Version 2
What is Pinpoint Panic?
Pinpoint Panic brings neighbors and friends together. Anyone can snap photos of the things everyone sees every day but may never have really noticed: a mailbox, a mural, a bench, a street sign. The photos don’t need to be great, or even clear. Your phone already records the exact location of each one.
📺 Game night: put the photos on one TV, pass a mouse around, and find out who’s been paying attention. Even friends who don’t live nearby may have passed some of these spots on the way to your house, or they can follow the pins of the local experts. Play as individuals or as teams.
No setup: guess where famous San Diego landmarks are, right now.
📣 Challenge the neighborhood: turn your photos into a link and post it on Nextdoor or a group chat. Neighbors play on their phones, each on their own, and try to beat your score. It’s a wholesome, fun way to bring your tribe together.
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Set your homeType your address and tap “Find address.” This is the center of the game.
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Add photosAdd your own phone photos (best), or tap 🌐 for free local ones.
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Name the playersType each player or team name. Everyone plays on one screen, passing the mouse.
Home base
Home base is the center of your game: usually your house, but any address or landmark works. Type it and tap Find address. If the yellow diamond lands in the wrong spot, tap Set home by clicking map, then tap your house on the map in the Photos area.
🔒 To find it on the map, what you type is sent to OpenStreetMap’s free address search (Nominatim, or Photon as a backup). Prefer not to share your address? Use a nearby landmark or street corner, or set home by tapping the map.
Locating…
Play area
Play area is how far from home the mystery photos can be. Use 1–2 miles for a neighborhood, 5+ for a whole town. Photos outside the circle are skipped. Open More options to choose the map style (street names make it easier), sound and the spoken intro, the practice round, double points in the final round, the turn timer, and how many photos per game.
More options map style, sound, timer, number of photos
Who’s Playing?
Who’s playing lists up to 6 players or teams. Type each name over “Player 1”, “Player 2”… Tap a color dot to change its pin color, × to remove one. With more than 6 guests, make teams of 2–3 who share the mouse and argue it out.
Up to 6 players or teams. Tap a color dot to change it.
Leaderboard
Leaderboard keeps wins, games played, best guess and average distance for every name, on this device, across game nights. Use the same names each time to build a record. Reset leaderboard (tap twice) erases it, which is handy after a test run.
Show leaderboard
Erases everything this game saved on this device: home address, settings, player names, photos, photo locations, leaderboard and Solo scores.
Photos
Photos are the mystery places. Add your own photos, whose built-in GPS places them on the map automatically, or tap 🌐 Add photos from the internet for free street and scenery photos taken near home, or 🏛 Add local landmarks for well-known places (parks, piers, churches, historic buildings) from Wikipedia. Each photo shows a tag: green In means it will be used, Outside means it’s beyond the play area, Needs location means tap it, then tap the map where it was taken. Tap any photo to check its spot, drag the dot to fix it, or Remove photo if it’s too hard. Hide answer key before guests can see the screen. Save pack keeps this set of photos for another night.
Keeping the location: on a computer, single photos keep their GPS. On an iPhone, tap Options in the photo picker and turn Location on. On Android, choose a .zip of the photos (or pick them through the Files app). Photos sent by text, WhatsApp or social media usually lose their location. If any photo arrives without one, Pointer tells you, and you can place it on the map yourself.
Your photos place themselves on the map using their built-in GPS, if it comes through:
- 💻 Computer:just drag in the photos (one or many). No zip needed.
- 📱 iPhone:after choosing photos, tap Options at the top and turn Location on.
- 🤖 Android:choose a .zip of your photos. Android removes the location from single photos.
No photos loaded yet.
A pack saves these photos and their locations in one .zip. Load it later with “choose files”.
The circle is your play area. Tap any photo (or its green dot) to see its location. Drag the dot or tap the map to move it, then tap Save location.