Each of the 5 rounds deals five animals that iNaturalist’s community records more often in one country than in any other. You get the photographs and nothing else — no names, no captions — and the job is to find that country on the hex grid.
Points fall away with distance from the answer, measured in real kilometres between hex centres rather than in grid steps: the map is a Mercator projection, so a hex near the Arctic covers far less ground than one on the equator, and counting steps would make northern misses cheap. Land on the country itself and the round is worth the full 5,000.
The board is 532 hexes over land, and the answers are drawn from 1090 birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians across 42 countries — the part of the Tracks field guide with at least 300 research-grade observations, which is where a “most recorded in” country stops being a coin toss. Fish are left out: their top country tends to record where divers with cameras go rather than where the animal lives.
Every game is a seed, and the seed is in the address bar — send someone the link and they get the same five rounds.