Airport Guesser
Play it: https://pinkfrosties.github.io/airport-guesser/
A static, backend-free guessing game for phone and desktop: you get a satellite image of one airport (zoom in as much as the real imagery allows, never wider than the start view) and five attempts to name it. Every miss shows the distance to the answer, a compass arrow pointing from your guess toward it, and a proximity percentage. There is one shared Daily airport per UTC date, a separate Hard mode, and endless Practice. It is vanilla JS + Leaflet, installable as a PWA, and keeps stats in localStorage.
How to play
You get a satellite view of an airport. Name it in 5 guesses or fewer. Zooming in is free (pinch, mouse wheel, double-tap / double-click, + and -; drag while zoomed; 0, Esc or Reset view go back); you can zoom in as far as the real imagery goes. The start view is the widest view: pinching or scrolling out simply stops there, with no prompt and no cost.
- Type the airport name; autocomplete suggests matches.
- Each wrong guess shows the distance, the direction to the answer and a warmth bar (blue far, red close; closeness % = 100 x (1 - sqrt(km / 20,000)), so 500 km is 84, 2,000 km 68, 6,300 km 44 and 10,000 km 29; a wrong guess never shows 100).
- Hints (menu order): the country (1 guess), a third clue chosen per airport (the main airline, 2 guesses, where it is known with confidence, worded "A main airline here" where several carriers are close; otherwise its region, its position in the country or its elevation, 1 guess), the first letter of the name (2 guesses) and, new in v1.4.5, three more at 1 guess each: the passenger traffic bracket (over 50 / 20-50 / 10-20 / 5-10 / under 5 million a year, never the number), the decade the airport opened ("Opened in the 1970s") and the elevation bracket (sea level under 50 m, low 50-300 m, mid 300-1,000 m, high over 1,000 m). A hint with no data for the airport is not listed (never "unknown", never greyed), and neither is one that repeats what was bought. A hint that costs 2 is only offered while at least 3 attempts are left.
- Guesses and hints share the same 5 attempts; zooming never costs one.
- Share result (end of a round) copies
Airport Guesser · Daily #N | Practice | Hard · X/5, one line of squares in play order (red under 25% warmth, orange 25-49, yellow 50-74, green 75-99, a tick for the right airport; a light bulb per attempt spent on a hint) and the game address, never the airport, country, region, airline or any hint. The Daily number counts days from the launch date LAUNCH_DATE in js/config.js (2026-10-04, the first commit; that day is #1). It uses the system share sheet where there is one, else the clipboard with a small "Copied" confirmation.
- Challenge a friend (end of a round) makes
https://.../?c=<id>.<d|h|p>: a fresh 5-guess game with the same airport, banner "Friend's challenge", no effect on the Daily, streaks or statistics, and at its end the result, the same share grid and "Play Daily" / "New random". The ID is a short hash of the airport's ICAO ident (never the array index or the name) and an opaque ID, not a secret: anyone can hash the ICAO codes and look it up. Making a link for today's Daily airport first asks for confirmation ("Don't share it before your friends have played"), and a challenge can never be played as a stats-counting Daily. An unknown or damaged ID shows a friendly message and starts Practice. The build fails if two airports share an ID.
- Fun fact (end of a round, above the Wikipedia link): one line per airport where a solid fact exists, in new words, from the airport's Wikipedia article; see Data.
Game modes
| Mode | Airport pool | Notes |
|---|
| Daily | The 50 busiest airports worldwide by total passengers (ACI World, 2025) | Same airport for everyone each day; every airport once per cycle, then reshuffled; never the same airport twice within 30 days |
| Hard | All other airports: the rest of the international airports plus regional, small and remote airfields (12,675) | Own daily airport and own results |
Practice (endless random airports, no streak pressure) has three tabs, each a disjoint tier of airports; an airport is in at most one, the rest stay in Hard and in autocomplete:
| Tab | Airports | Third hint |
|---|
| Major hubs | 100: ranks 1-50 are the Daily list (ACI World 2025), ranks 51-100 the next 50 by Wikidata passenger counts (mixed years 2019-2025); the 50 ACI airports are drawn twice as often | Curated main airline from data/hub_airlines.json: "Main airline" where one carrier dominates, "A main airline here" where the race is close (2 guesses); Region (1 guess) only for the 4 hubs with no clear main carrier |
| Large | about 420: airports with an airline clue (the main airline, or "A main airline here" where the race is close), scoring well on the playability score | Main airline / A main airline here (2 guesses) |
| Mid-size | about 1,090: regional airports with scheduled service and a good playability score | Region, part of the country or elevation (1 guess) |
Hint costs: First letter 2 guesses and Main airline 2 guesses (each offered only while 3 or more attempts are left); Country, Region / position / elevation, passenger traffic and opening decade 1 guess. Hard is a toggle next to the mode switch. Its daily is drawn from a different pool and it keeps its own saved game, streak and statistics. Autocomplete searches the full database (12,820 airports) in every mode. Practice (endless random airports) is also available; with Hard mode on it draws from the Hard pool.
This is the beginning of the README. Read the rest at the original. Read the full README ↗
