I made a game called NordsGuesser. It drops you at a random point on the Nürburgring Nordschleife and asks you to click where you think you are. Five rounds, 25,000 points on the line.
Here's why it exists, how it got built, and what's next.
Why I made it
I put a lot of hours into GeoGuessr and loved it. So when the idea of a Nordschleife version popped into my head, my first move wasn't to build it, it was to go and play it. The Nordschleife is famously hard to learn, and a huge part of going fast there is just knowing where you are and what's coming. It felt like the obvious track to do this with. Someone had definitely made it already.
Nobody had. So I did.
How I made it
First question was which sim to pull the visuals from. Assetto Corsa Evo won on the two things that mattered: the most up to date version of the track, and the best looking one.
After that it came together quickly. I built a small capture app that tracks the car as it laps, draws out a vector of the track, takes a screenshot every few metres and logs the position data alongside it. Drive a lap and you come away with a dataset. That dataset is the entire game.
It's also what makes the scoring work. Every click gets converted back into real world coordinates and measured in metres against where the screenshot was actually taken. Nothing is measured in pixels, so it holds up however you resize or zoom.
Once capture was solid I got a rough playable version running and threw together UI mockups alongside it. When the two came together and I clicked a map and watched it score me properly, that was the moment. It worked. NordsGuesser existed.
Two details I'm quietly pleased with. Your pin snaps to the racing line, so you can never accidentally guess in the middle of a field. And you can zoom into the screenshot to read a distant marshal post or a mark on the armco, which is exactly what you'd do standing there in real life.
How to play
Go to nordsguesser.com and hit Play.
- You get dropped at a random point on the lap.
- Look around. Scroll to zoom into the screenshot, drag to pan.
- Hover the map in the bottom right and it expands. You can zoom and drag in there too, and the corners are labelled.
- Click the map to place your guess, then hit Confirm.
- Closer is better. Within 50 metres is a full 5,000 points. Beyond 3 kilometres is zero.
At the end you get a rank, running from Veteran down to Never Been?, and a share button so you can make your friends try it.
The timer defaults to 15 seconds a round, but you can set 30, 60, or switch it off completely on the splash screen. Off is the honest way to learn the track. 15 seconds is the fun way.
What I've added since launch
The daily challenge and the leaderboard. Top of my list from day one. I wanted a way to play against friends and strangers without building proper multiplayer. Everyone gets the same five locations, you get one go, and you can see where you landed.
Night mode. With the N24 being what it is, a night version was never optional. It's a different game when all you have is headlights and brake markers.
The two combine on Saturdays, when the daily challenge runs at night. Good luck.
What's next
Round by round multiplayer is the big one, and the thing I most want to build. It's also a proper chunk of work, so it happens if enough people want it.
The game is free and it's staying free. If you want to see it grow, Ko-fi and Patreon are what pay for the next chunk of work. And if you've got ideas or feedback, come and tell me on Discord. I read all of it.
Following along?
Build updates land in the Discord first.