PlayPinDrop Footy vs SpotGuesser: two daily football map games, compared
PlayPinDrop Footy and SpotGuesser both give you five football rounds a day and a map to answer on. How they differ on questions, scoring, friends and cost.
· 6 min read
PlayPinDrop Footy and SpotGuesser share a daily rhythm. Every day there are five rounds, the same for everyone; you drop a pin, the game measures how far off you were, and there is no clock. Both keep a streak, and both show where your score sits among everyone who played. Where they differ is what each round asks, how far across the football map they go, and how you play your friends.
Footy is one of the games on PlayPinDrop, a family of daily map games made by one person, William, which started in March 2026 with a world geography game. Footy followed on 10 May 2026. You may see it called PinDrop Footy; its home is playpindrop.app/footy.
A note before we start: this is SpotGuesser's own site. Everything said here about PlayPinDrop Footy comes from PlayPinDrop's own Footy page, sports guide, FAQ and product updates, as they read on 5 October 2026.
At a glance
| PlayPinDrop Footy | SpotGuesser | |
|---|---|---|
| Where you play | In a browser, and in PlayPinDrop's iPhone app | In any web browser, on a phone or a computer |
| Each round | A famous moment: find the ground where it happened | A written question: find the place it asks about |
| Coverage | Nine European top-flight leagues, roughly 160 grounds | Worldwide: players' birthplaces, club and stadium cities, where finals were played |
| A game | 5 rounds a day, no clock | 5 questions a day, no clock |
| New game | At midnight on your device's clock | At midnight UTC, the same moment everywhere |
| Points | Up to 200 a round, full marks inside a "perfect" radius | Up to 100 a question, on a published scale |
| Help | Three hints a round, 20 points each | None |
| Beyond the daily | Past days and a practice mode, with a free account | Every past daily match, no account |
| With friends | Private group leaderboards, each member signed up | A challenge link for up to 8, nobody signs up |
| Account | Optional for the daily | None |
| Cost | Free, with ads outside the rounds; ad-free for $1.99 a month | Free, no ads |
How PlayPinDrop Footy plays
Each round describes a famous moment from one of nine leagues: the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, the Bundesliga, Ligue 1, the Eredivisie, Liga Portugal, the Scottish Premiership and the Süper Lig. Your job is to pin the ground where it happened, on a map of Europe. PlayPinDrop's own examples run "from Celtic's Lisbon Lions lifting the European Cup to Napoli's first title since the Maradona era". The ground stays hidden until you have placed your pin, so the moment is the clue, and PlayPinDrop says every moment is checked for whether the team was actually at home.
The pool is roughly 160 club grounds across nine countries, and a ground won't come back for 16 days. If you are stuck, each round has three hints at 20 points each; the first gives you the league and a regional cue, such as "Eredivisie stadium in the central Netherlands".
Each round is worth up to 200 points, so a day is out of 1,000. Land inside a "perfect" radius around the ground, which the result map draws as a ring, and you get all 200; the further off you are, the fewer you get. Score nothing and Footy calls it an "OWN GOAL". A full game, PlayPinDrop says, usually takes one to two minutes.
You can play the daily without an account. A free one, by email link, Google or Apple, keeps your streak and history across devices, and the Footy page offers practice and past days to players who sign up. Practice runs 10, 20 or 30 rounds, from one league or all nine, without touching your streak.
How SpotGuesser plays
SpotGuesser is one match a day, and everyone gets the same five questions, new at midnight UTC. You turn and zoom a globe, tap to drop a pin, move it as often as you like and lock it in when you are ready. There is no clock and there are no hints. Each answer shows the right place, how far off you were and a short explanation of the story behind it.
At the end you see how your score compares with everyone else who played that day, and your streak grows by a day. Missed one? Every past match stays playable, and there is no account: your scores and streak are kept in your browser.
The story first, or the story after
The two games run the same idea in opposite directions. Footy gives you the story, a title won or a famous night, and asks where it happened. SpotGuesser asks you about a place and tells you the story once you have answered.
The bigger difference is how far each one goes. Footy stays with nine top-flight European leagues and goes deep into them: its own guide walks through London's six Premier League grounds, Madrid's four La Liga grounds and Istanbul's three giants. SpotGuesser goes wherever the question takes it. Many of its questions are about where a player was born, which can be anywhere in the world, and others ask where a final was played, from the Women's World Cup to the Africa Cup of Nations, the Asian Cup and the Copa América.
A perfect radius or a published scale
Footy pays 200 for anything inside the perfect radius, and PlayPinDrop's FAQ sorts the rest into bands: 100 to 199 for a pin in the same region, 1 to 99 for one that has drifted, nothing for one thousands of kilometres away. PlayPinDrop says the exact thresholds vary with how isolated each target is. The hints let you trade a little score for a better guess.
SpotGuesser publishes its whole scale, and it is the same for every question. A pin 50 miles away keeps 98 points, 250 miles keeps 85, 1,000 miles keeps 50, and the other side of the world scores nothing. Five perfect answers make 500. The how to play page has the full table.
Groups or a challenge link
Both games are built for playing alongside people you know. PlayPinDrop's answer is Private Groups: a standing leaderboard for a family, a group chat or an office, joined through an invite link, where everyone plays the same daily and compares scores round by round. Everyone who joins signs up with an email address. A shared result can also carry the day and the score to beat, so whoever opens the link plays the same five rounds and sees how they compare.
SpotGuesser's challenges need no sign-up at all. Add up to seven names and send the link; each friend plays the day's match whenever they have five minutes, and once you have played you see the standings and everyone's pins, question by question. A challenge covers one day's match, and Rematch sets up the next.
Ads and accounts
Both games are free to play. PlayPinDrop has carried small ads since August 2026, on the home screen, after your last round and on the exit screen, and none inside a round; an ad-free subscription costs $1.99 a month or $17.99 a year. Signing in is optional for the daily but needed for groups, practice and past days. SpotGuesser has no ads and nothing to sign up for.
Which one should you play?
PlayPinDrop Footy suits you if you know Europe's big leagues inside out, like being handed a famous moment and asked where it happened, want hints when you are stuck, or want a standing leaderboard for your group chat, with PlayPinDrop's other daily games alongside.
SpotGuesser suits you if you want football from all over the world, including the women's game and tournaments outside Europe, want the story behind each answer, or want to challenge friends without anyone signing up.
With the same daily rhythm, they sit happily side by side. We have also compared SpotGuesser with Ballocate, GeoGuesser: Soccer and Crest Quest. Play today's SpotGuesser match and see how you do.