Route One vs SpotGuesser: two football quizzes built on a world map

Route One draws a footballer's career as a line across the world map and asks you who it is. SpotGuesser asks you a written football question and wants the answer as a pin on a globe. One turns a map into a question; the other turns a question into a map. Both reward knowing where footballers have played.

A note before we start: this is SpotGuesser's own site. Everything said here about Route One comes from its App Store page and its support and privacy pages, as they read on 7 October 2026.

At a glance

How Route One plays

Route One is a new iPhone and iPad app from Stephen Harcombe, who describes it as "a one-person project". It came out in August, and an update in early September doubled it to 200 players.

Each level shows you one footballer's career "as a trail across the world map — and nothing else". You tap to reveal each transfer in turn, from first club to last, and name the player whenever you're ready. Three hints, such as the player's nationality or position, are there when you are stuck.

The 200 careers add up to 1,229 transfers, 370 clubs and 53 countries, and the levels run from 1 to 200 in twenty tiers, "opening with household names and ending somewhere genuinely cruel". Three settings change how much the map gives away. On Easy you see crests, club names and stats as you go. On Medium the club names and crests are blurred, but the stats still show. On Hard everything is blurred: "Just the shape of a career on a map."

Solve a route and the player's full transfer history opens up, with the years, appearances, goals and the fee for every move. The careers come from English Wikipedia, and the crests are drawn by the app rather than taken from the real badges, so they look like a club's colours without being its badge.

Route One has no account and no adverts, and its privacy policy says it collects nothing at all: there is no server, and it makes no network requests while you play. Everything, the map included, sits on your device, so it works offline. Your progress stays on each device; there is no syncing between them yet.

How SpotGuesser plays

SpotGuesser has one match a day, and everyone gets the same five questions. They are written football questions: where a player was born, which city a club plays in, where a World Cup or European final was held, the places behind football history.

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. Each answer shows the right place, how far off you were and a short explanation of the story behind it.

At the end you can see how your score compares with everyone else who played that day, and a daily streak keeps count of the days in a row you have played. It runs in any web browser, so there is nothing to install, and every past match stays playable.

A map as the clue, or as the answer

This is the biggest difference between the two. In Route One the map is the clue. You never have to place anything yourself: the game draws the line, and your job is to recognise whose career it is. The more you know about transfers, the sooner a few stops on the map give the player away, and the more points you keep.

In SpotGuesser the clue is in words and the map is where you answer. The question tells you who or what it is about, so the puzzle is knowing where it happened and finding that place on the globe. You can know a player's whole career and still put their birthplace a thousand miles off.

Two ways of scoring

In Route One every player is worth up to 1,000 points. "Guess early and you keep more of the 1,000 points on offer. Take your time and the score slips away," and each hint you use costs points too. The app keeps your points and a streak on your device. Its pages don't give the exact cost of each step or each hint.

SpotGuesser gives up to 100 points a question, on a smooth curve by distance. A pin 50 miles away keeps 98, 250 miles keeps 85, 1,000 miles keeps 50, and a pin on the other side of the world scores nothing. Five perfect answers make 500, and there are no hints. The how to play page has the full table.

Playing alone, or with friends

Route One is a game to work through on your own, at your own pace: 200 levels that get harder as you go. Its listing and its website mention no daily puzzle, no leaderboard and no way to play against friends.

SpotGuesser is built around the day's match. Its challenges turn it into a game against people you know: name up to seven friends and send them the link. Each of them plays that day's match whenever they have five minutes, and once you have played, you see the standings and, as your friends finish, who made the closest guess and the biggest miss, with every player's pin on a map for each question. Nobody needs an account.

Which one should you play?

Route One suits you if you love transfer history, want something to play offline on a train or a plane, like working through levels at your own pace, or want an app that collects nothing about you.

SpotGuesser suits you if you want a five-minute daily match with the same questions as everyone else, like learning the story behind each answer, want to know where football happened, or want to challenge friends who will play at different times of day.

The two come at football's map from opposite ends, so they make good companions. We have also compared SpotGuesser with Ballocate, GeoGuesser: Soccer, Crest Quest, PlayPinDrop Footy and ExtraTime Conquest. Play today's SpotGuesser match and see how you do.