How to play Vistapin: rules and how to read a postcard
Everything you need to play Vistapin, plus tips to get a better score.
How to play
- A postcard arrives from a tiny island. Somebody took it standing on a street, a plaza or the quay, looking one way. Find that exact square and direction.
- Tap a square of the map to stand the tourist there. Moving is free.
- Turn the tourist with the arrows (or drag around them). The see-through cone on the map is what the camera sees: 70° wide.
- Take photo spends one of your six. Your photo comes out as a polaroid beside the postcard; tap it to lay it over the postcard and compare.
- After each photo: 🟩 right square, 🟨 one or two squares away (diagonals count), 🟥 further. ✅ right direction, ❌ wrong one.
- Every photo leaves a numbered pin on the map: a square, a triangle or a circle for 🟩 🟨 🟥, with ✓ or ✗ for the direction.
- Only one square and direction give the postcard. When your photo is identical, you win.
- Turn the map a quarter at a time to look at the island from another side. The compass shows north and, on sunny days, the sun.
- After six photos without a match the day is lost and the map shows the postcard's spot.
- Your score is the number of photos: 📸 1/6 is perfect, X/6 means the island kept its secret.
- On a computer: click to place, arrow keys or the mouse wheel to turn, Enter to take the photo.
- The week gets harder: Monday is a 6×6 island, four directions and the sun in the picture; from Wednesday eight directions and long shadows; Friday and Saturday no help; Sunday a 9×9 island at dusk with light fog, where one monument only peeks out.
Strategy: think like the camera
Start with the monuments. Each one is unique on the island: find them on the map, then ask from where they would line up as on the postcard. 🗼 left of 🌀 in the photo ➡ you stand where the lighthouse is to the left of the windmill
What hides what tells you a lot. If the lighthouse peeks out behind the windmill, the windmill is nearer: you are on the windmill's side, looking past it.
Mind the edges of the photo. The cone is 70° wide: something cut in half by the left edge sits right on the cone's left line.
Size is distance. A house that fills half the postcard is next door; a tiny lighthouse is across the island.
Use the light. On sunny days the sun in the sky (or its glow at one edge) points the way; the compass shows where it is. Long shadows fall away from the sun. Sunlit walls are brighter.
Use each photo as a clue: 🟨 means one or two squares away, so test a neighbour next; ✅ means keep that direction and only move.
Sharing shows a row per photo, 🟩 🟨 🟥 and ✅ ❌, and the island's name. It never shows where you stood.