LOCAL KNOWLEDGE · a free logic puzzle for people who like one right answer · eight villages, exactly one map in each

Everybody in the village will tell you how to get there. Nobody draws you a map.

The streets are drawn. The landmarks are missing. Four villagers give you directions, each their own way: compass points, lefts and rights, “keep on till you reach the post box”, or straight over the garden walls. Put the pub, the bakery and the rest on the corners so every one of them walks true: followed word for word, their directions end on the right landmark.

Place the pub Play all eight villages

Free. No account, no ads. Village 1 is one landmark and one route, and it plays right here, by tap on a phone too.

The full game on village 7, Marlow Parva, on a wrong map: a hand-drawn street map with the hill north, the river east, the railway south and the woods west. Old Ted's and Mrs. Penrose's routes walk true. Ivy's two crow lines and Dev's route each stop on a red word, with the reason underneath: that's off the edge of town, the road runs out before that turning.
The full game, village 7, on a wrong map. Two routes walk true. Ivy's two crow lines and Dev's directions each stop on a red word and say why.

This is village 1. Nineteen corners. One of them is the pub.

It runs on the game's own rules and draws the game's own map. Read Mrs. Penrose's directions, pick up the pub, put it on a corner, then press Walk It. She walks your map word by word and stops at the first word that goes wrong.

Village 2 brings in Dev, who drives the bakery van. Finish both and the full game opens on village 3, Long Cobbing, where reading forward from the church won't get you all the way.

“Take the second left.” Do you count the corner you're standing on?

Everybody has had this argument. In this game it's settled, on a card printed next to the map. There are four ways of giving directions. These are the four cards the game prints, word for word:

Mrs. Penrose taught geography for thirty-one years COMPASS

“Streets in compass directions: 'two north' is two blocks up the map along real streets.”

Dev drives the bakery van TURNS

“Lefts and rights from where he's facing. Turnings are counted ahead of you, never the corner you're on. 'End of the road' means keep going until the street stops.”

Old Ted has never once used a street name LANDMARKS

“Walk straight on until you reach a landmark, then turn there.”

Ivy, aged nine goes over garden walls CROW FLIES

“As the crow flies: blocks across and up or down the map, ignoring streets entirely.”

Two things the cards take for granted. A turning only counts if a street actually goes off on that side. And Dev and Old Ted never say “north”: they steer by the edges of town, the hill, the river, the railway and the woods, which are drawn on every map.

A wrong map gets a sentence, not a game over.

Press Walk It and each villager walks their route on your map. Where it breaks, one word goes red and the game tells you why:

  • “The road runs out before that turning.”
  • “Nothing is on that corner, and the pub should be.”
  • “There's no street going that way.”

You can't lose a village. Stuck? Ask the postman and he puts one landmark on its right corner (“Pub is there, love.”). That costs you a star and nothing else.

Each village has three stars: every route walks true, you got there in two walks or fewer, and you didn't ask the postman.

19,535,040 ways to place six landmarks. One of them walks true.

That's village 8. Six landmarks, nineteen free corners. 1,876,540 of those maps get somebody's directions right. One gets everybody's.

I didn't take the game's word for that. The game checks each village with its own solver before it ships. For this page a second check walks every possible map through Walk It, one at a time, with no cleverness at all:

Every village, counted
Village Ways to place the landmarks Maps where every route walks true
1 Sunday Morning 19 1
2 Nether Wick 342 1
3 Long Cobbing 5,814 1
4 Saint Awdry 93,024 1
5 Hobb's Green 1,395,360 1
6 Upper Fenning 1,395,360 1
7 Marlow Parva 19,535,040 1
8 Thrupp-on-the-Hill 19,535,040 1

The game's own checks go further. Every route in a village is needed: take any one away and a second map works. And every way of giving directions in a village pulls its weight.

Can you guess your way through with Walk It? Yes, partly. A wrong walk ends on a corner and marks it, and that's a real clue. A bot I set on villages 3 to 8 didn't even read the clue: it shuffled landmarks and only counted how many routes came out true. It finished 27 of 30 tries, never in fewer than 36 walks. You should do better than that by reading the red word. The star is for two.

Eight villages

  1. Sunday Morning. One landmark, one route. Your landlady talks you through Mrs. Penrose's directions.
  2. Nether Wick. Dev turns up and starts counting turnings.
  3. Long Cobbing. Old Ted arrives: “keep on till you reach the pub, turn right there”. From here on, reading forward from the church won't finish a village, because you don't know where the pub is yet.
  4. Saint Awdry. Ivy, and her garden walls: “it's two blocks west as the crow flies”.
  5. Hobb's Green. Five landmarks to place, three kinds of directions.
  6. Upper Fenning. The same size, a different three.
  7. Marlow Parva. Six landmarks, all four villagers, five routes.
  8. Thrupp-on-the-Hill. The last one. Map it and the bells ring you out of the county.

What's real, and the honest gripes

Real: every village has exactly one map, checked twice, numbers above. Every route on this page is quoted from the game. The village up top runs on the game's own rules and draws the game's own map, with the coach's key names swapped for taps and clicks.

The gripes, before you find them:

  • Nobody outside my own test scripts has played it yet. I don't know how long it takes you, or whether it's too easy.
  • It's eight villages. There's no daily and no ninth.
  • Each villager phrases things the same way every time. A bigger bank of ways to say it isn't built.
  • Guessing with Walk It works, and the red X makes it quicker than you'd think. The two-walk star is the only thing stopping you.
  • Two slips in the game itself. Village 3's coach says “Nobody here gives directions from somewhere you know,” but two of its three routes start at the church; ignore the coach on that one. And Old Ted says “end of the road” there, which only Dev's card explains: keep going until the street stops.
  • On a phone the map is small. It plays by tap all the way through, but a computer is nicer.

Questions

Is it really free?
Yes. No account, no ads, nothing to buy. Progress saves in your browser.
Do I need to know anything about English villages, or maps?
No. The villages are made up. Everything you need is on the four cards and the two lines under them.
How hard does it get?
Villages 1 and 2 are the tutorial. Village 8 has 19,535,040 possible maps and five routes to satisfy.
What if I'm stuck?
Ask the postman. He puts one landmark on its right corner. You lose a star, nothing else.
Does it work on my phone?
Yes, by tap. The full game still shows keyboard hints like “Press Space”; the buttons do the same thing. The map is small, so a computer or tablet is easier.
Will it improve my sense of direction?
I have no evidence that it does. It's a puzzle.

Village 3 is where reading forward stops working

If you mapped villages 1 and 2 up top, the full game opens on village 3, Long Cobbing, in this browser. Your stars live here, so on another device it starts at village 1.

Play all eight villages

P.S. Dev's rule is “turnings are counted ahead of you, never the corner you're on.” If you've ever lost an argument about a second left, you now win it. In this village, anyway.