Departures Board
An airport departures board spells out a destination letter by letter. You have to guess it before it is complete, and you have 3 lives.
How to play
The board shows the name of a capital, but its letters keep flipping and settle one at a time, in random order. Spaces and the length of each word are visible from the start. Once 40% has been revealed you see the real local time at the destination, and at 60% the flight time from your country: the straight-line distance between your capital and the destination at 850 km/h. Your country comes from your device's language and region settings, not from your location.
A wrong answer, or letting the flight leave, costs a life. The first flights go to well-known places and they get harder as you go. A destination never repeats in the same game, and capitals that give the country away because the names are almost the same are left out.
Ways to play
Pick the flag: tap the flag of the destination country. Type the country: type its name. Type the capital: type the capital that is being spelled out, the hardest version, because you have to recognise it from a few letters. Arrivals: the other way round, the board shows a country and you type its capital. Each version keeps its own record, and Pick the flag also has a ranking.
Scoring
Every flight is worth 1 point plus 1 for each letter that was still hidden when you answered. Guessing Kuala Lumpur with half the letters showing is worth far more than waiting for the full name.
Tips
Look at the shape of the words: a two-word capital, or a short one with a double letter, cuts the options a lot. The local time rules out whole continents, and the flight time tells you whether the destination is next door or on the other side of the world. Answering early is risky, but that's where the points are.
What you learn
Capitals, time zones and distances. Before long you start linking each capital with its local time and how long it takes to get there, which is a way of carrying the map in your head without looking at it.