Teams are presented with a set of photographs of various locations. The styles of the photographs, taken from street level, and the title “Map Case” should suggest that they are Google Street View pictures. In the style of Geoguessr, players need to identify the locations of these pictures.
Each picture has some small clues, such as street signs, flags or posters which allow solvers to identify the city, or even narrow down to specific locations within the city. Sharp-eyed players may also notice objects that seem out of place in the pictures, such as a statue on a sidewalk. Indeed, if one navigates to the spot on Google Street View, one will notice that the strange object is not present in the original picture. As hinted in the flavourtext, one should try to “find what's strange about these photographs”.
The aha here is to realize that each “strange” object clues the name of a skyscraper that can be seen in the picture. One may have already come across these names while searching for the location on Google Maps. The pictures are ordered in alphabetical order of the skyscrapers, and getting this aha will help one identify the remaining locations.
| Identifying features | City | Strange object | Skyscraper | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bonham Street Standard Chartered Bank logo |
Singapore | Chevrons painted on street | Chevron House |
| 2 | Empire State Building Origins |
New York | Iron next to street sign | Flatiron Building |
| 3 | Transcontinental Hotel George Street |
Brisbane | Year 1884 on Transcontinental Hotel replaced by an infinity symbol | Infinity Tower |
| 4 | Spiral shaped skyscraper Cyrillic letters on building |
Moscow | Statue of Mercury on sidewalk | Mercury City Tower |
| 5 | Citywalk 2 | Hong Kong | Poster of Nina Simone (Don’t let me be misunderstood) | Nina Tower |
| 6 | Rydges Hotel Her Majesty Theatre |
Melbourne | Southern Cross constellation on lift truck | Southern Cross Tower |
| 7 | Animate Annex Japanese text |
Tokyo | Sunrays between buildings | Sunshine 60 |
| 8 | Guy’s Galleria | London | Broken glass | The Shard |
| 9 | Real Fake sculpture | Chicago | Picture of Trump on wall | Trump Tower |
| 10 | “Coltiviamo Insieme” www.pnsc.it (location can be obtained from website) |
Milan | Unicredit logo | Unicredit Tower |
| 11 | Ritz Carlton White flag with light blue stripes and red stars |
Chicago | “Cold” water tower | Water Tower Place |
After identifying all (or most) of the skyscrapers, the last step is to extract the locations. “Tall order” in the flavourtext hints at ordering the skyscrapers by height. The final aha is to notice that there is exactly one number in each picture. Some are there in the original, while others (like in Moscow and New York) are photoshopped. Any additional numbers in the photos have been deliberately blurred out. Use these numbers to index into the names of the skyscrapers.
| Tower | Height (m) | Number | Extracted letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flatiron Building | 87 | 4 (on chalkboard in front of Origins) | T |
| Chevron House | 152 | 2 (poster on the right edge) | H |
| Southern Cross Tower | 161 | 17 (parking space number on road, bottom left) | E |
| Unicredit Tower | 231 | 4 (right edge in poster text) | C |
| Sunshine 60 | 240 | 8 (on Animate annex building) | E |
| Infinity Tower | 249 | 5 (bottom right) | N |
| Water Tower Place | 262 | 6 (on height barrier, bottom left) | T |
| The Shard | 310 | 7 (street banner, right edge) | R |
| Nina Tower | 319 | 2 (Citywalk 2) | I |
| Mercury City Tower | 339 | 5 (speed limit sign) | U |
| Trump Tower | 423 | 4 (on stand of statue) | M |
The final answer is THE CENTRIUM, a skyscraper in Hong Kong.