Five minutes, as many rounds as you can
Marathon gives you five minutes for the whole game on a single clock that does not stop between rounds. Whatever you get through counts; a hurried answer beats a long think here.
Five minutes is roughly six to ten rounds, depending on how fast panoramas load. The arithmetic is simple: eight rounds at two thousand make sixteen thousand, three perfect ones make fifteen. Speed beats precision almost every time.
One turn of the camera, a guess, a pin. A second turn costs about one round out of the game.
The result screen eats the clock like play does. Save the review map for the end, when the timer has stopped.
Expanding it every round wastes seconds. On a wide screen it opens on hover.
The best strategy is not to chase direct hits but to bank two or three thousand a round and move on. Eight fast rounds at two thousand beat three perfect ones. The result screen also eats time: hit next without studying the map.
Aim for two or three thousand a round and move on. That is the 'right country, roughly right region' level, reachable in twenty seconds.
Early rounds run faster than late ones as panoramas cache and your eye settles. Allow a little more time at the start and switch to pure speed towards the end.
| Rounds per game | 25 |
| Time limit | 5 min per game |
| Camera restrictions | none |
| Anchor points | 147 |
| Available in duels | no |
| Hints | yes |
A direct hit is worth 5000 points per round, and the score falls off exponentially with distance. A five-round game is worth up to 25,000. Distances are measured on the server against its own copy of the locations, so a result cannot be forged from the browser.
| Miss | Points per round |
|---|---|
| direct hit | 5,000 |
| 1 km | 4,998 |
| 10 km | 4,975 |
| 50 km | 4,877 |
| 200 km | 4,524 |
| 500 km | 3,894 |
| 1,000 km | 3,033 |
| 2,000 km | 1,839 |
| 5,000 km | 410 |
| other hemisphere | 34 |
What the pool for this mode is made of:
| Europe | 29 |
| Asia and Oceania | 26 |
| The Americas | 20 |
| Africa and the Middle East | 10 |
| Russia and the CIS | 62 |
The game closes itself and counts everything you managed to score.
Usually six to ten, depending on how fast the panoramas load.
No, it runs continuously from the start of the game.