Locus Race
A race between real places in Trondheim, to get to know the city while playing.
Locus Race takes broad inspiration from racing between places in The Amazing Race, set on a real local map to support learning. The map, scale and distances follow Trondheim as closely as the data allows; the games themselves are free to be games. On the web, Locus Race gathers Grand Prix, a kart race with folklore characters on real streets, and Villspor, where you are dropped somewhere in town and find a named place on foot. Trondheim is the first place; I hope to add more cities in Norway, then Scandinavia. The iOS app is the original on-foot orientation game.
Racing on real streets
Grand Prix: the Cathedral Circuit grid in Munkegata, built from OpenStreetMap and Kartverket data. Browser capture.
Starting point
- Race real streets, squares and bridges at their actual scale
- In City Chase, race others to a landmark by whichever streets you think are fastest
- In Villspor, find your way from a random drop with map and compass, or with what you know
- Meet characters from Norwegian folk tales and history
- Pick up street names and short stories about the places you pass
- On iOS: find a named landmark from a random street by your own route
Private, initially for the owner only. Future access requires a personal invitation. The iOS app remains in owner-only internal TestFlight. Trondheim is the current setting, with estimated visual details. Device comfort and any learning benefit still need evaluation.
What I’m exploring
A game first
The city should be as real as possible, but the game does not have to be. Grand Prix borrows kart-racing conventions — drifts, boosts, items, rivals — and Villspor borrows the race between places, so that learning the town happens along the way rather than as a task.
Getting to know a place
Circuits pass Torvet, Munkegata, Nidarosdomen, the wharves, Gamle Bybro and Bakklandet. Street names appear as you enter them, and each landmark adds a short sourced story to your collection. On iOS, different starts reuse the same streets without drawing a solution route.
Feedback while testing
In the iOS app, Settings → Feedback sends your entered title/message and app version/build through oohaa to my private Locus Race pipeline in mempit. No location, routes, scores or game progress are attached. Drafts survive relaunch; retry unchanged after uncertain delivery. oohaa keeps a delivery copy and mempit keeps the review copy. Email support to request removal from both; deleting the game or its progress does not remove submitted feedback.