Ballpark - The Game

Estimation, under pressure

Ballpark is an estimation game for a group, each on their own phone, in the same room.

A question appears. How many times would Greenland fit inside Africa? How many people on Earth are asleep right now? You have a minute, and you type a number.

Then everyone's answer lands on the same axis at once — eight decades wide, from one to a hundred million, and it never rescales. That is the point. A guess that is four orders of magnitude out looks exactly as wrong every single time, and there is nowhere to hide.

WHAT IT KEEPS Your calibration score is the only number the app tracks. It is computed from the rounds you actually played: each order of magnitude of average error costs fifty points. There are no badges, no levels and no trophies, because a score you can explain is worth more than a shelf of ones you cannot.

HOW IT IS PLAYED Twelve rounds, endless, or in teams where the argument is the input — members confer out loud and one number goes in through a captain who rotates every round.

Or alone. Solo practice runs the same questions with the reasoning shown afterwards, which is what makes it useful for interview preparation rather than only for evenings.

PLAYING FOR SOMETHING, OR NOTHING Set the stake to drinks and the app names who was closest and who was furthest. It never records or assigns anyone's drinking — that is settled out loud, by people. Set it to nothing and the round's consequence is simply who reasoned best.

THE QUESTIONS Six hundred of them, across geography, the human body, space, food, animals, infrastructure and more. Every one carries its source and its working, because an estimation game whose answers are wrong is not a game.

JOINING IS FREE Read out a four-character code and anyone can join. No account is needed to play, and one subscription covers everyone at the table.

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