One hill. One day. Real Scottish weather.
Everyone in the world gets the same puzzle — and most of them won’t make it.
Every hiker is drawn by code — no artwork, no sprites.
A daily survival puzzle played across the Scottish hills. You get one route, sixty seconds, and whatever the weather is actually doing out there right now. Cross a river that’s genuinely in spate. Take a line under a slope that really is avalanche-prone today. Reach the bothy before the cold does for you.
Every hill, path, bothy and river gauge is real. The weather is real. The avalanche forecasts are real. Nothing is invented — where the data doesn’t exist, the mechanic is cut rather than faked.
Pick a route across a real map of Scottish paths. Route through a bothy for shelter, or chance the direct line over the bealach.
Wind, windchill, rain and snow depth from live observations. Met Office warnings, SEPA river gauges and SAIS avalanche forecasts.
Winter kills by cold. Summer grinds you down with midges, ticks, sun and the odd thunderstorm on an exposed ridge.
One measure of single malt. Fifty points of warmth, and a stagger that might just put you off the path.
Survive on consecutive days and your hiker’s beard grows with the streak. Miss a day, or die, and you’re shaven.
Every death is marked on the map where it happened. See exactly which burn claimed the most walkers today.
The map, the engine and the data pipeline are built and running. What’s left is the polish. Check back soon — and pick a three-letter callsign in the meantime, because you’ll want a good one on the leaderboard.
Safety notice. Surviving Scotland is an educational game driven by public telemetry. It does not provide navigational or safety advice. Always consult Mountain Rescue, SAIS and Police Scotland before venturing into the Scottish outdoors.
Built on open data — © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), Ordnance Survey Terrain 50 and public sector information under the Open Government Licence v3.0, the Database of British and Irish Hills (CC-BY), Open-Meteo (CC-BY), SEPA, SAIS, BGS, the Met Office and NOAA.