How to play

The basics

WikiSprint is a race through Wikipedia. One player creates a lobby and gets a five-character code to share. The host picks a start article and a destination article, then everyone races from one to the other by clicking links inside the articles. No searching, no typing in the address bar: only clicks on article links count.

The first player to land on the destination article wins. The results screen then shows each player's time, click count, and the full path of articles they travelled through.

Starting a race

1. Enter a player name on the home page, or keep the suggested one.
2. Click Create new lobby. You become the host and get a five-character code.
3. Share that code. Other players type it into the join box and press Join friends.
4. As host, search for a start article and a destination article. Both are picked from real Wikipedia titles as you type.
5. Press start. Everyone loads the same first article at the same moment and the clock begins.

Rules and controls

• Only in-article links count. You move by clicking blue links in the article body, infoboxes and tables.
• Every move is a click. Your click count is the number of pages you opened, and it is the tie-breaker people argue about afterwards.
• Back counts too. The Back button returns you to the previous article, and that step costs a click, exactly like following a link. Retreating from a dead end is allowed but not free.
• Arriving wins instantly. The moment the destination article loads, your race stops and the room is told.
• Surrender if you are stuck. You drop out but stay in the room and can watch the rest. If everyone surrenders the race ends by itself.
• The host can end a race. Useful when a pair turns out to be impossible or somebody has to leave.

A worked example

Say the race is from Honey to FIFA World Cup. Those two topics have nothing to do with each other, which is exactly the kind of pair that makes a good race. A workable route looks like this:

1. From Honey, resist the tempting links about bees and beekeeping. They go deeper into the topic, not outwards.
2. Look for a link that leaves the subject: a country, a period of history, a language. Honey mentions ancient civilisations, so jump to one.
3. From a country or civilisation article, the infobox and the lead give you the modern country page.
4. A country page nearly always links to its sport or football section, and from there to the national football team.
5. Any national team article links to the FIFA World Cup. Five or six clicks, done.

The shape of that route is the general recipe: climb from a narrow topic to a broad one, cross sideways at the top, then descend towards the target.

Common mistakes

• Reading the article. Scan for links, do not read prose. The lead paragraph and the infobox carry most of the useful exits.
• Going deeper instead of wider. Clicking ever more specific subtopics is the most common way to lose.
• Ignoring the destination. Think about what kind of thing the target is before you make your first click.
• Refusing to backtrack. One click to retreat beats thirty seconds of scrolling a dead end.

Glossary

Hub

A very general article, such as a country, a century or a science, that links out to thousands of others.

Dead end

A short or highly specific article with few outgoing links, usually a sign to go back.

Path

The ordered list of articles you passed through, shown on the results screen.

Pair

The start article and the destination article that define a race.

Daily

The single pair everyone in the world races on a given day.