🇮🇷 Iran · ایران (Irān)
Persia invented the paradise garden, the wind tower and the four-iwan mosque, and it has been building in mud brick and blue tile for three thousand years. Iranian scenes are geometry — count the iwans, read the tile colour, then date it.
Iran's collection needs 3 more rounds before it opens. These are live today.
Iran is high desert plateau ringed by mountains, with cities where the water is. Mud-brick domes and wind towers in the dry centre, blue-tiled iwans in the great mosques, and carved rock reliefs at the imperial sites — three visual systems that barely overlap.
Architecture
Stone columns with double-bull capitals and processional stairways are Achaemenid, 550–330 BC. Wide parabolic mud-brick arches with rubble cores are Sasanian. Turquoise and cobalt tile over a four-iwan courtyard is Islamic Iran, and the dense floral tile with yellow is Safavid, 1590–1720.
Landscape
Ochre desert with salt crusts and no vegetation is the Dasht-e Kavir or Lut. Snow on high ridges above a brown city is Tehran under the Alborz. Lines of small craters running across a plain are qanat shafts — underground aqueducts, some 2,500 years old.
Period tells
Wind towers (badgirs) mark Yazd and the central desert cities from the medieval period on. Qajar-era buildings add European sash windows and painted tile portraits, 1800–1920. Wide 1970s boulevards and concrete in Tehran belong to the oil-boom decade before 1979.
A starting shortlist, oldest first. Every one of these makes a round that Iranians can nail and everyone else has to work out.
Marvdasht plain, FarsAncient world
Tribute processions carved on the stairways — Medes, Bactrians, Nubians — for an empire that ran from the Indus to Libya.
Naqsh-e Rostam, near PersepolisAncient world
A Sasanian king shown receiving the submission of a Roman emperor, carved under the tombs of Achaemenid kings.
IsfahanEarly modern
Shah Abbas built a square seven times the size of St Mark's, with a mosque, a palace and a bazaar on its four sides.
Baharestan, TehranThe long 19th century
Merchants and clerics forced a parliament and a written constitution out of the Qajar shah.
Azadi Square, TehranModern era
Crowds in the millions on a square built to mark 2,500 years of monarchy, twelve years after it opened.
Iranian history touches ancient & classical, exploration & revolution and the 20th century. Each of those eras has a timed round of its own — the same centuries, but questions drawn from every country in the library, so you find out whether you can date the rest of the period as confidently as you can date Iran.
Ancient & classical
Iranian moments here: The Apadana at Persepolis (515 BC), Shapur's victory relief cut (260).
Exploration & revolution
Iranian moment here: Naqsh-e Jahan laid out (1602).
20th century
Iranian moments here: The Constitutional Revolution (1906), The Islamic Revolution (1979).
Dates, order and places from the moments above. Answers are printed underneath — cover them with a hand if you want to test yourself, or read them out for a quiz round.
1.The Apadana at Persepolis — what year?
Answer515 BC
Tribute processions carved on the stairways — Medes, Bactrians, Nubians — for an empire that ran from the Indus to Libya.
2.Shapur's victory relief cut — what year?
Answer260
A Sasanian king shown receiving the submission of a Roman emperor, carved under the tombs of Achaemenid kings.
3.Naqsh-e Jahan laid out — what year?
Answer1602
Shah Abbas built a square seven times the size of St Mark's, with a mosque, a palace and a bazaar on its four sides.
4.The Constitutional Revolution — what year?
Answer1906
Merchants and clerics forced a parliament and a written constitution out of the Qajar shah.
5.The Islamic Revolution — what year?
Answer1979
Crowds in the millions on a square built to mark 2,500 years of monarchy, twelve years after it opened.
6.Which came first in Iran — the Apadana at Persepolis or Shapur's victory relief cut?
AnswerThe Apadana at Persepolis, in 515 BC.
Shapur's victory relief cut follows in 260, 775 years later.
7.Which came first in Iran — Naqsh-e Jahan laid out or the Constitutional Revolution?
AnswerNaqsh-e Jahan laid out, in 1602.
The Constitutional Revolution follows in 1906, 304 years later.
8.Where in Iran would you drop the pin for the Apadana at Persepolis?
AnswerMarvdasht plain, Fars
Tribute processions carved on the stairways — Medes, Bactrians, Nubians — for an empire that ran from the Indus to Libya.
9.Where in Iran would you drop the pin for Shapur's victory relief cut?
AnswerNaqsh-e Rostam, near Persepolis
A Sasanian king shown receiving the submission of a Roman emperor, carved under the tombs of Achaemenid kings.
10.How far apart are the oldest and newest Iranian moments in this collection?
Answer2,494 years
From the Apadana at Persepolis in 515 BC to the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
You don't need a photograph or a map reference. Name a moment — "The Apadana at Persepolis, Marvdasht plain, Fars" — and the builder fills in the year, drops the pin, writes the factoid and paints a 360° scene you can stand inside. Publish it and it joins this collection for everyone.
Step 1
One line is enough — an event, a place, a year you half-remember. Or let the AI draft five moments around a theme.
Step 2
The year, the exact coordinates and a one-sentence factoid come back filled in. Everything stays editable.
Step 3
A 4K 360° panorama of that place in that year, ready to spin around inside the game.
🇮🇷 Put your own scene on /play/iran
Credits cover the AI: 1 to auto-fill a moment, 3 to draft five at once, 25 for each 4K panorama. Your map stays yours — you choose whether it's public, unlisted or private.
Moments Iranians want to see in the game. Vote them up — the top of this list gets built next.
Each round drops you into a 360° scene from Iran's past. Look around for clues — architecture, clothing, technology, landscape — then place the scene on the world map and pick the year. You score up to 5,000 points a round: closer in distance and closer in time both pay. Five rounds make a game.
No. You can play Iranian rounds straight away with no sign-up. Signing in saves your XP, keeps your character progressing through history, and puts you on the leaderboards.
The collection spans 515 BC to 1979 — from the apadana at persepolis through to the islamic revolution. New moments are added as the community suggests them.
Yes, completely free. There is no paywall on rounds, the daily challenge, or the leaderboards.
Yes — that's how the collection grows. Suggest any moment Iranians would recognise instantly, like the apadana at persepolis. Approved suggestions get built into playable 360° rounds and credited on the page.
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