I · Red
Human
Empires, armies and laws. What people have built, they also defend.
The territory game on the real map
Territory game: walk a loop and the land is yours
A territory game only works if land belongs to someone. In MapRaiders the land is real: you walk a loop through your streets and the ground inside becomes your territory on the world map. Anyone who wants it has to head out themselves or beat you at the card table.
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The whole game
One real world map, three ways to play
MapRaiders is a location-based game, an open-world action RPG and a trading card game (TCG) on one real world map: a Pokémon GO alternative you can also play from home. Walk, run or cycle outside with GPS, and your loops become territory on the real map. From home, your own 3D character plays the same map, the same streets and the same territory, live with the same players, with quests, raids at spawn points and vehicles. In that world you also collect trading cards for a card game of their own, with commander decks and live duels for land. All of it is one story, The Collision. Each season is a chapter, and what a season brings never returns but stays valid.
The idea
What makes a territory game
Territory games are as old as kids marking out ground in the schoolyard: whoever holds a patch has to defend it, and whoever wants more has to take it from someone. On phones this became a genre of its own, where the map is not invented. It is your own city.
Three things make a good territory game: the land has a clear border, it stays when you close the app, and other people can contest it. Drop one and you are left with a collecting game that happens to have a map. MapRaiders is built around all three.
On the real map
A loop becomes land
Start recording, walk a route through your streets and come back to where you began. Once the loop closes, the area inside your line becomes your territory, from 150 square metres upwards, with no upper limit.
On foot, jogging, by bike or with your game character: every closed loop counts. Your route is the border, exactly as you walked it, and every other player can see on the map whose ground it is.
For keeps
Your ground stays yours
In many games the map empties out again on its own. Not in MapRaiders: your territory stays yours even if you do not go out for weeks. You can only lose it to another player. Card finds also lie on the world map, glowing in the game as a pillar of light. Enclose one with your loop and the card is yours.
Attack and defence
An attack costs a walk too
Other players attack your territory by walking a loop of their own into it. The attacker only gets the piece their loop encloses, and the rest stays yours. Nobody clears your map with a tap.
If you are in the game at that moment, the attacker first challenges you to a card duel. Decline, or leave it unanswered for a minute, and the piece goes to them. The game tells you what you lost, and you win it back the same way. Clanmates cannot take land from each other.
Compared
Other territory games compared
Owning land on a phone is not a new idea. Three well-known games each go about it differently, and next to them MapRaiders:
- Ingress PrimeNiantic's original from 2013. Two factions link portals at real places into triangles called fields. They are huge and spectacular, but only last until the other side takes out a corner portal.
- Nobunaga's Ambition: ShutsujinKoei Tecmo, in Japan since 2023. You conquer district after district, divided along address blocks, and fight armies of the Sengoku era. Other players do not take your ordinary territory; player against player happens mainly in events such as castle sieges.
- TekuTeku LifePopular in Japan: you paint city blocks on the map by walking through them and fill in your town bit by bit. A lovely diary of your walks, built around filling in rather than fighting over ground.
- MapRaidersThe land is exactly the area your loop encloses. It stays yours, and real players contest it. Who takes a piece from whom is settled by a loop on the street or a card duel.
None of these approaches is better than the others; they want different things. If you want a game where your land genuinely faces other people, MapRaiders is built for exactly that.
At the card table
A card duel settles fights over land
A fight over land moves to the card table. Each side brings a commander, a deck of fifty cards and one building with five face-down building cards beneath it.
50
5
You draw, play characters, paid with crates, your energy, and attack. Before the match, rock paper scissors decides who goes first. Every hit takes a building card, and whoever loses their building loses the match. It is a trading card game in its own right, and it works on the sofa, on the train or at the table.
From home
From home: your RPG character
For days indoors MapRaiders has a way of its own: your RPG character starts at a spawn point, a fixed place on the world map, and moves through the real streets from there. Spawn points change with every card release, and a loop of at least 5 hectares of new ground earns you two of your own.
That way you explore cities you have never been to. Your character's loops become territory too, and it can cut into other players' land just like someone walking outside.
Factions
Six factions, one commander
Every card belongs to one of six factions, some to two: Human, Technology, Nature, Heaven, Hell and Cosmos. Each faction has its own colour and its own way of fighting. Your commander decides which cards may enter your deck.
II · Blue
Technology
Gears, machines and cold precision. Progress does not ask for permission.
III · Green
Nature
Forest, root and pack. What grows takes back what belongs to it.
IV · Yellow
Heaven
Light, vigil and judgment. Heaven protects, and it forgets nothing.
V · Black
Hell
Fire, pact and price. Every power can be had, and each has its price.
VI · Purple
Cosmos
Stars, orbits and the silence in between.
Behind the game
Who is behind MapRaiders
MapRaiders is independent. It is developed in Miami, Florida, by SCAFA INVESTMENTS LLC and does not sell location data. You can delete your account at any time in your profile. Your account and your game data are deleted. Records that also involve other players, such as duel results, are kept, with no link to you.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
- What is a territory game?
- A game where you own, defend and expand land on a map. In MapRaiders the map is the real world: the area your walked loop encloses becomes your territory.
- Do I have to walk to play?
- No. With real GPS you walk outside, with your RPG character you set out from a spawn point. Both claim land, and card duels work anywhere.
- How big can my territory get?
- Every closed loop from 150 square metres counts, and there is no upper limit. Very long loops over many kilometres count as well.
- Can I buy land or power?
- No. You get land through loops and card duels. Cards come from card finds on the map, from quests and challenges, and from packs you open with coins earned in play.
- Where does MapRaiders run?
- In the browser, on your phone as well as on your computer. The game is live: create an account and play.
Ingress, Nobunaga's Ambition and TekuTeku Life are trademarks of their respective owners. MapRaiders has no connection to their developers or operators.
Live in the browser. Something new arrives every week.
Explore more
Read on
More about playing on the real map
Location-based games at a glance and comparisons with well-known games.