Common
Collect the places every city keeps.
Talestra is a walking game. Find water, something old, a crossing, a place to sit, and photograph it. Each find goes into your Atlas with a short piece of writing about what that kind of place has meant to people.
Coming to iOS and Android. Free at launch.
Your Atlas3 of 6 found
Common
A place to sit
Lisboa, 3 SepRare
Something old
Kyoto, 28 AugCommon
A crossing
Not found yetRare
A lighthouse
Not found yetLegendary
Galata Tower
Only in IstanbulYour Atlas fills with your own photos.
How a walk becomes an entry
Find
The app shows which kinds of places are near you. Pick one and walk there.
Capture
Take a photo when you arrive. It becomes a card in your Atlas.
Read
Each card opens a short piece of writing. Complete a set and an old tale unlocks.
What you get for finding a bench
Every kind of place has its own entry. This is the one most people find first.
A place to sit
Common
People have always needed somewhere to stop. Before benches there were steps, low walls, the rim of a fountain, the shade of a tree someone planted for strangers. In old Istanbul, some fountains had stone seats built beside them by people who would never meet the ones resting there. A place to sit is a small promise between a city and whoever is tired in it. Sit for a minute. Count what passes. That's the whole entry.
Common, rare, legendary
Common
Water, a place to sit, an old tree. Every walk has a few.
Rare
A lighthouse, a ruin, a clock tower. Some cities have them, some don't.
Legendary
One place on Earth each. Capturing one opens a full story with choices. The first legendaries are in Istanbul.
Your photos stay on your phone.
Talestra doesn't upload your captures or your notes. They live on your device and nowhere else.
Made for walking, not staring.
Nothing appears on screen while you're moving. Writing opens after you capture, when you're standing still. Directions open in your own maps app.
Write for a kind of place
Stories in Talestra attach to kinds of places, so a story about water can be read beside any river, fountain or sea. We're opening a small writers' program with the next update. Apply now and we'll write to you when it starts.