How to RoamFu
Members strike Coins at real places and find each other's on foot. Every Coin is engraved with its spot.
Find
- Open the Map. Coins you have not found show as plain metal discs: bronze for Easy, silver for Normal, gold for Hard. You cannot see who struck one or what it says until you find it.
- Tap one and walk. Distance and direction show as you go; the circle pulses as you get close.
- Inside 25 metres, Found it! appears. Tap it. The Coin goes into your Case just as it was struck, carrying the username and strike number of the member who placed it, and your Found count goes up by one.
- Leave a line in the logbook if you like, and a photo for yourself. Both are optional, confirmed once, then locked.
- Finding a Coin earns you one Blank. Find one, get one.
Your Find goes public three hours later, so nobody can tell where you are right now.
Strike
- Walk at least 100 metres from any Coin, to a public, outdoor spot you can stand on, with your phone reading accurate to about 10 metres. Open sky helps.
- Tap Strike in the bottom bar. RoamFu checks the spot against map data: schools, daycares, playgrounds and hospitals are off limits, and so are buildings, water, roads, rail and cliff edges.
- Confirm one sentence: that the spot is public, outdoors, reachable on foot, not at a school, hospital, daycare or place of worship, and poses no danger to others.
- Choose a difficulty. Easy is paved, flat, urban. Normal is a natural trail, rolling ground, a park. Hard is rugged, steep, bush. The hardest factor sets the level.
- Strike. Your Blank becomes a Coin: your username and strike number on one side, the 200-metre map of the spot on the other. It goes live in three hours.
- Say why you chose the spot. That note is the Coin's first logbook line, and the thing finders come for.
A Coin lives twelve months on the map, then fades. It stays in every Case forever. If nobody finds it in that year, your Blank comes back.
Do either first
You start with one Blank, so you can strike first and find later, or find first and strike with the Blank you earn. Both loops work; the map near you decides.
Your Case
Every Coin you have, found or struck. Tap one to turn it over, read its logbook, see your own photo, or jump to it on the map. On your map, Coins you have show as a Shoe in your rank colour; they never fade.
Shoes
Finds earn your Shoe: ten colours from White to Black. Your Shoe colour is struck into every Coin you make, fixed at that moment forever. Your wall shows your Coins to other members, Shoe side only.
| Shoe | Finds |
|---|---|
| White Shoe | 0 |
| Yellow Shoe | 5 |
| Orange Shoe | 10 |
| Gold Shoe | 20 |
| Green Shoe | 40 |
| Blue Shoe | 80 |
| Purple Shoe | 160 |
| Brown Shoe | 320 |
| Red Shoe | 640 |
| Black Shoe | 1280 |
Blanks
A Blank is the right to strike one Coin. You start with one. Each Find earns one. Every Blank lasts twelve months; the oldest is always used first.
Invite a friend
Your settings page has your link. When a friend joins by it and has both found and struck, the invite counts. Every 5 counted invites earn you a Blank.
Stuck?
- No distance on a Coin, or “location is off”: the browser needs permission to share your location while RoamFu is open. iPhone: Settings, Privacy & Security, Location Services, then your browser (Safari Websites for Safari): set it to While Using and turn on Precise Location. Android: your browser's Site settings, Location, allow roamfu.com. Then reload the page.
- “Still looking for your location”: a first satellite lock can take a minute. Step into open sky and wait; the map takes whatever your phone can give while the precise fix arrives.
- “Accurate to 60 m; needs 30 m”: trees, tall buildings or a pocket weaken the reading. Open sky again, and give it a few seconds.
- Nothing nearby: Coins are wherever members have roamed. Strike the first one where you are.
- Anything else: admin@roamfu.com.
Good roaming
- Look up from the phone. No Coin is worth a risky step.
- Public places only. Never a yard, never a school, never anywhere you would have to trespass to reach.
- Notes are about the place. Keep people, homes and contact details out of them.
- See something wrong? Open the Coin and tap Report this Coin; a person looks at every report.
- Your username is permanent and public. It is already on your Coins.