Turf insider Maj 2025

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Round winners – April (Round #178)

Congratulations to the winners of round April 2025: RoVo from Berlin took Gold with his last take with only 8 seconds left of the round, Király from Skåne missed out on the Gold with 6 points, and TuonoV4 from Skåne turfed home his first Bronze. Well done mates!

The final hours of this round had lots of turfers glued to Turf-TV – Indoor Addiction. It was a race to the last zone between Király and RoVo, and it was not decided until the very last zone take. What a game!

Upcoming events

If you are organising an open event, don't forget to write to insider@turfgame.com a couple of months in advance to get the information about your event into the newsletter :)

Åland Open, 24th of May in Mariehamn

For the second time, Mariehamn (Åland) will host two Events on the same day. Information HERE (only in Swedish).

Bonanza 2025: 7th of June in Edinburgh

The first Bonanza outside of Sweden will be held in Edinburgh in June 2025,and here are some words from ESOCWalter, one of the organisers of it:

In Edinburgh, we can’t wait to welcome you to the Bonanza on the weekend of 6th to 9th June! Entries are now open HERE and we’ve revealed the event centre venues as well in the updated advance information HERE, so you will visit a number of amazing historic buildings here in Scotland’s capital.

The schedule for the weekend is action-packed! As well as a Friday evening welcome foot event next to Edinburgh Castle, we’ve got the two main Bonanza events on Saturday, followed by the banquet and prizegiving. Plus, we have a “Crazy Closing” foot event on Sunday morning (weird zone shapes and more!), followed by a 24-hour event from noon on Sunday to noon on Monday.

We have a registration fee (£20) which means you can take part in all the Turf activities over the weekend. We are not aiming to make a profit (we are a registered charity) and this is to cover expenses, eg. venue hire, insurance, welcome packs for everyone, prizes and other costs. We promise it will all be good value! We really want everyone to enjoy the entire weekend and have as much fun as possible in Scotland. You can click here to join the BONANZA WhatsApp community to get more info on accommodation, bike hire, to ask questions and to chat with other Bonanza participants. Everyone is welcome - and it’s not long to go now! //ESOCWalter

As of 2nd of April, most of us outside of the UK, will need a ETA to travel to UK. Read more HERE. The application process is easy, especially if you use the mobile app.

Uppsala2025, 28th of June in Uppsala, Sweden

Uppsala2025 will be held on the 28th of June. It will contain foot, bike and waterzones, and might also have some fun event-quests alongside the actual competition. We will most definitely have a dinner, but where is not yet planned. Sign up HERE.

Turf Gbg Open, 5th of July in Gothenburg, Sweden

Head over to the Swedish West coast for a double Event day. Two 90 min Events followed by dinner in the evening. Read more HERE (Swedish only) and sign up HERE.

Turfers view on Turf

Turf is at its most simplest form a game. You compete with other players to own zones. For some, this is all it is and the goal is to win a Round of Turf or ones Group in the League system. The charm of Turf for many, however, is that the app is so much more than ”just a game” and this often gets forgotten when tempers run high in discussions about pph unfairness, zone making and other topics in social media.

Turf Insider has asked a few turfers about their view on Turf.

ESOCWalter (Scotland)

I got into Turf in lockdown and I love it for lots of different reasons! I enjoy the spirit of the Turf community and meeting up with other Turfers, so I’ve been to three Bonanzas, as well as helping to organise many Turf events in Scotland. I also like going after the medals, as there’s always something different to aim for, and I recently got my 10,000 unique zone medal on an island near Edinburgh with my mum, ESOCJanet. My favourite medal however is my Netherlands explorer medal, as I took my dog Dusty with me on the ferry from Newcastle to Amsterdam last year, and we spent a week travelling around all the regions on the train together, having a great time!

qivaasa (Uppsala)

mpmoke lured me into the game. In 2013, he bought me an Android phone. I was very skeptical, but over time, Turf has become a part of my life. Suddenly, the path to work became interesting. That's when I take most of my zones. Turf has made me braver. I meet new people. Sometimes I dare to stand and look a little weird among non-turfers. Yes, you know all the weird situations that can occur in the game.

It's not the rush of happiness after a new medal rattles in, that keeps me here. I rarely get them nowadays. I'm not high up on the lists, but I always have a reason to go out and move. Out to discover the world. Close and far away. The best thing is still all the new friends and the opportunity to hang out over coffee on Saturdays. The last time Turf gave me something special, was a unique participation in a bachelorette party. Turf gives me big and small adventures.Thanks Turf!

I..(Turku)

I was introduced to Turf by my partner during the previous winter/spring time. What finally lured me into it was the competitiveness, I guess any sport or similar when you have "a number on your chest" makes me tick. I first started with walking and sometimes running and that got me my 1st regional win - during one of the last days for the win, I had to make 3 walking tours (one for 2 h) and one running, collecting some 45 km that day. Last summer I dug up my 40 year old Peugeot sport bike and voila, next I was number 1 in Finland.

Now a year later turfing mostly on an e-bike, let's see what can be achieved with that. But in addition to sporting and competition I have been lucky to meet like-minded people from abroad - UK, SWE - and other regions from Finland and of course Turku (Åbo) Turfers.

Tveskägg (Skåne)

Turf is a way for me to get a break from everyday life and the opportunity to philosophize undisturbed. Since I don't like to walk that much, you don't get anywhere and my feet hurt too, I cycle instead. Usually at least 10 km or more a day.

I set my own goals in Turf and compare my performances with what I have achieved before and what others at the same level in the league are performing. Those who end up at a certain level in the league have roughly the same overall opportunities to perform regardless of differences in external conditions and resources. That comparison is what you can use earned points for. Anyone who thinks that with different algorithms and tricks you can create some kind of "fairness" in the calculation of points is out cycling (ed. Swedish expression close to "Barking up the wrong tree" in english . Completely. The conditions for each person are unique and also change over the years, current physical status and where they are at the moment, etc.

I started turfing on December 1, 2013 without having a clue what it was, I needed to occupy myself with something that day and I knew that my son was doing Turf but hardly how it was done and why. Eventually, it became a need to get out a little every day and it was possible to turf on the way to and from work. When it became routine, intermediate goals appeared such as making the zones nearby purple, having taken all zones in the home municipality at least once, collecting unique turfers and trying to make sure that the zone closest to home is among the most taken in the region (Krokzon 12,064 times - no, it is normally not possible to take it without walking 25 meters past the mailbox).

In the spring of 2022, I realized that by increasing my activity to 80% above my average, there was a chance to reach rank 59 before I turned 70 and make it before féarglas. I made it a month before my birthday and two months before her. You can live on that for a long time. Hopefully I'll reach rank 60 as well. But the main thing for me is that it's fun.

Linkaz (Västerbotten)

I started playing 2015-02-26. I met my wife through the game. With Turf, I have discovered bike paths that I didn't even know existed in my own city, as well as very nice places in both Sweden but also in Finland. I see turf as a way to get out and move on foot but also by bike. And Daily 5 made it even easier. I'm one of those who have been around since the start. In 2019 the association Turf Västerbotten was formed, where I am an alternate and event manager. Turf Västerbotten have the standing events Winter classic and Midnight classic we have also started a Halloween classic which this year will be for the second year in a row. Turf calmly and we'll see each other in a zone or at an event.

Kygni (Norrbotten)

At the start of this round, Turf has been part of 42,2% of my life, which means it has been a big part of the more formative years of my life. Thanks to Turf, I have always been in good shape, despite occasional periods of being overweight. Turf has also given me crazy strength in my legs. The last years, whenever I have needed it, Turf has been the go-to solution for me to lose weight and get back in shape fairly quickly. Since I started Turf a few months before I turned 14, it has given me a chance to get a group of friends back in the 2010s when I still had a hard time making friends as an awkard teenager. It has given me the ability to be friends with people of all ages, not only exclusively my own young age group. I am happy about all the achievments I have reached in the game, my Gold medals and Bonanza Gold for example, but in all honesty the life-long friends I have from Turf is worth more than every medal taken.

Munin (Uppsala)

As for myself, Munin (Uppsala), I also met my partner via Turf back in 2014. I turf almost every day, mostly to and from work in my home town Uppsala. I dropped out of the Daily 5 as #29 of the original turfers that started the day the medal went live back in 2021 because of a 2 month long trip down under in 2024. I have been a turfer since 2014 and a zone maker, and part of Turf Crew, since 2016. I have been the editor of Turf Insider since 2018. Most holidays are Turf holidays, and the last one went to Karlstad (Sweden) in order to get the three last Värmland-areas. Turf is much more than "just a game" to me, and I am very happy this was the first app I down-loaded back in 2014 to my brand new cell phone :)

Turfers stories and pph unfairness of Turf

As should be obvious by these turfers stories, there are as many ways to turf, as there are turfers. As Tveskägg pointed out, how we turf also changes over time. The charm with Turf, is that it is possible to use the app in so many different ways. The game has evolved far beyond the original design by its developers. In the beginning, block time was 60 (!) minutes, zones were far apart and when I began turfing, you were not really allowed to call it an ”exercise app”. How things have changed since then! I like to call it an ”exercise motivator” (credit to my friend Hyaleus for that phrase), since it gets me out in almost any weather and there's always one more zone to take.

During the last round, there was a very heated discussion about the pph unfairness of Turf. This has been a topic of discussion for as long as most of us have been turfing. It was a hot topic over ten years ago when one member of Crew were just a newbie to the game and had as their highest ambition to win Gold, but were beaten by players with fewer takes because of pph. In his own words: It sucks. But over time, most of us realize that there are very few players out of our total number who are chasing Gold and experience that unfairness. Most of our players never try for a Gold but have other goals that are not affected too much by pph unfairness.

The idea that pph should decrease over time has been up as a proposal a few times and it is definitely an exciting thought. But the problem lies in the fact that it has to be programmed. To a non-programmer like myself, it feels like a big programming task. The few who work with the programming of Turf have family, work and everything else to think about just like many of our players. And Turf is also not programmed in the easiest way, according to one of the developers of Turf.

Turf asked all the players a while ago what they wanted most to see in the future development of the game. More medals and alternative ways of playing in the style of Turf missions ended up at the top of the list. Turf Crew believe and hope that the scarce programming time that exists focuses on those parts instead of a restructuring of the points system.

Changes to how Turf is played, have occurred several times. First big change was when the block time was lowered from the original 60 min to 30 min and then lowered a little bit more to today's maximun block time of 25 min. The second big change was the introduction of Assist in 2017. Assist really changed how the game was played, it became a lot more social. Any future changes, are down to the developers of Turf. Turf Crew is a collective name for those of us that volunteer our time for zone making, Event organisation, issue handling and more. Turf Crew does not decide about changes to the game, that is down to the two minds that once came up with the idea of Turf and made it happen. Every turfer can come with suggestions about improvements to the game, but just because YOU want something, it might not be what the developers of Turf want for the game.

Did you know...

...Turf has an Abuse Manager, TurfWiki page HERE

...abuse it not only different ways of cheating

...abuse is also violating the well-being rules of Turf

Turf Picture of the Month

If you have a Zone picture you want featured as Turf Picture of the Month, send it to insider@turfgame.com Please include your Turf nick for recognition!

Turfa lugnt/Safe turfing!

//Munin