Do you know your way around San Francisco like the back of your hand? And do you play The New York Times’ Wordle every morning, maybe while you commute on Muni? Well, software engineer, urbanist, and once and future San Francisco resident River Honer created an addictive new game.
It’s called Muni Routle, and the principle is similar to the daily guessing game for word nerds. But instead of getting six chances to spell a five-letter word, Routle offers up a transit line against a plain white background and gives players five chances to choose which route it is. Is today’s squiggle the 45 Stockton or the L Taraval? Wrong guesses are laid out in red, gradually forming a barebones Muni map that can offer geographic hints. Couldn’t guess it? Try again on tomorrow’s route.
The game’s not too hard — not if you know your way around town, anyway. It took this reporter four guesses to solve Monday’s Wordle and four to solve Monday’s Muni Routle.
Honer built the game in one day and unveiled it over the weekend as a way of reconnecting with the city they long to return to. “I live in London right now, but I’m visiting San Francisco,” they said. They are enrolled at San Francisco State University for the fall 2025 semester, looking to finish a degree in urban planning that they began a decade ago.
They’re not a big Wordler but confess to a weakness for geographical games. “I play a similar game for London called Metrodle,” Honer said. This is hardly their first foray into open-source apps“I haven’t ridden the 36 Teresita,” Honer said. “But the 33 is my favorite.” . Honer built a route-planning app called Muni on the Go and has collaborated on other software in the public interest, like a vacancy-mapping app intended to demonstrate the feasibility of building social housing.
Although there’s a finite number of Muni routes — 60 or so — Muni Routle selects them at random, so the game can go on more or less indefinitely. Honer has no plans to monetize it. “I don’t even put my name on it,” they said. “With software stuff like this, I don’t care about celebrity or intellectual property. Both are secondary to the utility of the thing.”
The point is to show a little love for the city’s public transit — especially at a time when Muni is beset by budget woes, and service cuts could lead to reduced ridership. Honer hopes that doesn’t happen. They have Muni lines yet to ride, in fact.