What's new
Recent updates and features.
Browse playgrounds by what's actually there
New filtered lists let you go straight to what matters on the day: fenced playgrounds, ones with a toddler area, toilets on site, water play, a flying fox, a bike track, a sandpit, baby swings, or wheelchair accessible. Each list covers one region or city and explains what we mean by that feature and where the information came from. You'll find them linked from every region and city page.
mapaccessibilityResearched "Good to know" facts on playground pages
Playground pages now carry a "Good to know" section with short, researched facts - the history, what's on site, access details, awards and recent changes - each linked to the source it came from. It sits below the description so you get verified extra detail at a glance, with a way to check where it came from.
reviewsClearer map markers, fewer categories
Every category now has its own colour and its own icon, so you can tell them apart at a glance instead of squinting at four near-identical greens. Splash pads, skateparks and adventure playgrounds show their own marker rather than the generic playground pin. Reserves, Domains, Memorial and Farm were naming quirks rather than real differences, so they now sit under Parks.
mapShare a link to exactly what you're looking at
As you use the map, the web address updates to match - where you're looking, the zoom, your filters (category, amenities, best age, rating), the schools layer, and satellite vs map view. Copy the link and send it or bookmark it, and it reopens in exactly that state, so you can point someone straight at, say, toddler-friendly playgrounds with a slide around your suburb.
mapJump the map to playgrounds near you
There's now a locate button on the map, tucked under the zoom controls. Tap it and the map recenters on where you are and drops a marker, so you can find the closest playgrounds any time, not just on your first visit.
mapPoint at what looks wrong when you send feedback
Send feedback (now in the account menu too) can capture a screenshot of the page for you. Click "Attach a screenshot of the problem", tap the part that looks off, and we highlight it automatically. You can drag to crop the shot and add a note before sending, so we can see exactly what you're seeing.
designRegional hubs now say what they are
The regional and city hub pages used to have headings like "Dunedin City." which didn't tell you (or Google) what the page was about. They now read "Playgrounds in Dunedin City". The shorthand "N plays" on the NZ map and region section labels is gone too, replaced with "N playgrounds" everywhere because nobody actually calls them plays. City hub pages also now expose a structured list of their top playgrounds to search engines, so results can render as "Top playgrounds in X" rich lists.
designPhotos on mobile: one big hero, tap to open
The horizontal photo strip on the playground page was hard to use on mobile: nearly a quarter of touch visits were tapping without anything happening because the browser treated the tap as a scroll gesture on the snap carousel. Mobile now shows a single wide hero photo you can tap to open the lightbox, plus a "View all" pill that opens the full grid. Desktop still gets the carousel.
designmobileTap a day in the forecast for the hourly picture
The 7-day forecast strip on every playground page is now interactive. Tap any day to expand an hourly temperature curve and chance-of-rain bars for the next 24 hours - so you can pick the window in the day when the rain eases, not just gamble on the whole day. Weather source also switched from Open-Meteo to MET Norway (yr.no) which has better hourly probabilities.
designLog a visit in a modal, not a scroll
Tapping any "Log a visit" link now opens a proper modal over the page instead of scrolling you down to a form buried at the bottom. Your place on the page is preserved, and the modal locks its own scroll so long forms don't drag the page around behind them.
reviewsdesign"Explore the map" lands where you were looking
The "Hunting for more?" link at the bottom of every playground page used to drop you at the map's default view. Now it lands right on the playground you were reading about, zoomed to show the surrounding area — so it takes one gesture to find similar spots nearby instead of five.
mapdesignBetter lead photos on playground cards
We now pick a proper hero shot for each playground instead of just showing the oldest photo we scraped. A reviewer looks at the on-topic candidates and chooses the one that best shows the play area, then orders the rest of the gallery best-first — so the pictures on the map cards, region and city hubs, and share previews actually sell the place. Off-topic stragglers (flower close-ups, sky, food) get tidied out of the gallery.
designmapAge suitability on every playground
Each playground now shows which age groups it's actually kitted out for — Babies (0–2), Toddlers (2–5), School age (5–11), or Big kids (12+). We derive it from the equipment tags (baby swings, toddler areas, flying foxes, skate ramps and the rest), then only badge the ones with real evidence. The map filter has a new Best age section, and when you log a visit you can now tell us who came so the ranking gets sharper over time.
designreviewsmapRegion and city names in descriptions are now links
When a playground description mentions a region (Auckland, Wellington, Waikato…), an Auckland sub-region (North Shore, West Auckland…) or its home city, that first mention is now a link straight to the hub — first-mention only, so the paragraph doesn't rainbow. Breadcrumbs also read more clearly as clickable now, and the region name in the address line goes to the region hub instead of the map view.
designTap outside a photo to close it
In the full-screen photo viewer, tapping anywhere on the dark area around a picture now closes it — including the black gaps directly above, below or beside the image. Only the photo itself and the buttons stay put.
designLogging a visit now opens in a pop-up
Tapping Log a visit now opens the rating form in a focused pop-up instead of sending you to the bottom of the page. On phones it fills the screen so there's room for your ratings, comments and photos; on desktop it's a tidy centred window. Close it any time with the X, the Escape key, or by tapping outside — and if something's missing when you submit, it stays open with everything you typed still there.
reviewsExplore the map now opens around the playground you're viewing
Tap Explore the map from a playground page and the map now lands zoomed to the surrounding area with that playground roughly centred, so you can see what else is nearby instead of starting from the whole-country view.
mapFresh local write-ups on every region and city hub
Every region and city hub now opens with a rewritten local guide: which playgrounds are worth the drive, what's actually at each one, and the practical stuff parents plan around — where parking gets tight, when the splash pads run, and which spots hold up when the wind's up. Each one leads with the playgrounds rather than a history lesson, and every play it names links straight through.
designmapLong reviews stay tidy
A very long review no longer stretches a playground page down the screen. Once a comment passes about a dozen lines it scrolls inside its own box, so the visits below it stay easy to reach. The full text is still there for anyone (and search engines) who wants to read it all.
reviewsTidier playground pages on mobile
The Log-a-visit button now sits next to the Visits heading where you're already looking when you decide to leave a review. The Save button is the same size as its neighbours (no more overflow), and the Nearby playgrounds carousel keeps every card the same height regardless of title length.
designreviewsBrowse by region and city from the home page
The home page now has a plain text list of every region, a 'Popular cities' row that jumps straight to the biggest city hubs, and a 'Recently added' strip of the newest playgrounds on the map. Easier to get to your patch in one tap, wherever you are in the country.
designA new home page with a map of Aotearoa
The home page now leads with the top-rated playgrounds around the whole country, a clickable map of New Zealand's regions (with their Māori names) to jump straight to your patch, and quick paths for the classic missions — water play, flying foxes, toddler-friendly spots, and playgrounds near you.
designSmarter map search
The map search box now matches suburbs, towns, cities and regions as well as playground names — start typing and you'll see matching places grouped above the playgrounds. Pick a place and the map fits to that area; pick a playground and it flies straight to it and opens its pin, no page reload.
mapTell us when a description is off
At the bottom of every expanded playground description there's now a small 'See something wrong? Know something we don't?' prompt — tap it and the feedback box opens with the playground name pre-filled in the subject line. Great for flagging an outdated detail, missing equipment, or a story we should add.
designreviewsFaster photos + a loading spinner
Photo galleries now load much faster. We pre-generate the small/medium/large variants of every photo to disk so the server doesn't have to re-encode on every request — the first time you open a review tile it goes from 5-10 seconds down to under a second. While images are loading you'll see a soft spinner instead of an empty box.
reviewsdesignMap: loading skeleton + smarter ad landing
The homepage map now shows a 'Loading map…' overlay while it sets up so it's obvious it's coming — tap‑spam on a half‑rendered map is gone. And if you land here on mobile from one of our Google ads and we can tell you're in Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch, we now take you straight to that region's hub instead of the slow homepage map.
mapdesignAuckland sub-region pages
The nine Auckland sub-regions (Central, North Shore, West Auckland, South Auckland, East Auckland, Hibiscus Coast, Rodney, Franklin, Hauraki Gulf Islands) now each have their own page — tap one from the Auckland hub to see every playground in that area ranked by visit ratings, with a 7-day weekend forecast for the centroid.
designJump between nearby regions and cities
Region and city pages now link across to their neighbours — every region lists its same-island peers, and every city links to the other towns in its region plus the region hub. Easier to browse from one area to the next without going back to the map.
Saved lists
Tap Save on any playground page to add it to a named list — birthday-party shortlist, school holidays bucket, whatever you need. Create as many lists as you want, each shows up on your profile page with a count and links through to a grid of every playground you've added. Sign-in required.
reviewsQuick filter chips on the map
Four one-tap filter chips above the map: Flying fox, Water play, Slide, Toddler-friendly. Stack any combination to narrow the pins. The big Filters popover still has the full set including category + minimum rating.
mapBest weekend bet now names a playground
The best-bet-this-weekend pick on region pages now goes a step further than naming the sunniest city — it features that city's top-rated playground as a ready-made plan, with the same card you see everywhere else on the site. Auckland gets the pick too, ranking its nine areas from Rodney to Franklin. The section sits flush with the rest of the page, and the home page's map-grid backdrop now runs through the region, city and playground pages as well.
designStar ratings on playground cards
Every playground card on the hub, region and city pages now shows a star, the score and the number of visits — separately for parents and the kid crew. Plays that don't have any SlideScout visits yet fall back to the Google rating and review count so they aren't sitting there looking unrated.
reviewsdesignWeekend weather watch
Each playground, city and region page now shows a 7-day forecast with the weekend lifted out, so you can see at a glance whether Saturday's a goer. Region pages also pick the best bet this weekend — the city in that region with the nicest weekend weather.
mapdesignCleaner city hub pages
Each city hub now shows the editorial intro and then the full list of playgrounds in that city, ranked by visit rating. The per-suburb sections didn't add much over a strong city write-up and the suburb data was uneven, so we've simplified the page to intro + every playground.
designView all photos in a full gallery
Each playground's photo strip now has a View all link that opens a full-screen gallery of every photo for that play. Tap any tile to open it large, swipe or use the arrows to step through, and you can still report a photo from inside the gallery. Keyboard fans can use Esc to close and the arrow keys to flip between shots.
reviewsdesignCity pages reshape around suburbs
Each city hub now opens with a short About-this-place summary, then a quick table-of-contents jumping you into per-suburb blocks. Each suburb block has a 100-150 word write-up plus the top-rated playgrounds in that suburb as cards. We're rolling new write-ups in by city — your favourite town will fill in over the coming weeks.
designStronger photo privacy
We now hide any uploaded photo where our software detects a person in it, not just photos with identifiable faces. Photos with no people are unaffected. You can still see your own hidden photos in your timeline and delete them if you'd like.
reviewsEditorial intros on region hubs
Each region page (e.g. /regions/wellington) can now carry a short About-this-region write-up above the city list — terrain, climate, the councils involved, a few flagship playgrounds, and the practical stuff parents care about. Drafts are written by an AI helper and reviewed by hand before they go live, so they'll appear region-by-region as we approve them.
designLonger playground stories with Read more
Detail pages now show a 500-600 word write-up about each playground and the area around it — the surrounding park, what's nearby for a family day out, the equipment in plain English, who it's best for, and the practical stuff like toilets and parking. On phones the blurb collapses to a few lines with a Read more toggle. We're auto-writing these in the background and they'll fill in over the coming weeks.
designreviewsBreadcrumbs on every playground page
Each playground detail page now shows a Home › Region › City › Playground breadcrumb above the title, so it's one tap back to the regional hub or your wider city. Nice for poking around an area without losing your place.
designYour timeline on the profile page
Every visit you've logged now shows up as a chronological timeline on your profile page — newest first, with the aerial view of the playground on the left, your photos on the right, and your parent + kid ratings and comments in the middle. Tap 'Edit or add photos' on any entry to jump back to that visit on the playground page.
reviewsPhotos must be at least 1000px short edge
New uploads under 1000px on the short edge are rejected with a friendly error. Existing sub-1000px photos (about 6,300, mostly small Google gallery thumbnails) are hidden from public galleries — admins and uploaders can still see them. Cleaner grids, no quality dropouts.
reviewsdesignCleaner duplicates: merged 74 pairs, hid 22 not-quite-playgrounds
Folded 74 near-duplicate entries into a single canonical playground page each (the playground-named entity wins). Hid 22 big-park entries (Wellington Botanic Garden, Cornwall Park, Avalon Park, Victoria Park, etc.) where the playground inside is the real attraction — old URLs admin-only, the actual playground page stays public.
dataMap: one 'Layers' button on mobile
On mobile the floating Map/Satellite pill is rolled into the 'Layers' popover (formerly 'Map key') alongside the marker colours. One bottom-right button now opens everything you can adjust about the map view. Desktop keeps the standalone Map/Satellite pill.
mapYour hidden photos still show on your visit
If a photo you upload gets auto-hidden from the public (a face was detected, or it's still being checked), it now appears on your own visit with a small amber 'hidden' badge in the corner. Hover the badge for the reason. Only you and admins see these — the delete button still works so you can swap in a different shot.
reviewsprivacyPhotos with people's faces now hidden
Every playground photo has been scanned and any showing an identifiable face — a child or adult close enough to recognise — is now hidden from the public galleries. SlideScout is about the playgrounds, not the people in them. Equipment and scenery shots stay; distant or back-turned figures are fine.
reviewsprivacyCleaner hub: search-as-you-type, Browse map
The hub search box drops its separate Search button — just type and hit enter. The map CTA underneath now reads 'Browse map' instead of switching between 'Resume map' and 'Open map'. The About page also updates the builder bio: built by a couple from the Hutt, not a solo parent.
designPast-year rating, jump-to-visits, photo tip
The rating tile at the top of every playground page is now clickable — tap it to jump straight to the visits below. If a playground has had at least three visits in the last year, you'll also see a 'past yr' score next to the all-time number, so you can tell whether a historically-great spot is still on form. The photo upload box has a friendlier tip to keep kids' faces out of frame.
reviewsdesignAction buttons fit on phones
The 'Map / Directions / Log visit' row on every playground page now uses shorter labels on phones so the three buttons fit a 375px viewport without overflowing. Desktop keeps the full 'View on Map / Get Directions / Log a visit' labels.
designTighter scroll fades, top-ten strips
Horizontal photo, visit, nearby, and featured-region strips now fade right at the visible edge instead of stopping a thumb-width short. The 'Top in Auckland / Christchurch / Wellington' rails on the homepage and region pages now show ten playgrounds each, up from eight.
designdiscoveryAmenity chips get their own icons
The 'What's here' chips on every playground page now show a glyph for each amenity — a swing for swings, a droplet for water play, a bike for bike tracks, and so on — instead of a generic check. Same chip layout, just easier to scan at a glance.
designreviewsFresher look, plus visit ticks across the site
Back to a clean modern look — Geist sans throughout, emerald accents, a faint green map-grid behind the page. When you've logged a visit, every card for that playground now picks up a small green tick badge and a 'Last visit · 12 Apr' caption, and the map popup shows the same. Light touch, no streaks or levels.
designreviewsLog a visit, not a review
Same forms, new framing: every trip to a playground is a visit, and you can log as many as you like to the same place. We're still showing aggregated parent and kid ratings; later we'll surface 'recent' vs 'historic' separately as visits stack up.
reviewsEditorial redesign across the hub
The homepage, region, city, and playground pages now share an editorial layout — warm paper background, a soft serif display face (Fraunces) for headlines, hairline rules instead of boxy cards, and numbered serif rankings on the top-playground strips. Aerial photos still lead every page; everything just reads a little more like an atlas now.
designAerial views everywhere, plus schools on region pages
Every playground now shows its bird's-eye LINZ aerial as the default hero — consistent across all 3,900+ playgrounds, with parent and Google photos still available in the gallery below. School playgrounds also now appear on region and city pages alongside public ones, while the main map keeps them filtered off by default (use the 'Show schools' toggle to flip them on).
mapnavigationHomepage redesign with featured city strips
The homepage now leads with horizontal-scroll strips of top playgrounds in Auckland, Christchurch, and Wellington, followed by a clean two-column list of all 16 NZ regions in north-to-south order. Region pages also get top-3 city strips so you can dive straight into the best playgrounds nearby.
mapnavigationSelf-hosted aerial tiles
Aerial imagery is now served from our own mirror at tiles.slidescout.nz instead of querying LINZ Basemaps directly. The mirror caches LINZ's tiles locally for independence and predictable performance; attribution remains Land Information New Zealand (CC-BY 4.0).
mapSatellite view
Toggle between the regular street map and aerial imagery using the new Map / Satellite pill next to the legend. Aerial imagery is sourced from LINZ Basemaps (Land Information New Zealand) and covers all of NZ. Your choice is remembered between visits.
mapCommercial venues hidden from public
Paid and indoor venues (trampoline parks, soft play, mini golf, party venues, and similar) are no longer shown on the map, search, sitemap, or detail pages. The data is kept in the DB so admins can still see and edit them, and so we can monetise paid placements later.
mapFaster visit imports
Each playground is capped at top 50 visits and 20 photos when first imported. Past-the-cap content can be filled in later if a playground gets popular. Keeps the import pipeline running in hours, not days.
reviewsLog a visit, not a review
Lowered the friction for writing notes after a playground trip. Reviews are now called visits across the site.
reviewsPer-region progress on agent review (admin)
The /admin/agent-review page now has region chips, a live-polling progress bar with ETA, and a recent-activity feed so admins can watch a /loop /playground-review <region> run unfold in real time.
adminAgent review queue (admin)
Admins get a new queue at /admin/agent-review showing the Claude-Code-driven research agent's progress, recent failures, and pending suggestions to approve or reject.
adminReport photos and reviews
A small flag icon on every photo and review lets anyone flag content that looks off. Reports land in the admin queue alongside missing-playground and feedback submissions.
reviewsadminTop action bar on detail pages
View on Map, Get Directions, and Leave a Review buttons now sit together at the top of every playground page so the things you actually want to do are one tap away.
detailAdd tags yourself
Signed-in users can suggest amenity tags (toilets, slide, shade, and the rest) directly on any playground. Type-ahead, instant add.
detailtagsAdmin view toggle
Admins can switch their session between admin view and viewer view to preview the public experience without signing out.
adminUser profiles
Set a display name and upload a profile picture. Your chosen name and picture show on the reviews you leave.
profileAdmin user management
Admin dashboard now has a user list with activity, role grant and revoke, and per-user detail showing reviews, photos, helpful votes, and submissions.
adminMissing playground reports and feedback
Two new buttons on the map let visitors report a missing playground or send general feedback. Both feed a single admin queue so nothing falls through the cracks.
mapsubmissionsSchool playgrounds (opt-in)
Around 2,100 NZ primary and intermediate school playgrounds are now on the map. Toggle them on via the Filters popover.
mapdataCouncil data gap fill
Hundreds of previously missing playgrounds are now on the map, pulled from open council and OpenStreetMap data. Includes Taita Park, Delaney Park, and many others.
mapdataPhoto pipeline rewrite
Photos are now served as responsive WebP and AVIF variants instead of full-size JPEGs. Detail page LCP dropped from around 16 seconds to 2.6 seconds on mobile.
performanceAnalytics live
Google Analytics and Microsoft Clarity are now wired up via Google Tag Manager, with custom events for review submits, helpful votes, missing-playground reports, and feedback.
analyticsDomain switch
SlideScout is now at slidescout.nz. play.wjk.nz remains the UAT environment for previewing pre-release builds.
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