ThePuzzleLabs

Daily puzzle rules

A fresh set every day at midnight UTC, the same for everyone. Solve any one of them to keep your streak. Each puzzle below takes a minute to learn.

The streak, and missing a day

A streak is a fragile thing to hang a habit on. Miss one day — a flight, a deadline, a bad night — and a month of turning up disappears. The streak freeze exists so that it does not.

Solving any one of the day’s puzzles keeps your streak alive. You never have to finish all of them. On a day you solve nothing, a freeze is spent automatically to cover it, and your run carries on as though you had been there.

You earn your first freeze when your run reaches seven days, and a second at fourteen. You hold two at most. Those seven are counted from wherever your run already stood, not from a fixed date, so a run that was already going can reach the mark sooner than you would expect. Spend one and the next arrives seven days later.

A frozen day bridges the gap but never adds to your number. If you were on nine and miss a day, you come back to ten rather than eleven — the freeze bought you the run, not the day.

What it cannot do is cover more than you hold. Miss two days with one freeze in hand and the run ends: your streak restarts at one, and any freezes go with it.

Freezes are free, and they always will be. You cannot buy them, they never expire, and none of this is held back for a paying tier.

You will see them as an icy shield beside your streak. A covered day appears in your recent days marked Frozen, so a gap in your record always explains itself.

Word Trail

Word · 6–8 min

Guess the hidden five-letter word in six tries.

  • Guess the hidden five-letter word in six tries.
  • Type any real word and press Enter.
  • Green tile — right letter, right spot.
  • Yellow tile — in the word, wrong spot.
  • Grey letter — not in the word at all.
  • Everyone gets the same word; a new one at midnight UTC.
Play Word Trail ▸Strategy guide →

Word Ladder

Word · 7–9 min

Change one letter at a time. Stay a word.

  • Turn the start word into the target word, one letter at a time.
  • Every rung must be a real word — type it and press Enter.
  • Wrong tries cost nothing. Guess freely; the clock is the only score.
  • A locked rung can still be a wrong road — backspace straight back into it.
  • Exactly one shortest chain exists, and you are on its trail.
  • Everyone climbs the same ladder; a new one at midnight UTC.
Play Word Ladder ▸Strategy guide →

Balance

Logic · 4–6 min

Balance suns and moons — never three in a row.

  • Fill the 6×6 board with suns and moons.
  • Each row and column gets exactly three of each.
  • Never three of the same symbol side by side.
  • = between two cells means they match; × means they differ.
  • Tap a cell to cycle: blank → sun → moon.
Play Balance ▸Strategy guide →

Mini Sudoku

Number · 8–10 min

Fill every row, column, and box with 1–6.

  • Fill the 6×6 grid with the numbers 1–6.
  • Every row must have 1–6 exactly once.
  • Every column must have 1–6 exactly once.
  • Every 2×3 box must have 1–6 exactly once.
  • Tap a cell, then tap a number to fill it.
  • Clashes turn red so you can spot them early.
Play Mini Sudoku ▸Strategy guide →

Mini Sums

Arithmetic · 5–8 min

Fill 1–5 so every cage makes its number.

  • Fill the 5×5 grid with the numbers 1–5, once in every row and column.
  • Each outlined cage must make its number using the sign on its line.
  • A sign sits on the line between two cells of the same cage.
  • A number may repeat inside a cage, but never in a row or column.
  • A few cells are filled for you — the rest is deduction, never guessing.
  • Tap a cell, then tap a number. Notes pencil in what a cell could be.
  • One board a day, the same for everyone; a new one at midnight UTC.
Play Mini Sums ▸Strategy guide →

Going deeper

No spoilers, ever: the archive stays playable, so we write about thinking, never answers.