The rules of the game

Our game, our rules — and here they are in plain English, so everyone is playing the same one. They're meant to keep it fair and fun, not to catch anybody out.

Playing is free

Anyone can play the daily puzzle in their browser, free, with nothing to install and no sign-up. Have as many goes as you like just for the pleasure of it. You only need an account if you want your streak saved and your name on the leaderboard.

The daily puzzle

A fresh puzzle appears every day at one minute past midnight, GMT. The everyday puzzle is a 3-series — a proper coffee-break puzzle that a reasonable solver will finish in ten to fifteen minutes. On Saturdays we set a harder one, a 4-series: tougher, needing a little more working (up to a couple of pencilled steps), and closer to fifteen to thirty minutes. It isn't a coffee-break puzzle — it's a proper weekend challenge, and if you enjoy it, that's your sign you're ready for the real brain-benders in the books.

Joining the leaderboard

To be ranked, you register a free account (a nickname and an email address — see Privacy for what we do with them). We need accounts because you can't fairly rank people who can clear their browser and start again — the account is what keeps a streak meaning something.

How the leaderboard works

It shows three things: your nickname, your streak (how many days in a row you've solved) and your combined time (all your solving times added up). We rank by streak first, and use the combined time only to separate people who are level on streak. That's deliberate: turning up every day counts for more than raw speed, so a steady solver is never beaten by someone quick who keeps missing days.

Streaks — how you keep one, how you lose it

Solve the day's puzzle correctly and your streak goes up by one, and your time is added on. Get it wrong, or miss a day, and your streak goes back to zero and starts again. Simple as that.

A little breathing room

The weekend 4-series isn't a quick coffee-break puzzle, so we don't insist it's done before midnight — and we give the same slack every day. You have until the end of the following day to finish a puzzle and still keep your streak. So if you're out all Saturday, you can sit down on Sunday, do Saturday's and then Sunday's, and — as long as both are right — your streak carries on unbroken.

One try a day

Each puzzle counts once. Pressing Check locks in your answer for the day — right or wrong — so take your time and be sure before you press it.

No helpers in a scored game

When you're playing for your streak, none of the solving aids are available — it's pencil and rubber and your own head, the honest way. The aids are there for practice: somewhere newcomers can learn and anyone can warm up. In practice mode you can go back over past puzzles from the last week or so and work them through with every helper switched on.

To keep the competition fair, a puzzle's answer is not released for 48 hours after its day — so a live puzzle can never be practised with its answer showing. You're only ever practising on puzzles that can no longer be scored. Practice games are never timed, never scored, and never touch your streak.

The server is the referee

This is the important one. The timing and the marking are done by our server, not by your browser — so the clock can't be fiddled and the answers can't be read ahead. The solution to today's puzzle is never sent to your browser at all; you send us your filled-in answer, and we tell you whether it's right. Practice mode only ever shows answers to old puzzles that can no longer be scored — released 48 hours after each puzzle's day — so there's nothing to copy.

Fair play

Play straight and you'll never fall foul of anything here. If we see clear cheating — impossibly fast times, or attempts to get at the answers — we may reset a score, remove someone from the leaderboard, or close an account. It's a friendly competition, and we intend to keep it that way.

The leaderboard is ours to run. We reserve the right to refuse or remove anyone from it, at our discretion, and our decision is final. This isn't aimed at honest solvers — it's simply so we can deal quickly with anyone spoiling it for everyone else.

Competitions

From time to time we run a special event — a Christmas competition, a Valentine's puzzle. Those come with their own short rules, which we'll give you at the time.

We may tweak the rules

As the game grows we might adjust how something works to keep it fair and fun. If we do, we'll update this page and change the date below.

Anything unclear? Just ask — hello@trigonpuzzles.co.uk.

Last updated: 28 August 2026.