Daily word game
Last updated: 2026-07-26
The daily in Hot & Cold is one secret word a day, the same one for every player, found by meaning rather than by letters. You type a word, it comes back ranked from 🧊 freezing to 🔥 blazing depending on how close it sits in meaning to the answer, and you close the gap one guess at a time. If you like a Wordle-shaped ritual but would rather think in ideas than spelling, this is the daily to bookmark.
One word, everyone, once a day
At 00:00 UTC the puzzle rolls over and a new secret word goes live for every player at once, so the argument the next morning is about the same word you wrestled with. That word is chosen on our server rather than on your device, so nobody can dig through the app to read tomorrow's word or line up the next month of puzzles.
The heat you see is deterministic, so it's the same for all of us: a guess is ranked among about 15,000 words by closeness to the secret, with rank #1 being the answer itself. Reach the top 24 and a word glows hot. Slip into the top 6 and it's blazing, meaning the secret is right there. You get up to 500 guesses in a single day's puzzle, so a tricky answer is something to chew on across the whole day rather than a wall you bounce off after six tries. Stuck? You can spend up to 3 hints per puzzle, each one surfacing a small cluster of near-rank words.
Streaks, the leaderboard, and giving up gracefully
The streak counts consecutive UTC days played. Finish the day's puzzle and it carries on, whether you solved the word or conceded it. Only a day you skip entirely resets it. Playing anonymously keeps your streak and stats on the device you're using. An optional Apple or Google sign-in adds the global daily leaderboard and syncs your streak and stats across every device you play on. Nothing about the puzzle itself is locked behind it.
When a word refuses to click, concede it and the game shows you the top 100 words closest in meaning to the secret. Your streak survives that, since showing up is what it measures, and seeing the neighborhood you were circling usually explains where your guesses went. New to the meaning-not-letters idea? The how to play guide walks through a full round, and the FAQ covers scoring.
Want to keep going after today's puzzle? The endless word game serves a fresh random secret round after round with no cap, and if you'd rather pull friends into the same word, a word game with friends puts a whole room on one secret per round, together or whenever each of you gets to it.