FAQ

Everything players ask about Hot & Cold: how the game measures meaning, what the numbers and emoji are telling you, and fixes for the most common hiccups. New here? Start with How to play, or jump straight into today's puzzle.

How is similarity between words calculated?

Every word in the game is mapped to a position on a word map we build and tune ourselves, an embedding learned from how the word is used across billions of words of text, capturing what the word means and the company it keeps. Your guess is compared to the secret by cosine similarity between those vectors: the smaller the angle between them, the closer the meanings.

All of this is precomputed when we build the word list, so nothing is judged on the fly and there's no randomness or "AI mood" involved. Results are fully deterministic. Every player, on every platform, sees exactly the same rank for the same guess. If you're curious how this genre of puzzle came to be, see semantic word games.

What does my guess's rank number mean?

Rank is your guess's position when the whole list of about 15,000 words is sorted by closeness in meaning to the secret. Rank #1 is the secret's own slot, so a rank of 40 means only 39 words in the entire list are closer. Lower rank = closer in meaning = hotter.

Remember it's meaning, not spelling: a synonym scores far better than a rhyme or a near-anagram. Watching how the rank moves between guesses is the heart of the game, and our tips page covers how to turn those movements into a strategy.

What do the heat emoji mean?

The emoji are labels for rank bands, and the cutoffs are rough: freezing spans most of the list (a random opener usually starts there), cold gets you inside roughly the top 3,000, cool inside ~600, warm inside ~120, hot inside ~24, and blazing inside the top 6 or so. The 🎯 marker is reserved for rank #1 itself. The full emoji ladder is on How to play.

The bands are log-scaled to the size of the word list, so the cold end is wide and the hot end is narrow.

How does scoring work?

Rounds are graded out of 1,000. Guessing costs nothing at first, since the opening 4 entries carry no penalty. Each one after that shaves off a little more, on a curve that stays gentle through the twenties and turns steep past a hundred. Ballpark totals for a hint-free win: 10 guesses → ~947 · 20 → ~841 · 50 → ~643 · 100 → ~447.

Rounds with a countdown timer swap the guess penalty for a time penalty: every ~4 seconds on the clock counts like one more guess, and the usual curve takes it from there. A win is always floored at 250 points, and giving up is capped at 250, so solving always outscores giving up.

How do hints work and what do they cost?

Tapping Help during a round opens a short menu, and every row on it shows its price in points before you buy. A hint reveals a trio of clue words drawn from neighboring ranks near the secret. Each tier tightens the net: the first cluster shows up in the 101–500 rank range, the second in 21–100, and the third in 10–20.

A cluster's price depends on how much ground it gained you: the further it leapfrogs your best guess, the more of the (at most 150-point) fee you pay. Reveal one while your board is still freezing and you'll pay close to full price. Reveal one while you're circling the answer and it costs almost nothing, and one that lands behind your best guess is free. Sequencing matters too. A word you guessed before it appeared in a cluster keeps its earned rank, but once a word has been revealed as a hint, it's off-limits as a guess.

Every mode allows up to 3 hints per round, one per tier. Whether help is offered at all is decided before the round starts: a Challenge host sets it for the room, and Endless has the same toggle in its round settings. Hints and each of the two letter reveals then have their own switch under it, so a round can offer everything, hints only, one reveal and not the other, or nothing at all.

What are letter reveals?

The other half of the Help menu, and the only thing in the game that tells you about the word's spelling rather than its meaning. There are two, each a one-off purchase: letter count (how many letters the secret has) for 75 points, and first letter for 125. Take one, both (200), or neither, in either order. They don't count against your 3 hints.

Unlike a hint, the price is flat. It doesn't move with the answer, with how many guesses you've made, or with how much the reveal happens to narrow the field, because a price that moved would be a clue in itself, handed over before you'd paid for it. Think of a reveal as a filter for the endgame: it won't point you anywhere, but it will strike most of a shortlist out at once. In a Challenge room a reveal is private to you and never shown to anyone else.

Is the daily word the same for everyone?

Yes. One secret is chosen per day, and every player worldwide gets the same one, which is what makes comparing results with friends fun. The word changes at 00:00 UTC and is picked server-side, so it can't be dug out of the app ahead of time. Streaks count consecutive UTC days.

How do you keep the leaderboard fair?

Mostly by architecture: the secret is picked and scored server-side, so it can't be pulled out of the app, precomputed, or replayed. What no word game can prevent is someone being told the answer, so leaderboard entries are also reviewed, and a score that looks shared rather than solved may be left out of the public standings. That review only ever touches public boards: your own stats, streaks and history are never changed by it. If a placement looks wrong to you, in either direction, send a note through the feedback row in Settings.

What happens if I give up?

Giving up ends the round and reveals the secret plus the 100 closest words (top 50 in Challenge), so you can see exactly what you were circling. Partial credit still applies: your best rank in the round converts to up to 250 points, minus any hints you took, and the nearer you got the more you bank. And since wins are floored at 250, solving always scores at least as much as giving up.

Do I need an account?

No. Anonymous play is fully supported and nothing is locked behind sign-in. Optionally, you can sign in with Apple or Google to claim a display name on the global daily leaderboard and sync your stats across devices. If you change your mind later, you can delete the account from inside the app.

Is Hot & Cold free?

Yes, free to play, with all modes included. On iOS and Android there's an optional rewarded video: watching one banks a streak protection and adds a small heart badge next to your name. A banked protection is spent automatically to cover a missed daily, and a longer gap needs one for every day you missed. Watching is entirely voluntary, and nothing in the game is gated behind it. The web version has no rewarded video and, at the moment, no ads at all.

Can I play offline?

On iOS and Android, yes: the app bundles the full word list, so offline Endless rounds and the challenge-a-bot mode work with no connection at all. Planes and subways welcome. Daily and online Challenge need a connection everywhere, since the server holds the secret. On the web, playing at hotandcold.app/play always requires a connection.

How does Challenge mode work?

Challenge is multiplayer: create a room, share the invite link, and everyone who joins takes on that round's secret. The host starts each round, and you'll see opponents' heat scores land as they guess. Nobody has to be there at the start, though: you can join a round that's already running, or sit one out and catch the next. A room runs a series of rounds, and each round awards podium-style points, with better round scores earning more. It works a bit like an F1 season: the points accumulate across rounds until the room resets.

By design, the server relays only similarity ranks and display names between opponents. It never sends the secret or anyone's guessed words, so the answer can't leak from one player to another. The host configures the timer (default 5 minutes), hints, and letter-count reveal per room. On iOS and Android you can also challenge a bot offline to practice.

Can we play Challenge as teams instead of against each other?

Yes. The host can turn on team mode and split the room into 2 to 4 teams. A team plays one shared board: your teammates' guesses and hints appear on your screen as they happen, duplicate guesses and the hint limit are counted across the whole team, and whoever lands the secret wins the round for everyone on it. Each team's board is scored once, and the boards are then placed against each other: 12 points for the best, 8 for second and 5 for third. Teams that tie split the places they cover, and a board that scored nothing places nowhere and earns nothing. Giving up in team mode is a vote to concede rather than an exit. The round ends for your team once every member has voted, and guessing again withdraws your vote. Teams are balanced automatically as people join, and the host can shuffle them, assign seats by hand, or lock the line-up. Note that sharing a board means sharing your words: teammates see what you guess. Players on other teams still don't.

Can we chat during a Challenge round?

Yes. Online rooms have chat in both the lobby and the round itself, with 3 channels: everyone in the room, your own team, and a spoilers channel that only opens once you've finished the round. The spoiler gate is enforced on the server, not just hidden in the app, so messages in that channel are never sent to a player who is still guessing. When you finish, the backlog arrives at once. Messages are capped at 280 characters, and chat is deleted along with the room, so it isn't a place to keep anything you need later. Rooms are private: chat only reaches people who joined via your invite link, and there are no direct messages or friend requests. The host can remove or ban anyone from their room. Chat isn't available in offline bot rounds, since there's nobody to talk to.

Why was my word rejected?

Guesses are restricted to a curated word list so every valid guess has a meaningful score. A word is on it if it has a noun sense, so running and red get in while adverbs, proper nouns and most rare or compound words don't. Plurals are fine: cats scores as cat. If a word you expect is missing, try a simpler or more common alternative. The same list is used in every mode, so a word that works in Endless works in Daily and Challenge too.

When does the daily puzzle change?

A new daily puzzle unlocks at 00:00 UTC, not local midnight. Every player sees the same word each day, and streaks count consecutive UTC days.

What does "guess cap reached" mean?

Each daily and challenge round has a per-player guess limit to keep scores meaningful and to prevent sweeping the whole word list. If you hit the cap, no more guesses are accepted for that round, though the Help menu still works, or you can tap Give up to end the round and see the answer. Endless rounds have no guess cap.

I want to wipe my progress.

Open Settings → Reset local data in the app. You can reset local daily stats, endless stats, or everything on this device (including your challenge display name and in-progress rounds). Uninstalling the app also clears everything local. These actions only touch data on your device. Server-side puzzle records (used for global stats and past-puzzle replay) are retained for about 30 days and are not cleared by this button.

How do I delete my account?

If you signed in with Apple or Google, you can permanently delete your account from inside the app:

1. Open the app and go to Settings → Account.
2. Tap Delete account at the bottom of the section.
3. Confirm twice. The action is immediate and cannot be undone.

Deleting your account permanently removes the following from our servers:

• Your account record (provider link and display name).
• Every leaderboard entry tied to your account, on every day.
• Your synced cross-device stats.
• Reports you've filed against other display names.

Two narrow exceptions apply for moderation integrity and legal compliance. See Privacy Policy §11 for the details. Local game progress on the device stays unless you also tap Settings → Reset data → Reset everything.

No active sign-in? You can also email [email protected] from a device that's previously been signed in, or include your account ID (visible in Settings → Account when signed in).

I still need help.

Visit Support to contact us by email and share bug details.