Building and Protecting a Daily Streak

Know the reset time

Each puzzle resets at midnight Eastern, not at midnight in your own time zone. Players on the West Coast get a new puzzle at 9 pm local time, and players in Europe get it in the early morning. If you tend to play late at night, check which side of the reset you are on before you start, because a solve that crosses midnight lands on the next day's puzzle.

One attempt per day per mode

Each mode can be played once per day, and the locked result is what counts toward your streak and your score. That means the daily puzzle is not the place to experiment. Save wild ideas for the archive, where replays are free and nothing is recorded against your streak or any leaderboard.

Hard mode has its own lock, streak, and leaderboard, tracked separately from normal mode, so keeping both alive means solving two puzzles a day.

Practice is free

Using a hint or replaying a solved puzzle in Unlimited mode is practice only. It never touches your streak. If you are close to the end of the day and unsure, a hint inside practice can show you the shape of the route so you recognize it in the real puzzle, though a hint on the locked daily has its own cost.

Make it a ritual

The players with the longest streaks tie the puzzle to something else: morning coffee, lunch, the commute home. Turn on the optional reminder so you get a prompt before the day runs out. Compare results with friends on the friends leaderboard, since a little friendly pressure is a reliable motivator.