How to play
Each day there is one row of emojis and one answer, the same for everyone. You get four guesses. Each wrong guess unlocks a stronger hint. Play today's puzzle or any past puzzle.
Four guesses, three hints
- Hint 1 is there from the start. It names the kind of answer, which is always one of seven: a saying, an everyday phrase, a film or book title, a food, a place, an animal or an object. It also gives a short nudge written for that puzzle.
- After your 1st wrong guess you get hint 2: the number of words and the letters in each, such as “3 words, with 5 · 2 · 4 letters”.
- After your 2nd wrong guess you get hint 3: how the answer starts. That is the first word, or the first two if it opens with “the”, “a” or “an”. For a one-word answer it is the first two letters.
- Your 4th guess is the last. There is no fourth hint. If all four miss, the answer is shown with a line for each emoji explaining what it stood for.
- A guess you already tried, or an empty one, does not use up a turn.
Every emoji stands for one word of the answer, or for a word that sounds like it (👁️ for “I”, 🐝 for “be”). Small words such as “the”, “of” and “and” usually have no emoji of their own.
What counts as correct
Before comparing, the game tidies your guess and the answer in the same way. Every row below is checked against the real game code by the site's tests.
| Rule | You type | Answer | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capitals are ignored | HOT DOG | hot dog | ✓ |
| Accents are ignored | creme brulee | crème brûlée | ✓ |
| Apostrophes are dropped | dont count your chickens | don't count your chickens | ✓ |
| Other punctuation is ignored | hide-and-seek | hide and seek | ✓ |
| Spaces don't matter | sun flower | sunflower | ✓ |
| & counts as “and” | salt & pepper | salt and pepper | ✓ |
| A leading the / a / an is ignored | Wizard of Oz | The Wizard of Oz | ✓ |
| Words inside the answer still count | Wizard Oz | The Wizard of Oz | ✗ |
| Digits are not the same as words | 7 wonders of the world | seven wonders of the world | ✗ |
| Plurals and typos are not guessed for you | sunflowers | sunflower | ✗ |
The three ✗ rows are where the puzzle's own list of alternatives comes in. Each puzzle comes with a hand-written list of common other wordings, such as a well-known shorter form, a plural or a frequent misspelling. A guess on that list counts. The game does not do fuzzy matching, so anything else, even one letter off, is marked wrong.
A worked example
Example puzzle (not a real day)
🐢🐇
- Hint 1: A film or book title — an old fable about a slow walker and a fast sleeper.
- Guess 1:
turtle and rabbit✗. Close in meaning, but different words. This unlocks hint 2: 5 words, with 3 · 8 · 3 · 3 · 4 letters. - Guess 2:
tortoise and hare✗. Only a leading “the” is ignored, and this guess is missing the “the” in the middle. This unlocks hint 3: Starts with “The Tortoise …”. - Guess 3:
Tortoise & the Hare!✓. The capitals and the “!” are ignored, “&” reads as “and”, and the opening “The” is not needed. Solved in 3 of 4.
Test any spelling against this example. It uses the same checker as the daily game.
When the new puzzle appears
A new puzzle appears at 00:00 UTC every day, at the same moment worldwide. For you that is ….
On the US east coast that is the evening before (20:00 in summer, 19:00 in winter), and in Los Angeles 17:00 or 16:00. In London it is 01:00 in summer and midnight in winter, and in Sydney 10:00 or 11:00 in the morning. Puzzle #1 was on 24 September 2026, and each puzzle's number is one more than the day before.
How streaks work
- Solve a day's puzzle and your current streak grows by one, as long as your last solve was the day before. Otherwise it starts again at 1.
- Using all four guesses without solving it sets the current streak to 0.
- Skipping a day breaks it too. On any day, the streak only counts if your last solve was that day or the day before.
- Your best streak never goes down. The stats panel also shows puzzles played, win % (rounded) and how many you solved in 1, 2, 3 or 4 guesses.
- Each day counts once, so reloading the page after finishing changes nothing.
For example, if you solve #10, #11 and #12, your streak is 3. If you skip #13 and open #14, it shows 0, and solving #14 makes it 1. Your best stays at 3.
Past puzzles can be played any time. They never count towards your streak or stats, and they are saved separately.
Want more than one a day? Practice puzzles by theme (animals, food and drink, places, sport and games, sayings, and jobs and everyday things) are unlimited and use the same four guesses and three hints. They never count towards either streak, and none of them is ever a daily puzzle.
The spoiler-free share text
When you finish, Share result opens your device's share sheet if it has one. Otherwise it copies the text, and if copying is blocked it selects the text for you. The text for the worked example above, on a streak of 5, would be:
Stay Dank #12 3/4 🟥🟥🟩⬜ Streak: 5 https://staydank.com
There is one square per guess: 🟥 for a miss, 🟩 for the solve and ⬜ for a guess you didn't need. If you don't solve it, the score shows as X/4. The text is built from numbers and yes/no results only, so it never contains the answer or anything you typed. A past puzzle's share text says “Played from the archive” in place of the streak.
Film night: a second daily puzzle
Film night runs beside the Daily phrase: one more row of emojis each day, and the answer is always the title of a film or a TV series. Switch to it with the Film night button at the top of the front page. Film night #1 was on 26 September 2026, and a new one appears at the same 00:00 UTC as the phrase.
- What counts as a title. Films released in cinemas or made for TV and streaming, and TV series of every kind, including cartoons, quiz shows and nature documentaries. Answers are never a character, an actor or a quote, and the puzzles use titles only, never posters or stills. Hint 1 says “A film” or “A TV series” and usually the decade. Hints 2 and 3 work as in the phrase game. For a short title such as “The Incredibles”, hint 3 gives “The” plus two letters, so it never spells out the answer.
- Accepted spellings. The same checker as the Daily phrase, so capitals, punctuation, spaces, a leading “The” and “&” for “and” never matter. On top of that, each title lists the other ways people write it. A title with a number accepts it in digits and in words, so “Toy Story 2” would also take “Toy Story Two”. A title that has a different name in the UK and the US accepts both. A long title accepts its short form, with or without the subtitle, and a very common misspelling also counts. Anything else is marked wrong, even if it is one letter off.
- Its own streak and stats. Film night keeps its own games played, win %, current and best streak, and guess distribution, stored separately in this browser. Playing one puzzle never changes the other's streak. You can skip the phrase and keep your Film night streak going, or the other way round. The switch shows both current streaks.
- Its own share line. It uses the same squares with a different first line, so anyone reading it can tell which puzzle you played. A Film night win on the second guess, on a streak of 4, would share as:
Stay Dank Film night #9 2/4 🟥🟩⬜⬜ Streak: 4 https://staydank.com
Past Film night puzzles have their own list in the archive. Playing one from there never touches the Film night streak.
Your stats live only in this browser
There is no account and no sign-in. Your guesses, results and stats are kept in this browser's local storage and never uploaded. That means:
- Another phone, computer or browser starts from zero, and there is no way to move stats between them.
- Clearing this site's data, or playing in a private window that you then close, deletes them.
- The site counts page views with its own visit counter. What you type in the game is never sent anywhere.
Make your own puzzle for a friend
You can make an emoji puzzle yourself and send it as a link. Pick 2 to 8 emojis, type the answer, any other spellings that should count and a one-line hint. Your friend plays it with these same rules: four guesses, the same forgiving checker, hint 2 with the word and letter counts and hint 3 with the opening. The answer is hidden in the link as a salted hash, and the puzzle is never uploaded. A friend's puzzle never touches your streak or stats.