HELP & GLOSSARY

Every day there is a new puzzle: a pixelated screenshot of a video game. You get 6 tries to guess the full game title.

Pick your guess from the catalog — free text is not allowed. Each wrong try sharpens the image and unlocks intel hints (genre, year, developer, title pattern). And every guess tells you something by itself: its release year and an arrow pointing towards the game you are looking for.

The puzzle only begins when you hit PRESS START — from then on your solve time runs. It sits above the puzzle image; the clock in the top bar counts down to the next puzzle instead. Take your time before you start.

Today's daily counts for streak, XP, leaderboard, Hypertrain, and most achievements.

There is now a second puzzle each day: the cover. It runs alongside, has its own statistics and achievements — and it keeps your streak just like the screenshot does. See the next section.

The second puzzle of the day. Instead of a screenshot you see a game's packaging — the cover as it sits on a shelf. Six tries, same as the screenshot, but you recognise it by something else: by artwork, colours and composition rather than a scene from play.

The steps run the other way round. Try 1 shows the whole cover very coarsely — colours and composition only. Every miss tightens the crop and sharpens that one spot, until a small, sharp detail is all that is left.

The reason is printed on the cover: the title. If the image simply grew sharper you could read it halfway through and the puzzle would be over. This way the lettering never resolves — too coarse at the start, out of frame at the end.

For the same reason there is no pixel lens here. It sharpens one window, and that window could contain the title.

The cover keeps your streak just like the screenshot: there is one streak, and one solved puzzle a day is enough — either one. Playing only covers no longer leaves you out.

The played/won counters and the medals stay with the screenshot puzzle. In exchange the cover has its own statistics in the settings and on your profile, plus eighteen achievements of its own.

XP works normally though: three quarters of the base value, plus the streak factor and daily bonus just like the screenshot. What is throttled is the value of a round, not its rank — the screenshot puzzle stays the main event. And your cover win pushes the same hypertrain.

Guests play covers in the guest round: two modules sit below the start button, landscape for the screenshot, portrait for the cover. Today's cover and the cover archive need an account.

The images come from IGDB, the same source as the keywords.

Once per round you may bring a single spot of the pixelated screenshot into full focus. You choose which one — and you only get that one shot.

How it works: after PRESS START, the “Use pixel lens” button appears below the image. Clicking it arms the lens, and your next click on the image sets the window. After that the lens is spent for this round.

This is where knowledge beats luck: games give themselves away through their interface, not their scenery. Good targets are the HUD corners, an ammo or health bar, the font, an item icon, or the mini-map. Click the sky and you get a very sharp sky.

It makes a first-try win genuinely possible — before, that was pure guesswork. The lens is free and changes neither your attempts nor how your XP is calculated, it just gives you that one look.

Three achievements hang off it: “First Look” for using it once, “Sharpshooter” for a first-try win with the lens — and “Naked Eye” for the same win without it. The last two are mutually exclusive: the blind first guess remains the top discipline.

Every mode has its own lens — the daily puzzle, archive replays, and the guest demo each count separately.

There is no lens on the cover puzzle. It sharpens one window, and on a cover that window could contain the title — one click would end the puzzle.

Behind every wrong guess sits its release year and an arrow: ↑ means the game you are looking for is newer, ↓ means older, = means the same year. So “✗ Portal 2007 ↓” tells you the answer came out before 2007.

If your guess and the answer are at most five years apart, the year turns yellow — the same signal as Wordle's yellow tile. How large the gap actually is stays hidden: “newer” moves you forward, “23 years newer” would be half the answer.

When the catalog has no release year for a game, the compass stays quiet for that guess. It works the same in the daily puzzle, in archive replays, and in the guest round — in the guess log as well as in the result panel.

The fourth intel hint shows the title as a pattern: one block per letter, with digits and punctuation left visible. “Resident Evil 2” becomes “▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮ ▮▮▮▮ 2”.

You see the number of words and their lengths, but never a letter. That helps in exactly the moment this game is about: you recognise the screenshot, but the name will not come.

It replaced the platform hint. “PC, PlayStation” applied to nearly every game in the catalog and therefore ruled nothing out — a hint that eliminates nothing merely uses up one of the four slots.

Your streak counts consecutive calendar days on which you solved the daily — similar to Wordle.

Miss a day or lose the daily and the streak resets. Your personal best stays in your stats.

Longer streaks grant an XP bonus on wins: 2.5 % per streak day, capped at +25 % from day ten.

Your streak flame changes color as it grows: orange at the start, blue from 30 days, violet from 100, and gold from 365 days.

Streak freezes automatically bridge exactly one missed day — you earn one on every 7th streak day, and your stash grows with your level (2 slots, three from level 25, four from level 77). If a streak of 7+ days still breaks, you can repair it once per month within 24 hours by spending XP.

You earn XP by playing, especially by fast wins: fewer attempts = more XP (300 XP for a first-guess win, 70 for a sixth).

There are 100 levels with gaming-themed names — from NOOB I through GAMER, VETERAN and LEGEND up to N00B GOD. Progress is on your profile and in the account panel at the bottom left.

Your first solved game of the day grants a +10 XP daily bonus. Screenshot and cover count separately: there are two daily puzzles, each with its own bonus.

The cover gives three quarters of the base value. That is the only difference — streak factor, daily bonus and hypertrain apply to both. The two archives give no XP at all: there you can play round after round, and what can be repeated freely is not paid for.

Hypertrain is a community progress bar for today. All players fill a shared “train” with points. Exactly one runs per day, and both daily puzzles push it — screenshot and cover.

A win in either daily puzzle adds +8 points, sharing your result adds +4. Enough points level up the Hypertrain (0–5) for that day.

Hypertrain resets every day and runs until midnight. You can see progress in the column next to the game and on Discord via `/hypertrain`.

The train rewards the whole community: from level 3 every further win that day gets a +10 % XP hype bonus — screenshot and cover alike.

If the train reaches level 5, the community chest opens: +50 XP delivered to the inbox of everyone who contributed points that day — plus the 🚇 HYPE CREW role on Discord for 24 hours.

Riding along always pays: at day close, everyone who played either daily puzzle (win or lose) earns +2 XP per train level reached. From level 3 you also earn a ticket for your shop balance (two during seasonal events) — hypertrain rides unlock their own achievements (Commuter, Regular Rider, Honorary Conductor). More tickets come from streak milestones, first-try dailies, weekly challenges and special achievements.

Tickets are the currency of n00b.gg. You can see your balance in the shop and on your profile — spend them on cosmetics and extras.

How to earn tickets: hypertrain days from train level 3 (+1, or +2 during seasonal events), every full 7-day streak (+2) and every full 30-day streak (+5 extra), a daily solved on the first try (+1), a completed weekly challenge (+3) and selected milestone achievements (a one-time 2–15). Occasionally the team gifts some via inbox message.

In the ticket shop you buy frames, username styles, titles and profile banners (4–34 tickets depending on rarity). During seasonal events like Easter, Halloween or Christmas there are limited event collections — but everything you buy stays yours forever, even after the event ends.

Also: a unique generated avatar costs 5 tickets (rolling is free, you only pay when you keep one — purchased avatars go into your collection). And your first gamertag change is free, every further one costs 10 tickets.

Every now and then we hide codes in our posts, videos and on Discord — short words like RAMEN that unlock a reward.

You redeem them under Settings → Profile → Code. Type the code and hit “Redeem”. Upper and lower case do not matter.

The reward does not land on your account right away; it arrives as a message in your inbox, where you claim it with one click. That way you can see exactly what the code gave you, and look it up later.

Each code works once per account. Some expire after a while or are limited to a number of redemptions — being late means missing out. Your past redemptions are listed at the bottom of the same page.

Codes give tickets for the shop, streak freezes or cosmetics. We deliberately do not hand out XP this way: the leaderboard should be decided by playing, not by following our posts.

Achievements reward special feats: fast wins, long streaks, medals, genre specialists, seasonal events, and more.

Some are secret and only appear after you unlock them. Others stay hidden until you have played at least 3 games.

Daily medals (gold, silver, bronze) go to the day's top three players — ranked by tries, ties broken by solve time. They are awarded after the day closes, so the final standings count.

Medals require at least 10 players in that day's puzzle — quiet days award none.

Each week has a rotating goal — e.g. 3 wins, 3 wins in 3 tries or fewer, or playing on 5 different days.

Most goals count both daily puzzles: a win is a win, screenshot or cover. A few are tied to one mode on purpose — “No Lens” only works on screenshots, because covers have no lens, and “Blind Flight” only on covers, because the first try means something else entirely there.

Complete the challenge for bonus XP. Track progress on your result screen and on Discord with `/challenge`.

n00b.gg is built on honest competition: solve times are measured server-side and only start with PRESS START — guessing before that is not possible.

Suspicious results (e.g. unrealistically fast solve times) are reviewed by moderation. They may revoke a daily result: the day then counts as lost, your streak breaks, a daily medal is withdrawn, and the day cannot be replayed.

Think a revocation was a mistake? Send a support ticket (Settings → Support, category "Revoked daily result") — moderation can fully restore the day, including win, streak and XP.

You can report disruptive profiles right on their profile page — pick a category (e.g. offensive name or spam). Moderation reviews every report.

Moderation may also flag inappropriate usernames: the name is publicly masked as n00b#ID and the player is asked to choose a new one on their next visit.

The leaderboard ranks top players by period: today, this week, this month, or all-time.

The daily ranking sorts by tries — ties are broken by solve time (from PRESS START to the winning guess). Fast AND precise wins.

The daily ranking only counts wins on today's puzzle — archive replays do not count there.

The archive lets you replay past puzzles — great for practice or catching up on missed days. There are two: the screenshot archive and the cover archive.

Archive wins grant no streak points, no place in the daily leaderboard and no XP — there you can play round after round, and what can be repeated freely is not paid for. Archive achievements you do get.

After solving the daily you can share your result as a text grid (Wordle-style) — without revealing the game title. On Discord, `/share` renders an image card as well.

Shared results also push Hypertrain (+4 points). On Discord use `/share`.

You sign in without a password: enter your email address, type the six-digit code from the email, done. The code is valid for ten minutes and you can request a new one at any time.

You can also sign in with Discord. On your first visit you pick your own name there too — your Discord name is not carried over. Discord has to have your email address verified, otherwise no account can be created from it; just sign in with a code in that case.

Changing your email address: Settings → Profile → Account. We send a code to the NEW address — until you enter it, the old one stays valid, so a typo cannot lock you out. Afterwards the old address gets a notice about the change.

You can change your username later under Profile: the first change is free, every further one costs 10 tickets. Account deletion also lives under Account — it removes your profile and game history permanently.

Link your n00b.gg account in Settings to use bot commands like `/stats`, `/leaderboard`, or `/guess`.

To link: run `/link` on Discord → enter the code on n00b.gg in Settings (+3 tickets once). Unlink anytime with `/unlink` or in Settings.

The bot assigns roles automatically from real game data: VETERAN (long streaks), N00B GOD (top level), ON FIRE (hot streaks), Weekly Champion — and the 🚇 HYPE CREW for 24 hours after a level-5 Hypertrain. Freshly earned honors are posted by SUDO in the daily-results channel each evening.

Check your balance with `/tickets` or `/stats` — spend them in the Ticket Shop. Tip game winners get +30 XP and +1 ticket at the evening recap; `/quizdrop` awards +50 XP and +1 ticket to the first correct guess.

The bell icon up top and the /messages page lead to your inbox: announcements, system updates and personal messages — e.g. community chest rewards or notes from moderation.

Messages can be filtered by type, archived and deleted. Anything you open is automatically marked as read.

On “Guest round” (/try) you can play a sample puzzle without an account — perfect for a first look.

It is deliberately NOT today's daily: it comes from a separate practice pool. Otherwise the day's answer could be fetched before signing in, and the daily is meant to start for everyone at the same time.

Progress, streak, and XP are not saved in guest mode. For everything else you need a free account.