Chain FAQ

These are the questions people ask us about Chain that are not about the rules. If you want the rules, the how to play page has them with four worked puzzles, and the strategy guide is where we explain how we actually solve one. Everything below is about the site: when it changes, what it keeps, and who to talk to.

The short version: one puzzle a day, the same for everyone, new at midnight where you are; nothing to sign up for; your progress stays in your own browser (the privacy page lists exactly what is kept); the result you share is three lines of plain text; and every puzzle has been checked to have exactly one answer before it reaches you.

When does the new puzzle appear?

At midnight in your own timezone. The puzzles themselves are generated ahead of time on a schedule that runs on Israel time, one for every calendar date, and your browser tells the site which date it is where you are. So a player in Tel Aviv and a player in Vancouver both get the puzzle for Tuesday on their own Tuesday, even though those moments are ten hours apart. Your date can be at most one day ahead of Israel's, and the puzzles are generated a month in advance, so there is always one waiting for your today.

What does "today" mean if I travel or change timezone?

The site reads the timezone from your browser on each visit and picks that day's puzzle. If you cross a date line mid-day you may see the same puzzle twice or skip one, and a puzzle you have already solved stays solved for that date. Your streak is counted by calendar dates, not by 24-hour periods, so a long flight does not break it as long as you solve the puzzle on each date you are awake for. On the very first visit, before the browser has told us your timezone, the page loads once with the Israel date and then refreshes to yours.

Do I need an account?

No. Everything the game needs to know — today's state, your tries, your streak — lives in your own browser, and the puzzle is fully playable without ever signing in. There is now an optional account for one thing only: playing on more than one device. If you sign in on your phone and your laptop, both see the same streak. Signing in uses a link we email you, so there is no password. The account holds your email address and, for each day you played, the date, how many tries it took and how long you spent — nothing else, and never the puzzles themselves. Signing out leaves this browser's streak exactly as it was, and you can delete the account, and the copy of your days that goes with it, from the account page.

What does the site store on my device?

Four small pieces of browser storage: the state of today's board so a reload does not lose your moves, your streak (current, best, and the last date you solved), a random anonymous id that is only used so a single result is counted once, and your light or dark choice. Entries for days older than a week are removed automatically. The only cookies are a timezone hint so the server can pick the right day and, if you have signed in, the session cookie that keeps you signed in. What leaves the device: one anonymous result per solved puzzle (the date, how many tries, and how long it took), plus anonymous, cookieless page analytics — which page was opened and whether a puzzle was started, solved or shared, never who you are. The privacy page lists all of it.

How do I reset or clear my streak?

Clear the site data for this address in your browser — it is under the page information icon next to the address bar in every major browser, or in the privacy settings. That removes today's state, the streak and the anonymous id in one go; the next visit starts from zero. If you have signed in, the account keeps its own copy of the days you solved: delete the account from the account page to remove that too, which leaves this browser's records untouched.

Why is the share text plain text and not a picture?

Three lines of text paste cleanly into any chat or message, they do not give the solution away, and they work for people who use a screen reader. A picture would need to be uploaded somewhere, would be unreadable to some of your friends, and would push us towards the coloured-square grids that other daily games use, which is not what Chain is. The result reads: the site and the date, how many tries and your time, and the site's address so a friend can come and play.

Can I play with a keyboard or a screen reader?

Yes, fully. Tab reaches the hand, the arrow keys move between tiles, Enter or Space plays one, the number keys 1 to 6 play a tile by its position, and Backspace undoes. Every control has a visible focus ring. The working — each move written out as it happens — is announced by screen readers one line at a time, and tiles you have already played are marked as unavailable rather than removed, so the layout never jumps under you. The rules page lists all the controls.

Are the puzzles made by hand?

No, they are generated, and then checked harder than a person would check them. For every puzzle the generator proves that exactly one set of tiles reaches the target in the given number of moves, that the spare tiles are playable somewhere and produce a near miss, and that the difficulty sits inside the band for that weekday. The rules and the checks are the same for every date, so a puzzle from last month is as fair as today's. We keep every generated puzzle exactly as it was published, even if we tune the generator later.

Where are the ads, and why are there any?

Right now there are none. When advertising is approved, an ad can appear in two places: below the board on the home page, never over it, and above the text on guide pages like this one. Ads are what keep a free daily puzzle free; they never appear on the legal pages, and they never affect which puzzle you get or how it is scored. Where the law requires it (the EEA and the UK) you will see a consent prompt before any advertising loads, and you can decline personalised ads and still play.

How do I report a puzzle that looks wrong?

Use the feedback button in the corner of the page you are on. It sends your message with the page address, so tell us the date of the puzzle you mean, and it opens an issue in our tracker that we work through. If a tile was refused and you think it should have been allowed, tell us the running value and the tile — that is the fastest way for us to reproduce it. Every reported puzzle is re-checked against the generator's own proof of its solution.

Will there be printable puzzles?

That is the plan. The same generator can produce sets of puzzles with answer keys laid out for paper, and we intend to sell those as printable packs and small books under the same name. They will not be the daily puzzles — the daily ones stay free on the site — but new sets built from the same rules. When they are ready, this page and the home page will say so.

How do I get in touch?

The contact page has our email addresses; the feedback button works on every page and is the quickest route for anything about a specific puzzle or a specific page. We read everything ourselves, usually within two working days on Israel time. For privacy questions, the privacy page explains what is stored and the legal address to write to.

Still stuck?

If the question is about a specific puzzle — a tile that was refused, a target that seems unreachable, a result card that looks wrong — the feedback button in the corner of that page is the fastest route: it sends the page address along with your message, so name the date in the message. For anything else, the contact page has the addresses.