Piney 🌲

How to play Piney

Piney is a free daily skill game set in a snowy boreal forest. Each day everyone gets the same course, and you have six shots to launch your snowball into the fox's den. It takes ten seconds to learn, and the snow keeps every day a little different.

How the course works

Your snowball starts on a stump, a low post or a fallen log. Its height and position change every day, but it is never higher than a stump, and it can be on the left or the right. Drag back anywhere on the course and let go to launch: the further you pull, the harder it flies, like a slingshot. You can aim in any direction, from flat left to flat right. On a keyboard, use the left and right arrow keys to swing the arrow and up and down to set the power, then press Space or Enter. The den is dug into a snowbank on the right, and a snowball that lands on the bank can roll in. Pine branches sag under their snow and catch a soft landing, but hit one and it shakes off its snow and springs up like a catapult, flinging your snowball high into the air. Frozen puddles on the forest floor, and some days the top of the snowbank, are sheer ice: your snowball slides a long way, and an icy bank tilts away from the den, so land softly. Snow on the ground slows rolling shots: fresh powder stops them quickly, crusty snow lets them run. The snow changes every day but is the same for everyone.

Scoring and the helper

Reaching the den on shot 1 earns 12 points, then 10, 8, 6, 4 and 2 for shots 2 to 6. Six misses earn 0. The path preview draws the start of your flight path for one shot at a time, on shots 1 to 3. Using it at all halves the day's score, and once you have, you can switch it on again for another of those shots at no extra cost. Courses are gentler early in the week and trickier towards Sunday; the stars show today's difficulty.

Streaks and badges

Your play streak counts the days in a row you've played, and your cleared streak counts the days in a row you've reached the den. Play seven days in a row to earn a cycle bonus of 7 points, or 14 if you cleared all seven. Your best play streak unlocks new snowball skins at 7, 30 and 100 days.

Tips

• Use a snowy branch as a catapult: it flings your snowball up and over whatever is in the way.
• On icy-bank days, come in from above and land softly, or you will slide straight past the den.
• Use the fine-tune buttons or the arrow keys for small changes in half-degree and one-percent steps.

More puzzles: all Streakly games · how scoring, streaks and badges work

What Piney trains

• Aim and judgement. Picking the path that reaches the den.
• Intuitive physics. Reading slopes, snow and obstacles.
• Learning from misses. Each shot shows you what to change.

Did you know?

• The boreal forest, or taiga, is the largest land biome on Earth, circling the far north.
• Most of its trees are conifers that keep their needles all year round.