Clues

How to play Riddly

Riddly is a free daily maths puzzle. Everyone is hunting the same mystery number each day, a whole number from 1 to 999, and your job is to find it in as few guesses as you can. It's a gentle bit of number detective work: part logic, part instinct.

How the puzzle works

You start with one or two clues, such as "it's odd" or "its digits add up to 14". Type a guess on the number pad and press Guess. If you're wrong, you're told whether the mystery number is higher or lower and roughly how far away you were, and a new clue unlocks. The range bar keeps track of the window you've narrowed it down to. Every clue is checked against the answer, and every puzzle is tested in advance to make sure it can be solved within six guesses using the clues.

Scoring and the helper

You have six attempts. Solving it on your first attempt earns 12 points, then 10, 8, 6, 4 and 2 for attempts two to six. Each miss tells you how far away you were. Stuck early on? The helper reveals one digit of the mystery number, but it halves the day's score and is only available during your first three attempts.

Streaks and badges

Your play streak counts the days in a row you've played, and your solved streak counts the days in a row you've solved the puzzle. Play seven days running and you earn a 7-point bonus, or 14 points if you solved all seven. Miss a day and the streaks start again. A new puzzle arrives every day at midnight UTC.

Tips

Use the clues before your first guess: list a few numbers that fit them all, then pick one from the middle.

Higher or lower halves the field each time, so a guess in the middle of your range is worth more than a lucky stab.

Digit clues are powerful. "Its digits add up to 6" rules out far more than "it's even".

What Riddly trains

Number properties. Odd, even, digit sums and divisibility all become tools.

Deduction. Combining clues to rule out hundreds of numbers at once.

Efficient searching. Choosing guesses that split the remaining options.

Did you know?

A number is divisible by 3 exactly when its digits add up to a multiple of 3, and the same works for 9.

If every guess halves the range, any number from 1 to 999 can be found in 10 guesses or fewer.