Weekly Recap
Jul 20 – Jul 26, 2026
378
Players
249
Solved
65%
Solve Rate
34.2
Avg Guesses
Numbers come from actual gameplay on this site.
Week in Review
During the week of Jul 20 – Jul 26, 2026, players logged 378 game sessions across the daily Hot & Cold challenges, and 249 of those runs ended with the secret word found — an average daily solve rate of 65%. Successful solvers needed about 34.2 guesses on average, while 129 sessions ended with the answer revealed instead.
The toughest puzzle landed on Sun, Jul 26, where only 42% of players tracked down the secret word after roughly 33.5 guesses on average. At the other end of the spectrum, Sat, Jul 25 was the friendliest day of the week: 83% of players got there in about 33.8 guesses.
Popular opening guesses this week included banana, food, animal and carpet — broad category words remain the community's favorite way to scan for the right semantic neighborhood before narrowing in.
Missed a day? Every challenge from this week can still be replayed from the archive. And if your solve rate dipped, the starting-words guide covers how to open more efficiently.
Day by Day
76% solved · ~35.5 guesses
Popular openers: bananafoodanimal
65% solved · ~32.2 guesses
Popular openers: bananaanimalfoodcarpetplace
75% solved · ~33 guesses
Popular openers: bananaanimalfood
58% solved · ~29.4 guesses
Popular openers: animalfoodbanana
58% solved · ~41.9 guesses
Popular openers: bananaanimalfood
83% solved · ~33.8 guesses
Popular openers: animalfoodbanana
42% solved · ~33.5 guesses
Popular openers: bananaanimalfood
Creator of Hot & Cold
Independent developer building word games at the intersection of NLP and play. I ship Hot & Cold's daily challenges, maintain the ranking pipeline, and occasionally lose to my own puzzles.
