Weekly Recap
Jul 20 – Jul 26, 2026
301
Players
193
Solved
61%
Solve Rate
32.9
Avg Guesses
Numbers come from actual gameplay on this site.
Week in Review
During the week of Jul 20 – Jul 26, 2026, players logged 301 game sessions across the daily Hot & Cold challenges, and 193 of those runs ended with the secret word found — an average daily solve rate of 61%. Successful solvers needed about 32.9 guesses on average, while 108 sessions ended with the answer revealed instead.
The toughest puzzle landed on Sun, Jul 26, where only 31% of players tracked down the secret word after roughly 49.8 guesses on average. At the other end of the spectrum, Sat, Jul 25 was the friendliest day of the week: 78% of players got there in about 29.1 guesses.
Popular opening guesses this week included banana, animal, food and place — 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
77% solved · ~34 guesses
Popular openers: bananafoodanimal
61% solved · ~32.4 guesses
Popular openers: bananaanimalfoodplace
74% solved · ~33 guesses
Popular openers: bananaanimalfood
52% solved · ~23 guesses
Popular openers: animalfoodbanana
51% solved · ~28.8 guesses
Popular openers: bananaanimalfood
78% solved · ~29.1 guesses
Popular openers: animalbananafood
31% solved · ~49.8 guesses
Popular openers: bananaanimal
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.
