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

Mon, Jul 2052 players

77% solved · ~34 guesses

Popular openers: bananafoodanimal

Tue, Jul 2162 players

61% solved · ~32.4 guesses

Popular openers: bananaanimalfoodplace

Wed, Jul 2253 players

74% solved · ~33 guesses

Popular openers: bananaanimalfood

Thu, Jul 2342 players

52% solved · ~23 guesses

Popular openers: animalfoodbanana

Fri, Jul 2439 players

51% solved · ~28.8 guesses

Popular openers: bananaanimalfood

Sat, Jul 2537 players

78% solved · ~29.1 guesses

Popular openers: animalbananafood

Sun, Jul 2616 players

31% solved · ~49.8 guesses

Popular openers: bananaanimal

A

Alex Huang

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.

Weekly Recap: Jul 20 – Jul 26, 2026 – Hot & Cold