Weekly Recap
Jul 27 – Aug 2, 2026
236
Players
140
Solved
60%
Solve Rate
39.6
Avg Guesses
Numbers come from actual gameplay on this site.
Week in Review
During the week of Jul 27 – Aug 2, 2026, players logged 236 game sessions across the daily Hot & Cold challenges, and 140 of those runs ended with the secret word found — an average daily solve rate of 60%. Successful solvers needed about 39.6 guesses on average, while 96 sessions ended with the answer revealed instead.
The toughest puzzle landed on Wed, Jul 29, where only 53% of players tracked down the secret word after roughly 37.1 guesses on average. At the other end of the spectrum, Mon, Jul 27 was the friendliest day of the week: 74% of players got there in about 35.3 guesses.
Popular opening guesses this week included banana, animal, food and emotion — 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
74% solved · ~35.3 guesses
Popular openers: foodbananaanimal
56% solved · ~42.6 guesses
Popular openers: bananaanimal
53% solved · ~37.1 guesses
Popular openers: animalbanana
56% solved · ~41.1 guesses
Popular openers: animalbananafood
60% solved · ~41.7 guesses
Popular openers: animalbananaemotion
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.
