How to play, and how to get it in one

The rules

One item from a video game is shown on a sheet of parchment: a weapon, a tool, a piece of equipment. At first it is a blocky white silhouette, so all you have is its shape. Name the game it comes from. You get four guesses, picked from a searchable list, so spelling never costs you a try.

  1. Guess one: a blocky white silhouette. Shape only.
  2. Guess two: the same blocks in greyscale, which adds its shading and tells you what it is made of.
  3. Guess three: the blocks in colour, which is where most people solve it.
  4. Guess four: the item at full detail.

Get it right and the game is named, with a line about what the item is. A new piece of gear goes up every day at 00:00 UTC, and it is the same puzzle for everyone.

Read the shape before you spend a guess

A silhouette hides the texture but keeps the proportions. A blade with a straight back and a single edge is a katana and not a longsword. A grip with a scope rail is a modern shooter, not a fantasy game. Anything with a lanyard, a strap or a hook tends to be a tool rather than a weapon.

Count the parts, too. Two shapes joined at an angle is usually a handle and a head, which means an axe, a pickaxe or a hammer, and each of those points at a different kind of game.

Think about which items a game is known for

The puzzles are chosen because the item is famous inside its game, not because it is an obscure drop. If the shape suggests a potion, think of games whose potions are part of their identity. If it looks like a piece of headgear, think of games where you stare at that headgear on a character select screen for hours.

That is also why the guess list helps: scroll it and the shape often snaps into place next to a name.

Use greyscale for material, colour for the studio

Stage two tells you whether you are looking at metal, wood, leather or plastic. Stage three is the giveaway for anyone who knows art direction: saturated primaries point at Nintendo and cartoon shooters, muted browns and greens at survival games, orange-and-teal at big-budget action games.

Practise on the archive

Every past puzzle stays playable, so you can work back through all of them whenever you like, and past answers are listed once a puzzle is over.

Browse the archive · Past answers

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