📖 Help center

Everything you need to understand how Puzzlelands works — from points and ranks to the rules of each puzzle. If something isn't clear, send feedback with the 👎 button below any answer or email us via the privacy section.

📑 Index

🎯 How to start

1. Pick a puzzle from the main menu or the home page. You have Minesweeper, Minesweeper Puzzles, Slant, Sudoku, Nonogram and Memo-test.
2. Choose difficulty (Easy / Medium / Hard). Difficulty changes board size and/or logical complexity.
3. Solve it. The timer starts when you take your first action. When you win, you can submit your score to the ranking.
4. (Optional but recommended) create an account so your score appears in rankings and you can compete with others. Without an account you can play but nothing is saved.

Tip: the ⭐ Daily button in the menu takes you to the day's challenge — a different puzzle each day with a seed shared by all players. That's where the monthly championship is decided and where streaks accumulate.

👤 Account and profile

Your account is what links your games to your name in the rankings. To create one you only need email + password. We never show the email publicly — only your username appears in rankings and profile.

From your profile you can:

• Pick your country (the flag appears next to your name in all rankings).
• See your current rank and how many points you need to level up.
• See your achievements with the progress of each.
• Share your public profile with a link.

Any profile is public via /Profile?user=Username. Anyone can see your ranks, achievements and stats — we don't expose email or password.

💎 Points, XP and differences

Points per game

When you solve a puzzle, points depend on:

• Difficulty: Easy 100 base, Medium 250, Hard 500 (the more complex puzzles like Sudoku, Nonogram and Minesweeper Puzzles award more).
• Speed: solving faster than "par time" multiplies points. Solving very slow keeps them at the minimum (50% of base).

💎 Global points

For each combination of (puzzle, difficulty) we keep your best score, regardless of whether it came from normal mode or daily — whichever is higher wins. Then all those "best per combo" are summed and that's your global points.

It's the number that is used in all rankings (Global, per puzzle, daily, championship) and what determines your rank.

Dailies don't accumulate: they only count if your best daily in that combo beats your best regular. Daily points now match normal mode — daily is won by speed, not by bonus. Spamming doesn't inflate global points — only your record per combo counts.

✨ Experience points (XP)

It's the sum of all your games (even non-record ones) plus all dailies. Reflects time played, not just skill: play a lot, earn more XP.

XP is not used in rankings — it only appears in your profile and triggers the 💎 category achievements (xp-10k, xp-50k, etc.).

Why two metrics?

So that competition (ranks and rankings) rewards consistency and skill, while long-term dedication is recognized separately. A casual player with many games has lots of XP; a competitive player with few but flawless ones has lots of global points.

🎖️ Ranks

Rank is calculated from your global points. It's 100% deterministic: if you have X points, you have rank Y — it doesn't depend on your position relative to others.

The 8 ranks, in order:

• 🌱 Rookie — from 0 pts. You just arrived at Puzzlelands.
• 📘 Apprentice — from 800 pts. You're getting the hang of it.
• 🧩 Solver — from 2,500 pts. You solve with confidence.
• ⚔️ Expert — from 6,000 pts. Few puzzles put up a fight.
• 🛡️ Veteran — from 11,000 pts. You've seen almost everything.
• 👑 Master — from 17,000 pts. Your name shows up in the rankings.
• 🏆 Grandmaster — from 24,000 pts. Top tier — you rarely miss.
• ⭐ Legend — from 33,000 pts. You mastered Easy, Medium and Hard across the 6 puzzles.

The Legend threshold (33,000) coincides with the "Olympus": the theoretical maximum from perfect runs across the 6 puzzles × 3 difficulties. Supporters who hit a PB with the +10% can edge slightly above, but the difference is small.

🏆 Rankings

There are four types of ranking, all based on global points:

General ranking (per puzzle)

Each (puzzle, difficulty) has its own ranking. Sorted by points DESC; ties broken by lower time. Only your best game appears — duplicates don't inflate your position.

Global ranking

Sums YOUR global points and compares them with other players. The podium (top-3) is highlighted at the top of the page. Each row shows your flag, current rank, total points and "Olympus" % (how far from the theoretical ceiling).

Daily ranking

Each UTC day a daily puzzle appears with its 3 difficulties. Whoever solves it fastest wins that day's ranking. You can see any past date's ranking via date navigation.

Monthly championship

Accumulates the points from ALL daily puzzles of the UTC calendar month. Tie-breaks for points:

1. More distinct days completed (consistency).
2. More total challenges completed.
3. Earlier finish in the month.

The current month's championship updates live. Closed months remain immutable as history.

⭐ Daily puzzle and streaks

The daily puzzle has a shared seed: all players see the same board on the same day. That makes it comparable and competitive.

• Daily bonus: daily points are multiplied by 1.5 compared to the same puzzle in normal mode.
• Once per day per difficulty: each (date, puzzle, difficulty) has a unique slot. You can't replay today's daily to improve your time.
• Streak: doing at least one daily per day (any difficulty, any puzzle of the day) adds to your streak. If you miss a day, the current streak resets to zero — but the record streak stays forever and unlocks streak achievements.

🥇 Achievements

Achievements are concrete goals. Once you unlock them they stay forever — even if you later lose the streak or drop off the podium.

Difficulty levels

There are 6 levels, from lowest to highest:

• Bronze — first steps. Any player can get them in their first week.
• Silver — some dedication or variety.
• Gold — for committed players (weeks of play).
• Platinum — very hard, demanding months or excellent performance.
• Diamond — legendary: full year, perfect run, total dominance.
• Mythic — the peak. Reserved for repeat monthly champions, simultaneous #1s in multiple puzzles, and daily centenarians.

Categories

• 🌱 Daily / Streak — first daily, streaks of 3/7/30/100/365 days, triple-diff.
• 📅 Volume — total dailies completed (10/50/100/365/1000).
• 💎 Points (XP) — accumulated experience (10k/50k/200k/500k/1M).
• 🗺️ Variety — completing different puzzles at different difficulties.
• 🥇 Ranking — podiums, #1s, daily top-10s, monthly championships.

On your profile you see the progress of each one (e.g. "5 / 10 dailies") and a summary of how many you have unlocked per tier.

🧩 Rules of each puzzle

💣 Minesweeper

A board with hidden mines. Your goal: reveal every cell that is NOT a mine. Each number you reveal tells you how many mines are among its 8 neighbors.

• Left click: reveals a cell (on button release).
• Right click: place / remove a flag 🚩.
• Left click on a number with all its flags placed: "chord" — reveals all unmarked neighbors. If flags are wrong, you lose.
• The first cell you reveal is never a mine (nor are its neighbors), so you don't lose on the first click by chance.

🧠 Minesweeper Puzzles

A "pure logic puzzle" variant: not a full game but 10 situations where you decide which cell is 🟢 safe and which is 🚩 mine. If a cell isn't 100% deducible, leave it unmarked — Hard difficulty may include ambiguous cells.

• Left click: mark as 🟢 safe.
• Right click: mark as 🚩 mine.
• Repeating the same click unmarks it (back to "?").
• On submit, correct cells score points; incorrect ones subtract.

🪐 Slant

A board of lines. Each cell holds a diagonal "/" or "\". Some vertices have a number indicating how many diagonals touch it.

• Click: cycle the cell's diagonal (/ → \ → empty).
• Diagonals can't form a closed loop.
• Each number must match exactly the count of diagonals touching it.

9️⃣ Sudoku

9×9 grid divided into 9 boxes of 3×3. Fill in numbers 1–9 without repeating in any row, column or box.

• Click on a cell: selects it.
• Numpad or keyboard 1–9: enter the number.
• 0 / Backspace: clear.
• "Given" cells (the pre-filled ones) can't be changed.

🎨 Nonogram

Paint the cells that form the hidden image. The numbers on each row and column tell you how many consecutive cells are painted in that row/column and in what order.

• Left click: paint a cell.
• Right click: mark with X (confirmed empty).
• Drag: paint/unmark several cells in a line.
• A clue like "3 1 2" means: 3 painted, gap, 1 painted, gap, 2 painted.

🎴 Memo-test

Find pairs of identical cards. Each turn you flip two cards; if they match they stay visible, if not they flip back.

• Click a card to flip it.
• The fewer turns you use, the more points you score (and the faster).

☕ Donations and supporters

Puzzlelands is 100% free and shows no ads. If you want to support the project, you can donate via Cafecito or crypto (both options are in the donations section).

Whoever contributes is marked as Supporter ⭐ on their profile and next to their name in all rankings. It's not a mechanical benefit (no extra points or shortcuts), just a visible thank-you.

🛡️ Privacy and account

For everything related to what data we store, what's public and what's not, how to delete your account or exercise your privacy rights, read the Privacy policy.

Quick summary:

• Your email and password are private. We don't show them to anyone.
• Your username, country, scores, ranks and achievements are public — we need them for rankings.
• We don't use ads or sell data.
• You can request to delete your account anytime (email the contact in the privacy policy).