The Dailies got harder, and Setlist got a red pen

The Dailies are two small puzzles with a new board every day. Side Stage gives you 16 slips to sort into four groups of four, from easy to devious. Setlist gives you five clues, and each answer links to the next one.

When we first put them up, they were too easy. Corey played them on October 8 and told us so. Here's what we changed since then.

Much harder boards

From October 10, both games are much harder. On some Setlist boards the links between the words are hidden, and one hint turns them back on.

Setlist marks itself in red ink

Setlist used to check each word as you went. Now nothing is checked while you play. Write all five, change anything you like, then ink the setlist. The sheet reveals itself line by line in red ink: a check for every right word, with its link letters circled, and a strike through any wrong one, with the real word written underneath.

If you get stuck, every line has a hint menu, and each hint shows what it costs before you tap. You can ask for a letter, check a letter or check a whole word. Your score is out of 100.

A result card you can share

When you finish either game, you get a result card. It shows how you did with no answers on it, so you can share it without spoiling anything. The link on the card opens the same board, so a friend can play the one you just played, that day or later from the archive.

The finish screen also has a countdown to the next puzzles, an optional reminder, and a curve showing how your score compares. Until a puzzle has enough finished plays, that curve is our estimate, and it's labeled that way.

How we made it

We make the boards ahead of time and check each batch, including a cold solve by a fresh AI solver that has never seen them. When you play, your guesses are checked on our server, so the answers aren't sitting in the page while you solve.

Try today's boards, and let us know if we went too far the other way.