THE GOLDEN RULE

One hidden rule. Six guesses.

Every day there is one five letter word and one hidden rule. Follow the rule and the board tells you everything. Break it and it tells you almost nothing.

How it works, in five pictures

Loading today’s puzzle.

How to play

1. Guess the five-letter word. You get six tries.
2. There is one hidden Golden Rule. It is one of the eight rules on the board. The answer always follows it. Your guesses may follow it or break it.
3. Follow the Golden Rule and you get full clues: green, gold, and gray. Break it and you get limited clues: blue and gray. A tag beside every guess says followed or broke.
4. Your first guess always gets full clues. It is marked with gold dashes.
5. Rules that get proven wrong are crossed off for you. Tap a crossed-off rule to see why. When one rule is left, that is the Golden Rule.
The clue key by the board explains every color.

See how to play, in pictures

Loading today’s puzzle.

The Golden Rule is one of these · 8 left

The answer follows exactly one of these. Tap any rule to see why it lived or died.

Clue key

You followed the Golden Rule · full clues

Green. Correct letter, correct spot. Gold. Correct letter, wrong spot.

You broke the Golden Rule · limited clues

Blue. Correct letter, position hidden. A green you already found stays green.

Any guess

Gray. Letter is not in the word.

The tag beside every guess

followedThis guess followed the Golden Rule, so it got full clues. brokeThis guess broke the Golden Rule, so it got limited clues. Guess 1 gets full clues anyway.

Good to know

Your first guess always gets full clues, no matter what. A green you already found stays green, as long as you keep that letter in its spot. Rules proven wrong get crossed off the list. The last one standing is the Golden Rule.

How to play, in five pictures

Every colour on the board means one thing, and the tag beside each guess tells you whether that guess earned full clues or limited ones.

Step 1. The board at the start of a round, with the eight candidate rules listed above six empty guess rows. — 1. Eight rules. One of them is the Golden Rule.

Step 2. A first guess scored with green and gold tiles, tagged as having followed the hidden rule. — 2. Follow the rule and you get green and gold.

Step 3. A guess that broke the hidden rule, scored with blue tiles instead of green and gold, and tagged as broke. — 3. Break it and you only get blue.

Step 4. Several rules crossed off the list after guesses proved they could not be the hidden rule. — 4. Rules that cannot be right get crossed off.

Step 5. The win card naming the word and the hidden rule, with the one surviving rule highlighted on the list. — 5. One rule left is the Golden Rule.

Support

Stuck, found a bug, or have a question about the app or your data? Email jordan@wediorknot.com and a real person will reply. We aim to answer within a couple of days. If it's about a problem, tell us which phone you're on and what you were doing when it happened.

Deleting your account

In the app, open Settings, tap Account at the top, then tap Delete account and confirm with Delete for good. Your profile, photo, follows, cheers and groups are removed. Your games and streaks stay on your phone, and you can keep playing without an account. If you can't open the app, email us from the address you signed in with and we'll delete the account for you.

Changing your ad choices

On iPhone: open the Settings app, then Privacy & Security, then Tracking, and turn tracking off for The Golden Rule.
On Android: open your phone's Settings, then Google, then Ads (on some phones it's under Privacy), and delete or reset your advertising ID.
Deleting and reinstalling the app clears the choices stored on your phone, and the consent screen appears again wherever it applies.

Saying no to personalised ads or to tracking doesn't change the game at all. The privacy policy explains the rest, and the terms of use cover the rules for profiles and groups.

Moving to a new phone

Signed in? Just sign in on the new phone with the same Apple or Google account. Playing without an account? Copy the recovery code from Settings on your old phone and enter it in Settings on the new one.

Get the app

Coming to the App Store and Google Play. The daily puzzle is free to play right here in the meantime, with no sign up and no account.