How to play Catalogues

The five steps

1. Read the title. It hints at the hidden rule that puts the seven cards in order.
2. Drag the cards, or use the arrow buttons, until the list runs top to bottom the way you think the rule wants.
3. Press Check. Each card in its correct place gets a green tick, and you see how many of the seven are in place.
4. Keep the ticked cards where they are, rearrange the rest, and check again. You have five guesses.
5. Stuck? Show the clue to read the rule in plain words. A clue is recorded with your result.

What you are looking at

A Catalogues puzzle has four parts: a title, seven cards, a Check button, and a clue you may or may not open. The seven cards start in a shuffled order. Somewhere behind them is one rule that sorts them, and that rule is the same for all seven cards. It might be a year, a size, a count, or a position in a well-known sequence such as an alphabet.

The title is your first hint. “Planets Outward” suggests distance from the Sun. “Taking Sides” above a list of polygons suggests counting sides. Titles can be playful, so treat them as a nudge, not a definition. The list always runs from the top card to the bottom card, and the rule decides which end is which.

Moving cards

There are three ways to move a card, and you can mix them freely. Drag a card by its grip to a new place in the list. Tap the up and down arrows on a card to move it one place at a time. Or use the keyboard: focus a card, press Space or Enter to pick it up, move it with the arrow keys, and press Space, Enter, or Escape to set it down. Holding Shift with an arrow key moves the focused card straight away.

Moving cards is free. Nothing is checked, and no guess is spent, until you press Check. Your current order is saved in this browser as you go, so you can leave and come back.

Reading a Check

When you press Check, the game compares your list with the answer one place at a time. A card in exactly the right place gets a green tick. Every other card stays neutral. Under the list you see the total, such as “4 of 7 in place”, and a row is added to your guess history.

A tick is about position, not neighbours. If you have the right run of cards but the whole run is shifted down by one place, none of them is ticked. That is useful to know: a low score does not always mean your idea of the rule is wrong. It can mean the list is shifted or running in the opposite direction.

A tick stays on a card for as long as it sits in that place. If you move a ticked card, the tick disappears, and it returns when you put the card back. The game will not let you spend a guess on an order you have already checked.

Five guesses

You have five guesses. Get all seven cards in place on any of them and you win; the game then shows the value behind each card, the rule, and the source of the facts. If the fifth guess misses, the round ends and the correct order is revealed the same way, for example “Mars — 1.52 AU”.

There is no penalty for taking your time. The timer starts with your first move, check, or clue, and is only used to break ties on the daily leaderboard, where fewer guesses always rank ahead of a faster time.

There is no points score. A solved daily or archive list can be saved to that day's leaderboard when you sign in: fewest guesses rank first, fastest time breaks ties, and opening the clue is recorded. The server replays every guess before it accepts a score, and finishes in under three seconds are not accepted.

The clue

Each puzzle has one clue. Opening it shows the rule in plain words, including the direction, for example “Order: mean distance from the Sun, nearest first”. The clue does not use a guess and it does not move any cards for you. You still have to know, or work out, where each card belongs.

A clue is recorded with your result. It appears in the text you share and is stored with a leaderboard score. Many players open it after a second guess that scored low, because by then the title has clearly sent them the wrong way.

Modes and difficulty

The daily puzzle is shared by everyone for one UTC day, and the archive keeps every earlier one. Unlimited builds a new list on request at three levels. Easy uses everyday knowledge and a helpful title. Medium uses every list. Hard drops the everyday lists and swaps the title for a plain label, so the cards themselves are your only hint until you open the clue.

The library has 300 fixed, numbered puzzles that rotate through the three levels. When the rules feel comfortable, the strategy guide covers how to get more out of each guess.

Where the facts come from

Puzzles are generated from our own fact lists. Each list records a public source and the exact value used to sort every card. We choose facts that hold still: atomic numbers, statehood dates, positions in an alphabet. We avoid figures that change from year to year and facts that good sources disagree on.

The generator also refuses close calls. Two cards never share a value, and for measured values such as heights and areas, two cards are never within one percent of each other. If you finish a puzzle and doubt a card, the source line under the answer tells you where to check it.