Today's game stop
Find The Needle
Find The Needle is a daily browser puzzle where you tap tiles in a drawn haystack, receive hot and cold word hints about distance, and race the clock to reveal the needle before the shared daily puzzle resets.
Play Find The NeedleA fresh puzzle is waiting for you.
Find The Needle presents a flat field of straw in your browser with one hidden needle under a tile. You clear tiles by tapping; each tap counts as a try and paints a color word that indicates how close that tile was to the needle. The clock begins on your first sweep and stops when the needle becomes visible.
There are three sizes and difficulty modes: Easy (small field and precise hints), Normal (the daily field where words may sit slightly off), and Hard (a wide field where hints wobble more and some tiles hide wire). Each UTC date creates a single shared field; the puzzle number counts days since 1 January 2026. Results and progress are stored locally on your device.
How to play Find The Needle
- Drag or pan to move around the haystack and use the corner map on phones.
- Pinch to zoom on touch devices or use the mouse wheel on desktop to change zoom level.
- Tap or long-press a tile to sweep the straw and reveal the hint word and color for that tile.
- Use the color word to judge distance and sweep nearby tiles until the needle becomes visible, then copy or share your result if desired.
Tips for Find The Needle
- Start by searching in a loose grid while hints are Cold or Freezing to cover ground efficiently.
- When a tile turns Warm, narrow your search around that area rather than continuing a wide sweep.
- On Hard mode, check tiles surrounding any Hot tile because the wobble can misplace the strongest hint.
- Remember each tap counts as a try; minimize random taps by moving from Cold to Warm to Hot before zeroing in.
Find The Needle FAQ
Can I play free without a download?
Yes, the game runs in your browser with nothing to install and no payment required. The site explicitly says you can play free online with no download and no sign-up, so you can start playing immediately on a supported browser.
Is the daily puzzle the same for everyone?
Yes, the daily field is shared and seeded by the UTC date so everyone who opens that date gets the same haystack and needle. The page states each UTC date grows one shared field and the puzzle number is days since 1 January 2026.
What do the hint words mean?
Freezing means far, Cold means distant, Warm indicates the right area, Hot means close, and Burning means a neighboring tile may hide the needle. The page also cautions that on Normal and Hard the word can be slightly off and may wobble on harder modes.
How many guesses do I have?
Each tap on a tile counts as one try and the game records your try count; there is no stated fixed limit on taps. The clock starts at your first sweep and stops when the needle becomes visible, and your total tries are part of the result.
Does the site store my progress and results?
Yes, best times, your streak, games played, and your first daily result for each date are stored locally on your device. The site notes that records remain in local storage and that practice games do not affect the daily streak or first result.
Do you track me or use cookies?
No cookies or accounts are used, but the site logs game events with IP address, country, city, referrer, and browser language for improvement purposes. The page states there is no stored account or user id and mentions Cloudflare's cookie-free analytics are in use.
Does it work on mobile devices?
Yes, the game is playable on phones and includes mobile controls such as pinch-to-zoom and a corner map; the field on phones starts close enough to tap. The page describes touch gestures, a corner map for navigation, and explicit phone instructions.
Can I share or copy my result?
Yes, after finding the needle you can copy or share your result; the result shows puzzle number, time, try count, and one colored square per try. The site provides distinct daily and practice copy formats and explains the color mapping for result squares.
