The goal
The needle occupies a single tile. Straw covers every tile at the start, including the needle. A tap clears that one tile and paints it blue, cyan, yellow, orange, or red. You win when a tap opens the tile that hides the needle. Dragging only moves the view. The clock and the try count stop at the win. Open the game when you want to start, or the daily puzzle if you want today's shared field.
Moving the field
Drag with a finger or a mouse to pan. A move of more than a few pixels is a drag and does not sweep a tile. A smaller slip still counts as a tap, so move clearly when you mean to look around. Pinch with two fingers to zoom on a phone. Roll the mouse wheel to zoom on a desktop. The zoom stays centered on the point under your fingers or cursor. You can always zoom back out until the whole stack fits. On a phone the field starts close in, so a tile is large enough to hit. A map in the corner shows the whole field, the tiles you opened, and a box for the area on screen. Tap or drag that map to jump. It does not sweep a tile.
Uncovering straw
Tap a tile, or press and hold for about half a second, to sweep it. Each new tile is one try. A tile you already swept will not add another try and will not change the hint. A long press and a tap do the same job. Use the long press when a short tap keeps turning into a drag.
Reading the hints
After each new tile the page shows one word. The word is also colored, and a phone may vibrate if the browser allows vibration.
- Freezing, blue square in the share line. The needle is far from that tile.
- Cold, green square. Still distant. Keep a wide search.
- Warm, yellow square. You are in a useful part of the field.
- Hot, orange square. Check nearby tiles.
- Burning, red square. A neighboring tile may be the needle. On Easy this word matches the true distance. On Normal the word can be off by a small amount. On Hard it can be off by more.
Follow the tile colors and the words Warmer! and Colder. One Hint per game. It draws a rough circle, not the exact tile, and the button then stays off. If you used it, the share line includes a light bulb.
Difficulties
Easy is a small stack with no wire and an accurate word. Normal is the size used for the daily puzzle. The word can fib a little. Hard is a large stack. The word is fuzzier, and some tiles hide a bent scrap of wire. When you sweep wire, the page says it is wire, not the needle. The color word still points at the needle. Wire does not end the game.
The daily puzzle is always the Normal field for that UTC date. Easy and Hard are practice. They do not change the stored daily result or the streak. You can still set a personal best on each difficulty.
The daily result and the share line
Puzzle numbers start at 1 on 1 January 2026 UTC. That epoch is the only one the stamp, the heading, and the share line use. Only the first finished run of a date is the daily result. A later run can improve the best time stored on this device. Copy writes the time and the try count, then a row of squares, then an address. A daily result uses the daily page. A practice result uses the page you played. If you used Hint, the line includes a light bulb.
Needle #42 🪡 1:23 · 7 tries
🟦🟩🟨🟧🟥
Each square is one try, in order. Share opens the system share sheet when the browser has one. If Copy cannot use the clipboard, it tries that share sheet, then shows the result in a box you can select. If you are mid-search at UTC midnight, finish or load the new puzzle yourself. A search that has not started switches over on its own.
A few tips
While the word says Freezing or Cold, sweep in a loose grid so you map the field instead of scratching one corner. When it turns Warm, zoom in and work outward from that tile. On Hard, confirm a Hot tile with a second sweep nearby before you trust it. The find the needle game page is the same field if you want a shorter introduction, and the about page covers privacy.