Yeardle

Three things that happened in the same year are listed at the top of the page, and you have to name the year. There is a minus key on the keypad for BC dates, so a plausible answer can be four digits or three.

1. Read the three events. They are unrelated to each other except that they all happened in one particular year, and that year is the answer.
2. Punch the year into the keypad and press ENTER. The - (BC) key makes it a BC date.
3. Work out for yourself whether to go earlier or later, and try again. You get eight attempts.

The appeal is narrow and honest: it is a calibration exercise on the timeline of world history, and it lives or dies on whether you can date a named figure to within a few decades. Withholding the direction is what makes it unusual - most guess-the-number puzzles hand you higher-or-lower for free, and doing without it turns eight tries into an actual search problem rather than a bisection you can run on autopilot. That suits people who read history for pleasure. It suits nobody looking for a game that eases you in: all three clues land at once and there is no clue drip to rescue you.

The one nudge on offer sits above the keypad: a #gimmedirection link, which the game describes as more help on today's first guess. Nothing else points anywhere for you.

Daily

One year for everyone, with a new Yeardle every day at midnight.

Play a new game

A second board, reached from the Play a new game link under the keypad.

• The three events all come from the same year, and at least one of them usually carries a proper noun that pins the era hard - a named person, a city, a war. Read all three before guessing rather than anchoring on the first.
• The #gimmedirection link under the clues is the only extra help the game advertises, and it applies to today's first guess. It is worth taking when the era is a complete blank.