How to play
One new puzzle every day. Here's how each mode works.
The daily puzzle
A new puzzle appears every day at midnight in your local time, and everyone plays the same one. The card at the top tells you the mode (Rank it, Top 1, Tier it, Match it, Name it or Quiz), gives the puzzle a headline, and says exactly what is being measured, for example "Average annual hours worked per worker" or "Arrests per 100,000 people". Read that line carefully: the measure, the unit and the year often decide the answer.
The day is one bundle, the same for everyone, with a weight of about 12. That weight is not the score. A quiz question weighs 1, Guess the number weighs 2, a Tier it weighs its number of tiers, and a Rank it, Top 1, or Top 5 weighs 5. Each part is scored as accuracy out of 100. The day's score is the weighted average of those accuracies, also out of 100. Guess the number accuracy is 100 when your guess matches and falls to 0 when the guess is about three times off: round(100 × max(0, 1 − ln(bigger/smaller) / ln(3))). The scheduled puzzle is Part 1. On a multiple-choice day each question is its own part. Other puzzles fill the middle, and the day ends on another Rank it when one fits without repeating. Parts are labeled Part 1 of N and sit in a slightly crooked pile. Finish a part and you get the old result: the jumping figures, the explanation, and the source, with one or two lines on how the crowd played and a Deeper dive for the full breakdown. A Next part button floats at the bottom right and does not sit on top of the source. The last part says See your score. That screen is the day's accuracy out of 100, how you compare with other players, and a line for each part. Challenge a friend is on that screen. Your streak stays on the scheduled puzzle. The fillers and the closing ranker never break it, and only the first finish of each part counts.
Rank it
You get five or six cards, each a country or a group, and the real values in a column beside them (highest at the top — a few puzzles are flipped and say so). Match each card to the right number. Drag the cards, or tap the ▲ and ▼ arrows, then press the white Lock it in button.
After each lock-in, cards in the right spot turn green and are pinned in place. Cards in the wrong spot turn red and shake. Rearrange the red ones and lock in again. You have five tries. Solve it in one or two tries for a celebration. Get every card wrong on the first try and the shout is a playful Ignorant!. Otherwise, miss every card on a country or demographic Rank it and you may see a cheeky Racist! or Xenophobe! flash. If you run out of tries, the correct order is revealed with every value, each item's rank among all countries in the source, and a short fact about the result.
Top 1
The question is which country is #1. Type a country. Suggestions match the name, and a few short aliases such as US, UK and Korea. A guess that is not a country in the list, or a repeat, does not cost a try.
Each guess shows that country's real rank, for example #7 of 120. Green is #1. Yellow is close (#2–#5). Orange is warm (#6–#15). Red is far off. You have five tries. Finding #1 wins, and so does any country that shares that top value: they all show as #1. A first try or a second try gets a celebration. If every guess was far off, you may see an Ignorant! flash. The answer shows the real top 5, with your guesses marked, plus the source and a fact.
Each wrong guess reveals one hint about the #1 country, getting more specific: continent, then population, income, the capital's first letter (or whether it has a coastline), then the first letter of the name. The rank stays on the guess.
Tier it
Tier it is for stats where several countries share the same value. The tier name sits beside the drop area, and the question says what it means. Drag a chip into an area, or tap a chip and then the area (several can share a tier). Lock it in: right tiers turn green and lock, wrong ones turn red. You get five tries. After you finish, the real percentage stays on each chip.
Name it
Name it asks for any country that satisfies two rules at once: a letter or word rule, and a stat rule. One example is a country starting with S whose Human Development Index is above the world average. Another is a range: starts with S, and its quality of life (HDI) is between Germany's and Spain's. The two named countries are the bounds, and the range does not include them. Type a country and pick it from the list (USA, Korea and the other usual aliases work). Any valid country wins. You get five tries. A guess that isn't a country, or a country you already tried, doesn't use a try. Each wrong guess gets one short line saying which rule it missed. On a range, that line says the guess is too high, too low, or breaks the letter rule. Miss every try and the shout is a playful Ignorant!. When you finish, every valid answer is shown as a flag chip, sorted by the stat, with your pick highlighted and the share of players who named that same country. A range also shows the two bounds and their values.
Quiz
Quiz is a short run of "which country?" questions, four flags each. Tap a country to highlight it, then press Lock it in. The right flag turns green, and one short fact says why. Then the next card. There is no second try. The score is out of the number of questions, and the share grid is one square per question. A perfect card counts as a win. Any finished quiz still counts for that day's streak, because the quiz is the main puzzle. Some days are a second or third quiz in a row.
Guess the number
One country shows its real value. Type your guess for a second country and lock it in. The score is out of 2: 2 points if your guess is within a quarter of the truth, then 1.5, 1, 0.5, and 0 as the miss gets larger. The true number and a one-line fact come up together.
Match it
Match it shows four to seven people or countries and the same number of clues. Each clue is a true, sourced fact about exactly one of them. Drag a clue onto a person, or tap a clue and then tap the person. When every clue is placed, press Lock it in. Right pairs turn green and lock, wrong pairs turn red, and you fix them and try again, up to five tries. The answer screen lists every pair with the fuller story and a link to its source.
Values, sources and caveats
Values are always shown: ranki.gg is about knowing which number belongs to which country, not about memorising the numbers. Every puzzle names its source and links to it on the answer screen, along with the year of the data. Some puzzles deal with sensitive subjects like crime, health, religion or politics. These carry a short caveat explaining what the numbers measure and what they don't (for example, that arrests are not convictions, or that a survey was self-reported). Some puzzles include a link to crisis support.
Practice
Practice deals a random puzzle from the full datasets behind the game, so you can keep playing after the daily. Each Practice puzzle is built on the spot from a real ranked list with the same rules as the daily puzzles: items are well spread out, so no two values are too close to call, and well-known countries are mixed in. Press 🎲 New for another one. Practice games don't count toward your stats or streak.
Archive and streaks
Missed a day? Every past daily puzzle is in the Archive, with a tick for the ones you've played, and that day's Part 1 beside it. Archive days use the same two-part flow. Archive games are just for fun and don't change your streak. Your streak counts the days in a row on which you played the main daily puzzle on that day. Part 1 is not part of the streak. Your stats (games played, solved, current and best streak) and your progress are saved only in your browser on this device. Nothing is sent to us. You can wipe it all at any time in Settings → Your data → Clear all data.
Sharing
When you finish, press Challenge a friend to share your score and coloured squares with a challenge link, or Share this puzzle to send the puzzle on its own. A QR code at the bottom of the result opens your challenge.