The daily web: one Pyxis puzzle a day, the same for everyone

Pyxis has a daily puzzle now, and in Pyxis it is a daily web. Once a day a new web appears, every player gets the same one, and you untangle it against a clock. The cover shows the first week of them, Monday to Sunday, each as it started.

How the daily web works

Solve the first chapter, 20 levels, and a Daily puzzle button opens on the title screen.

• Every player has the same web on the same day.
• A new web arrives at 12:30 in the afternoon in India, which is midnight at UTC-7. That is when Play Games starts its new daily leaderboard, so the web and the leaderboard change together.
• The clock starts as the web appears. At the top you see Tangles, Moves and Time, and only the time is your score.
• There is no hint in the daily.
• Undo and restart are there, but the clock keeps going through them.
• If you leave the app, the clock stops, and it carries on from the same second when you come back.
• Your first clear of the day is the one that counts.

What the daily webs are like

A daily web holds only what the first chapter teaches: round knots and the strands between them. There are no square knots, no rails and no rings, so every knot can go anywhere you drag it.

The webs grow through the week. A Monday web has six or seven knots. By Sunday it has ten or eleven, with more strands between them, and a Sunday web can start with more than thirty tangles.

Two more things are true of every daily web. None of them is over in a single pull, since each one needs at least two moves. And none of them is a level from the game, or another day’s web in disguise, so you will not recognise one from somewhere else.

Clearing a web fast

In the levels, three stars ask you to clear a web within its goal. In the daily, moves are only counted, never scored, so a clear in eight quick moves beats one in five careful ones.

Start in the rust. Tangles show in rust, with a small diamond where two strands cross. The knot sitting in the middle of the most rust is often the one to pull first, and one good pull can clear a lot of a web at once.

Use the drag to look. Nothing counts until you let go. While you hold a knot, its strands stretch with it and the web recolours as you go, so you can see a crossing clear before you commit. In the daily this costs seconds but never a move, and a second spent looking is cheaper than an undo.

Give knots room. A knot sitting on a strand that is not its own is a tangle, and so are two knots crowding each other. When you are moving fast, drop knots into open space, not right beside another one.

Do the edges early. A knot with only one or two strands can usually go out to the side of the board, away from everything. Getting those out of the middle leaves the busy part of the web easier to read.

Restart only if you are lost. Undo takes back one move and leaves the rest of your progress. Restart puts every knot back where the web began, and the clock does not wait while you redo the good moves.

Pull a knot, let it go covers the rules and the three kinds of tangle in more detail.

Today’s leaderboard, and the rest of Play Games

The daily is where Play Games matters most in Pyxis. Sign in, and the first time you clear today’s web goes onto today’s leaderboard, fastest first. Because the web and the leaderboard change at the same moment, everyone on a day’s board has untangled exactly the same web.

If you are not signed in, the sheet suggests signing in to Play Games to see where you rank.

There is a second leaderboard for the longest daily streak. There are daily achievements as well: Daily habit for your first one, then Full week, Full month and Hundred days for streaks of 7, 30 and 100 days. Play Games also saves your progress to your Google account, so your levels, your stars and your daily calendar move with you to a new phone.

The share button sends your time and your streak to a friend, along with a link to the game. They get the same web that day, so it is a straight race.

The calendar and your streak

The Daily puzzle screen shows today’s web, your current streak, your best streak and how many days you have solved, with the month as a calendar below. At the bottom are buttons for all the leaderboards and achievements.

A day counts for your streak when you clear it on its own day. If you miss a day, a missed day from the last week can still be kept with a short video or a Streak keeper. Apsis’s daily post has a picture of how the streak counts, and it works the same way in every one of our games.

The calendar goes back to the very first daily web. Today’s web is always free, and a past day opens after a short video and then stays open. With the Supporter pack every past day is free. A past day’s time is saved, but it goes on no leaderboard and does not count for your streak.

A web a day

Clear the first chapter, then look for Daily puzzle on the title screen. There is more about Pyxis on its page.