The daily nerdle
How to play Nerdle
Nerdle is the daily number puzzle on Playabl: hidden behind six guesses is an eight-character arithmetic equation, something like a sum, a difference, or a product that resolves to a whole number. You crack it the way you'd crack a Wordle, except your raw material is the digits 0-9, the operators plus, minus and times, and a single equals sign. Sign in with Google and you get the same equation as everyone else, fresh each day.
Try it free
A full sample — no sign-in, no score kept.
Nerdle
Guess the equation in 6 tries
The rules
- 01Guess the 8-character equation in 6 tries.
- 02Use digits and + − × with one =.
Example — 12+34=46
- Right spot
- In equation, wrong spot
- Not used
Why play
Most word games reward vocabulary; Nerdle rewards a feel for arithmetic, and that makes it a different muscle to stretch each morning. Because the answer is generated by rule from the date, every player on Playabl is staring at the identical equation, so the bragging rights are real and the weekly leaderboard is honest. It is short by design — six lines, a couple of minutes — but the deduction underneath is satisfyingly tight: every clue narrows the arithmetic, not just the spelling. Miss today and yesterday's equation is still playable for half points.
Tips & strategy
- Open with a guess that uses lots of distinct characters and at least two operators, like a long sum, so a single line tests several digits and tells you which operators even appear.
- The equals sign sits in only one of a few positions; once a coral tile pins its column, treat it as fixed scaffolding and stop reshuffling it — build every later guess around that locked anchor.
- Remember the engine uses real order of operations: in a guess like 9+3x4 the times happens first, so the line equals 21, not 48 — mismatch that and the board rejects your guess before you ever see colours.
- Every guess you type must itself balance as a true equation, so use that constraint to your advantage — if a candidate doesn't actually compute, it can't be the answer, and you can rule it out without spending a line on it.
- A blue tile means that digit or operator is in the equation but you've put it on the wrong side or wrong column — often it just needs to move across the equals sign, since the same digit frequently appears in both the working and the result.
FAQ
- Is Nerdle hard if I'm not a maths person?
- It leans on mental arithmetic with two-digit numbers, not advanced maths — addition, subtraction and multiplication are all you need. The trickiest habit to build is respecting order of operations, since times is resolved before plus and minus.
- How is Playabl's Nerdle different from regular Wordle?
- Instead of a five-letter word you're guessing an eight-character equation, and crucially every guess must be a valid balanced equation, not just any string of symbols. The colour feedback works the same way: coral for right character right spot, blue for right character wrong spot.
- What characters can I use in a guess?
- Digits 0-9, the operators plus, minus and times, and exactly one equals sign — eight characters in total. Division isn't used on the daily board, and the right side of the equals must be a plain whole number.
- Is Playabl's Nerdle free to play?
- Yes. Sign in with Google, pick a display name, and you can play Nerdle plus the six other daily puzzles at no cost. Everyone gets the same seven puzzles each day.
- How does scoring work?
- Solving in fewer guesses scores more, and points feed a weekly leaderboard reset each ISO week alongside lifetime stats. Today's equation is worth full points; yesterday's is still playable for half.
Seven puzzles a day, the same for everyone, scored, with a weekly champion.