How to play

Every day there is one puzzle with twelve words and two secret categories. Your job is to work out what the categories are, then sort the words into three zones.

1. Only one side. Four words fit just one category.
2. Only the other side. Four words fit just the other category.
3. Both. Four sneaky words fit both categories. These are your best clues.

A quick example

Say the words are March, Alice, April, May, Bob, June, July, Emma, August, October, Tom, December. Names like Alice, Bob, Emma and Tom are clearly first names. March, July, October and December are clearly months. But April, May, June and August are both, so they go in the middle.

Sides don't matter

It makes no difference which category goes on the left and which on the right. Put all the months on the right and all the names on the left and it is just as correct. Only the words you place inconsistently count as wrong.

Checking your work

Press Check once all twelve words are placed. You will be told how many words sit in the right place, but never which ones. A wrong Check costs a heart. The Hint button reveals one category name, and also costs a heart.

The clock

There is no time limit, and the clock never costs you a heart. It only affects your score: the faster you solve, the more points you keep. Hearts are lost only by wrong Checks and hints, and running out of hearts ends the puzzle.

Scoring

A solve starts at 1000 points. You lose 2 points per second (for up to 5 minutes) and 150 for every wrong Check or hint. Any solve is worth at least 50, and a loss scores 0.

Every day

A new puzzle appears at midnight UTC, and everyone gets the same one. You can play it once. When you finish, share your score. The share never includes the words or categories, so friends can still play fresh.

About Overlap

Overlap is a small daily word puzzle built around one idea: the fun is in figuring out the categories, not just sorting the words. Some words belong to one category, some to the other, and a few belong to both, which is where the puzzle gets slippery.

Privacy

Overlap keeps things simple.

• Your progress stays on your device. Today's puzzle state and your stats (games played, wins, best score, streak) are saved in your browser's local storage. Clearing your browser data removes them.
• No ads, no analytics, no tracking cookies. This page does not load advertising or analytics scripts.
• Fonts. The handwritten fonts are loaded from Google Fonts, which means Google's servers see a normal font request from your browser.
• Leaderboard. When you finish a puzzle, your score, time and the name you chose (or "Anonymous") are sent to this site and shown on the daily leaderboard. Your browser also keeps a random anonymous ID so your score is counted once per day. There are no accounts, and you can leave the name blank.
• Sharing. The share button only copies or sends the text you see in the preview.