How we keep your records

Stage records in this browser

Your marks, solving time, hint count, and completion status for each stage are kept in your browser’s local storage. Clearing your browser data removes these records, and they don’t sync to other devices automatically.

Daily challenge and races

The server tells players apart with a random session cookie and assigns an auto-generated nickname. It keeps your marks, start time, and completion record for the day. The ranking shows your nickname and finishing time. Ranking records are kept for the last 30 days, and unfinished challenges for that day only. The session cookie lasts up to one year.

Race rooms and marks are managed in server memory and disappear 2 hours after the room is created or when the server restarts. The room code for returning after a refresh is kept in the current tab’s session storage.

To keep the daily ranking fair, the IP address at the moment you finish is mixed with a random value used only for that day and kept as a short, irreversible hash. The raw IP is never stored, and the random value is deleted when the day changes, so older hashes can no longer be linked to an IP. Only one record per network (a home router, school, office, and so on) enters the ranking each day; the others stay as personal records. Records finished faster than a person can mark cells are labelled “Not verified · personal record” and left out of the ranking.

Visit analytics

Google Analytics 4 is used to analyze visits to public pages, only on gamenow.us and its subdomains. Names, nicknames, puzzle marks, game records, room codes, and invite tokens are never sent as analytics data. Analytics doesn’t start on URLs with a query or hash, and is disabled in browsers with DNT or GPC turned on.

Analytics covers the game home, How to play, History, Competitions, and this page. The session cookie needed for online races and optional visit analytics are separate features.