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Higher or Lower

Higher or Lower?

One subject shows its number. The other hides it. Say whether the hidden one is higher or lower, and the chain continues. Get it wrong and the run is over.

The same twenty questions for everyone in the world today.

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Your record

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How far you get

Play a chain and your record appears here.

Kept on this device only. Nothing is sent anywhere.

How it works

  1. Read the pair

    The left card shows a subject and its number. The right card shows a subject with the number hidden. Both are measuring the same thing.

  2. Higher or lower

    Say whether the hidden number is above or below the one you can see. Right, and the hidden card slides across and becomes the known one.

  3. Keep the chain alive

    One wrong answer ends the run. The daily chain is twenty links long and is the same for everyone, so a streak is worth comparing.

Why you never get a coin-flip question

Every figure here is a dated snapshot, and some of them move. So two subjects are only ever paired if their numbers are far enough apart that the snapshot cannot be on the wrong side of the truth. Summit heights can be asked two percent apart; follower counts need thirty-five. The gap starts wide and narrows as your streak grows, which is where the difficulty comes from.

Where the numbers come from

Every subject carries a published figure, the month it was recorded and a link to the source, all shown the moment you answer. Nothing is estimated and nothing is scraped from a page that will not say where it got it.

There is no Google-searches deck, and that is deliberate: Google does not publish absolute search volumes for anything. Wikipedia pageviews are published exactly, by Wikimedia, and measure very nearly the same thing — what the world actually looked up.

Questions

Is the daily chain the same for everyone?

Yes. It is derived from the date, with no server handing it out, so every player in the world gets the same chain on the same day. Dates are UTC so two people in different time zones are never on different chains while both calling it today.

Why is there no Google search deck?

Because Google does not publish the numbers. Trends gives a relative index from 0 to 100, not counts, and the keyword tools sell modelled estimates that disagree with each other by multiples. There would be no published figure to cite, so there would be no honest question to ask. Wikipedia pageviews are published exactly and measure very nearly the same thing.

What if a number has changed since you recorded it?

That is why pairs are never close. Each deck has a minimum gap set by how fast its numbers actually move, so a figure drifting between the snapshot and your game cannot flip the answer. If a pair would be closer than that gap, the game simply never offers it.

Can I look up the answer?

Yes, and we would rather you could. The whole deck is in the page, because a static site with no backend has nowhere else to put it. Nothing writes a hidden figure into the page until you have answered, but a determined player can always open the data file. The game is only worth playing if you do not.

Do my streaks go anywhere?

No. Everything is kept in your browser's local storage on this device. There is no account, no analytics on your play, and nothing is sent to a server — which also means clearing your browser data clears your record.

Does endless mode count?

It counts towards your best streak for that deck, but not towards your day streak. A daily counter you could farm by replaying would stop meaning anything.