A daily guessing game · iPhone beta
One guess a day. Can anyone beat chance?
Everyone guesses the same hidden four. Nobody picks the answer.
Each day a public randomness beacon draws four of six symbols, in an order nobody knows. You cast one guess before 15:45 UTC. At 16:00 UTC everyone sees the answer at once, and every score stands beside what chance would give.
The public link goes here as soon as Apple has reviewed the beta. It needs an iPhone with iOS 18 or later.
You vs the target
Target · hidden
Your guess
How a day works
One clock for everyone
The same moments everywhere. Your own time is under each one.
Place four symbols, each once, in the order you choose, and lock it in. You can move them around until you do. One cast per day.
A quarter hour of blackout follows, so nobody can agree on a guess at the last minute. Now the Collective’s guess shows: the symbol cast most at each position.
The answer comes from the beacon. You see your score, the Collective’s, and what chance gives. The next round opens in the same second.
What it measures
An open experiment
It tests one question, and it claims no answer.
Does anyone, alone or all together, do better than chance? Your score counts the positions you got right. Each of the four is a 1 in 6 chance, so pure guessing gets about one position in six right: 16.7%.
What chance does with one cast
Luck alone puts 14.2% of casts at 2 or better. All four is a rare trophy, never the measure.
Your bar
Your hit rate comes with a range. It is wide at first and narrows with every day you cast. Before 20 days there is no verdict, so a lucky start proves nothing.
The Collective
Everyone’s casts, pooled. Its guess is the symbol cast most at each position, scored the same way as yours, and the whole crowd is set beside chance.
When it is luck
The app says so. A pure guesser’s whole range clears the chance line about once in forty looks, and every result here is shown with that in mind.
Where the answer comes from
Nobody picks the answer
Not even us.
Each day’s answer is one round of drand, a public randomness beacon run by the League of Entropy: independent organisations that sign each round together. The clock decides which round: the one published at 16:00:00 UTC on the day of the reveal. Its value is fixed long before, and nobody can compute it until the members sign it in that second.
So the answer cannot be chosen, and nobody can know it early. Not the players, and not the people who run the app.
Recompute any day
- Take the drand quicknet round published at the reveal:
(reveal time in Unix seconds − 1692803367) ÷ 3 + 1. - Read its randomness, 64 hex digits, as one number, and take it modulo 360.
- That number, 0 to 359, picks one of the 360 ways to put four of the six symbols in order, counted in a fixed order with the symbols ranked Wave, Mountain, Candle, Seedling, Nest, Kite.
The app fetches the round from two independent relays and checks that they agree. Our server checks the beacon’s signature before it publishes the day’s result.
Chain: 52db9ba70e0cc0f6eaf7803dd07447a1f5477735fd3f661792ba94600c84e971
The six symbols
Six plain pictures
Drawn for this app. They stand for nothing, so none is a better guess.
Cast, wait, watch the reveal land. The day’s round, from first symbol to score.
Solo rounds against the same beacon, from one a minute to one every six seconds. Just for you, gone at midnight, and never counted.
Your hit rate beside chance, with its range, a week-by-week chart and your history.
Everyone’s positions since day one, set against chance with an honest range.
Questions people ask
Straight answers
Is Above Chance an ESP or precognition test?
It is a daily guessing game with honest maths. It does ask one question: does anyone, alone or all together, do better than chance? It claims no answer.
Most results look like chance, and when luck could explain a result, the app says so. If you came looking for proof of a sixth sense, this will not hand you one. It will show you your numbers next to what guessing gives.
How is it different from Wordle?
Wordle gives you clues and six tries. Here you get one guess and no clues, because the answer is random and there is nothing to work out.
What it shares with Wordle is the rhythm: one round a day, the same for everyone, and a card to share that spoils nothing.
What are the odds of guessing right?
Each of the four positions is a 1 in 6 chance, so luck alone gets about 16.7% of positions right. Half of all casts score 0. 14.2% score 2 or more. All four right is 1 in 360.
What does “above chance” mean?
Your hit rate is the share of positions you got right. It comes with a range that is wide at first and narrows with every day you cast. You are above chance when the whole range sits past the 16.7% that pure guessing gives.
There is no verdict before 20 days. Even then, a pure guesser lands there about once in forty looks, so it is a reason to keep watching, not proof.
Who picks the answer?
Nobody, not even us. Each day’s answer is one round of drand, a public randomness beacon run by the League of Entropy, and the clock decides which round. Anyone can fetch the same round and recompute the four symbols.
What time is the reveal?
16:00 UTC every day, the same moment everywhere. Casting closes at 15:45 UTC, and the next round opens at the reveal. The app shows every time in your own time zone.
Is it free, and do I need an account?
The beta is free, with no ads and no account. The app makes a random number to keep your casts apart from everyone else’s. It is not your name, and it holds nothing about you or your phone. What the server keeps.
Is Above Chance on Android?
Not yet. The beta is for iPhone, with iOS 18 or later.
How do I join the beta?
Through TestFlight, Apple’s app for trying apps before they are on the App Store. The public link goes at the top of this page as soon as Apple has reviewed the beta.
One guess a day
The same four for everyone, a reveal at 16:00 UTC, and an honest count at the end.