Player guide

How to play SIXY

Find one hidden six-letter word in six guesses. Every submitted word gives you color clues, including a special pink hint for repeated letters.

The goal

Enter a valid six-letter word and submit it. The six tiles then show how your letters compare with the day’s answer. Use that information to narrow the possibilities and solve the word before the sixth row is used.

There is one shared puzzle each day. A new puzzle begins at midnight in your local time zone, and the puzzle number makes it easy to compare results without revealing the answer.

Read the tile clues

Green: the letter is correct and already in the correct position.
Yellow: the letter occurs in the answer but belongs in a different position.
Gray: that copy is not used by the answer after exact and misplaced copies have been counted.
Pink: the answer still needs another copy of that letter. At most one pink badge appears per letter in a row, on its first matching tile, only when more copies are needed. Its +1 or +2 shows the total number of additional copies still needed.

A pink hint can sit on top of either green or yellow. The underlying color still tells you whether that particular copy is correctly placed; pink adds information about the total number of copies in the answer.

How the repeat-letter hint works

If your guess supplies one matching E and the answer contains three E’s, that tile receives +2: two more E copies are still needed.

If your guess supplies two matching O’s and the answer contains four O’s, the first matching O receives +2. The badge always shows the total number of additional copies still needed for that letter, rather than splitting the count across several tiles.

Once a new guess supplies the answer’s full quantity, pink disappears from that new row. Earlier rows keep the pink badges they originally earned, so the board remains an accurate history of the clues you saw. Pink never asks you to add a letter that the answer does not contain. See the repeat-letter guide for complete tile-by-tile examples.

Submitting guesses

Guesses must be recognized six-letter words. You can type with a physical keyboard or tap the on-screen keys. Press Enter to submit and use the hollow arrow key to remove the most recent letter. If a word is not recognized, the row recoils and remains available for another attempt.

The keyboard remembers the strongest information learned about each letter. Green takes priority over yellow, and letters confirmed absent are muted. The board itself remains the complete record when a letter appears more than once.

Streaks and sharing

Winning on consecutive local calendar days builds a streak on the same browser and device. No account is required. Clearing browser data, switching browsers, or moving to another device can reset that local history.

After a game, “Challenge Your Friends” creates a spoiler-free pattern showing the path to your solve. It does not include the answer. For help choosing stronger guesses, continue to the SIXY strategy guide.