Now play all old Engaging Data Digits puzzles plus 120 archived Digits puzzles from the New York Times
You can still play the NYT Digits Game
Missing the NYT Digits game? You can still play (or replay) the old puzzles here.
On August 8th, 2023, the New York Times ended the beta for their Digits math game and the game is no longer playable. The game ran from April 10th to August 8th and there were 120 different daily puzzles during that time.
Twitter user @Digits_Analysis had compiled a list of each of the five daily puzzles during that entire time period (600 puzzles total) and generously provided them to me. Since I already coded up a Digits replacement with daily puzzles, I figured I could adapt that code fairly easily to make a version where you could play old puzzles. The first 120 puzzles are the original NY Times puzzles and subsequent puzzles are the collection of new daily puzzles.
Rules
The rules for Digits are relatively simple just like in the NYT version. Each day’s puzzle has 5 individual puzzles to complete. Every puzzle has a target number and 6 individual starting numbers that you must use in mathematical calculations to try and create the target number. Each of the 6 numbers can only be used once but the answer to a given math calculation becomes a new number to use.
Once you finish one puzzle, you can use the tabs at the top to move to another puzzle.
Scoring
You get up to 3 stars for each puzzle:
3 stars if you match the target
2 stars if your number is within 10 of the target
1 star if your number is within 25 of the target
Other
Auto-Advance – Click on the gear to toggle on and off “auto-advance”. When enabled, the game will cue up the next puzzle if you hit the target.
Chainmode – Click on the gear to toggle on and off “chainmode”. When enabled, it will automatically highlight the answer from the previous calculation to be the first number in the new calculation.
Share – Share your Digits stars on social media using the share button, which will copy your results to your clipboard. It will share a link to the specific puzzle you are on.
# button – clicking the # button lets you see the total number of possible solutions as well as the fewest and most operations that can yield a solution. This can bring an extra element of challenge to the game. See if you can achieve the shortest solution and then try again to achieve the longest solution. Clicking on the buttons reveals one of the solutions that have the fewest and most number of operations.
Tracking your plays – Digits archive will keep track of your stars for all of 120 daily puzzles. Given that there are 120 old Digits puzzles to play, it may take folks many days, weeks or even months to go through these puzzles. One issue is that on the Safari browser on Macs and iOS devices, the data storage used to track your progress through these puzzles may be deleted if you don’t play the game for 7 days. The browser does this for privacy concerns. Just be aware that your data could be deleted by the browser if you are using Safari and don’t play at least once for 7 straight days. This shouldn’t be a problem for other browsers.
Hopefully you’ll find this enjoy playing the old NYTimes Digits math game and find it a fun and interesting way to improve your mathematical thinking. Let me know if you find any bugs or have any suggestions.
Tools
Python code was used to generate the puzzles and the game play and visuals were created in javascript, CSS and HTML. The New York Times Digits puzzle data was obtained from @Digits_Analysis
12 Comments »
12 Responses to NY Times Digits Archive
Thank you so much for making this! I missed Digits so much, so I really appreciate you recreating the game, and bringing in the archive AND making new puzzles!! Makes me very happy 🙂
Would it be possible to create a button that resets your star scores after you complete all of them? I play these to relax a bit, and I had solved every one of the NYT puzzles three times before you put the new ones up too. Currently, the only way to reset them is to visit each puzzle one at a time and hit “Back” on each puzzle until they’re clear. Even a button that resets one day at a time would be helpful.
Thank you!!! Thank you for making this available. I’m extremely grateful.
Now, I don’t know if I’m missing something, but why aren’t the puzzles you created after NYT stopped available in the archive? That would be a great improvement. If I missed and it’s already there, sorry.
These new digits puzzles are there now. Every puzzle in the drop down list after the first 120 are the new Digits puzzles.
Thank you so much for doing this. I deeply enjoy these puzzles.
There’s a British game show, Countdown, that has guests (all celebs) do these in real time.
That show’s “Vanna White” is a woman called Rachel Riley, and she’s not only attractive and funny but she is a math genius who can almost always solve faster than the guests, and in fewer steps. She’s also already an MBE.
You can see clips on YouTube.
Thanks again
I just came across this. Thank you so much for bringing this wonderful game back. I had missed it sorely!
Thanks so, so much for providing this game for us!
I was so disappointed to see NYT get rid of it (especially when they have kept Connections…blah. poorly executed).
The fact you also offer a way to see how to solve it with the least vs. most steps is so helpful! I’ve never been great at math, so having an opportunity to brush up on my basic “quick skills math” is much appreciated.
how do i get the game to move to the next sum after i completed one? i clicked on auto-advance, but nothing happens.
Nice touch, the nyt archives. But it seems like not a single solution hint in this archive is using the actual given numbers. Take day 1 first one or any other, try to reveal the solution in min or max moves, then get more puzzled than before.
I was struggling to find day 1 second one (total 168) in two moves, virtually impossible with 3 5 7 9 11 25, I gave up and then the solution hinted me to use right off a 15 that just isn’t there. Picture me confused.
thanks for the feedback. My code for creating the solutions had a bug in it so it used the wrong numbers. Anyway, it should be fixed now.
Hi,
Thanks for adding the archive, it gives me a chance to go back and play many of the puzzles I missed.
(although a part of me wishes that you hadn’t because the completionist in me will want to plough through the whole thing now)
I don’t know if it’s the same throughout, but I noticed an issue with the first couple of puzzles, the solutions are incorrect and utilise numbers not in the puzzles (and subsequently make some of the shortest solution numbers inaccurate).
This does free me from the self imposed additional challenge of completing puzzles in the fewest possible steps, because I don’t know that, so there is an upside…
thanks for the feedback. My code for creating the solutions had a bug in it so it used the wrong numbers. Anyway, it should be fixed now.