# Daily trend guessing game Trend Guess is a free trend guessing game with a new daily challenge. Each UTC day it gives you five charts built from real-world data. The chart shows the years we know and hides the next stretch. Your job is to draw the missing line before the real data appears. A round takes about three minutes. There is no account and no leaderboard. The point is to read the shape of the data: direction, pace, turning points, and the scale of the chart. After you submit, you see the real curve, your score, the year you missed most, and the source behind the series. It is for anyone who likes a short daily puzzle and wants to get better at reading charts. You do not need a statistics background. If you can compare a line with the axes, you can play. Teachers and data-curious teams can use a round as a warm-up, but the game is not a course and does not claim to teach forecasting. Free Play uses the same question pool but does not change the daily five. Use it to warm up, try a category you missed, or keep playing after the daily result is saved. Canonical page: ## How to play the daily trend guessing game 1. Read the known years on the chart. 2. Draw the hidden years with the pointer, the year stepper, or the arrow keys. 3. Submit when every hidden year has a value. 4. See the real curve, your score, the biggest miss, and the source. The line starts at the last known value. You can drag it or use the keyboard to adjust each year. ## How scoring works Each question is scored from 0 to 1,000. The closer your line is to the hidden values, the higher the score. The formula is: `1000 × e^(−3 × normalized error)` Normalization compares your miss with the range of the visible data, so a five-point miss on a 0–100 chart is treated differently from a five-point miss on a 0–1,000 chart. A perfect line scores 1,000; a line that is far off approaches 0. Five questions make a total out of 5,000. You must set every hidden year before submitting. The reveal shows the actual values and the largest miss, not just a score. ## Where the trend data comes from Questions are built from public datasets, not generated numbers. The current pool includes: - Energy and electricity series from [Our World in Data](https://ourworldindata.org/). - U.S. baby-name shares from the [Social Security Administration](https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/). - Phrase frequencies from [Google Books Ngram Viewer](https://books.google.com/ngrams/). - Historical NBA team strength from [FiveThirtyEight's Elo dataset](https://github.com/fivethirtyeight/data/tree/master/nba-elo). Every question keeps its unit, year range, and source. After you submit, the reveal links to the source and explains what the series measures. Some archives end before today; those questions use the years that are actually available. This is a game about reading the past, not a live forecast or a market prediction. The current pool spans three categories: - **Culture** — book-language frequencies and NBA team strength. - **Demographics** — U.S. baby-name shares. - **Tech** — energy and electricity mixes. Categories are labels for orientation, not a promise that every chart fits one theme neatly. ## How to read a trend line Start with the last known point. Ask whether the line is rising, falling, or flat, and how steep the recent slope is. Then check the chart's scale: a move that looks large can be small in the data's units. - **Match the direction first.** A line that continues the recent slope is often closer than a dramatic reversal. - **Use the visible range.** If the known values stay between 20 and 30, a guess of 200 is almost certainly outside the chart's world. - **Expect noise, not a perfect curve.** Real series have one-off years, revisions, and changes in definition. - **Treat a turning point as a claim.** Only predict a sharp change when the visible data gives you a reason. ## A new challenge every day at 00:00 UTC The daily set changes at 00:00 UTC. Everyone who opens the same UTC date gets the same five questions in the same order. Your progress is stored in this browser, so a refresh returns you to the same question or result. Free Play draws another question from the pool after the daily five. Results can be shared as a link. The link contains the date, challenge number, and five scores only; it does not contain answers, sources, or explanations. ## How the daily five are chosen The daily trend guessing game uses a curated question pool rather than scraping live. Each day's set aims for a mix of categories and readable charts. The import validator checks the data shape and requires enough points for a complete hidden run; it does not filter out every flat line, so some charts move very little. When the pool is smaller than the schedule, the game reuses the questions that have gone longest without appearing. Each question records its unit, hidden run, and explanation. Some series are noisy or contain structural breaks; the reveal explains what the series measures rather than implying a single cause. New questions can be added in batches, and future dates can be re-scheduled without changing past results. ## What the score does not measure Trend Guess is a game of estimation, not a test of forecasting ability. A high score means your line was close to one historical series on one day; it does not mean you can predict markets, elections, or the next data release. A low score can come from one unusual year or a chart with a sharp change. There is no leaderboard, no account, and no prize. The score is feedback for the next round, and the reveal shows you how the series actually moved. ## Daily trend guessing game FAQ ### What is Trend Guess? Trend Guess is a free daily trend guessing game about reading a real-world trend and drawing the missing years on a chart. ### How do you play Trend Guess? Each challenge has five questions. Drag across the hidden years on the chart, submit your line, and see the real curve and a score out of 1,000. ### When does the daily challenge reset? At 00:00 UTC. Every player sees the same five questions for the same UTC date. ### Do I need an account to play? No. Trend Guess is free, requires no sign-up, and keeps your progress in this browser. ## More - [llms.txt](https://extraplot.online/llms.txt) — short context for AI systems. - [llms-full.txt](https://extraplot.online/llms-full.txt) — expanded context. - [facts.json](https://extraplot.online/facts.json) — machine-readable facts. - [sitemap.xml](https://extraplot.online/sitemap.xml) — canonical URLs. - [robots.txt](https://extraplot.online/robots.txt) — crawl rules. Page updated November 10, 2026.