Slot (Mind Loft)

About Slot (Mind Loft)

Slot is a blind ranking game on Mind Loft, a free site of daily browser games. Each day picks ten real things on one hard numeric scale, such as countries by population, films by running time or metals by density. On the day we looked it was US cities by population, with slot 1 for the most people and slot 10 for the fewest.

The items come one at a time. You must put each one in an empty slot before you see the next, and a placement locks the moment you tap it. The tenth item goes in whatever slot is left. At the end, the reveal shows the true order beside yours, with the real figures.

The score is the number of exact placements out of ten. Every board has a par, what a sensible player averages given the order in which that day's items arrive; it was 4 on the day we looked. The order of arrival is what makes a board hard. Dealt the extremes first, ten items almost place themselves; dealt the middle first, most boards break around slot five. The week gets harder from Monday to Saturday, and the Sunday Edition has twelve slots.

Everyone gets the same items in the same order, and the leaderboard ranks exact placements, then near misses, then time. A new board goes up at midnight US Eastern Time. Mind Loft's Listed is the full-information version, with all eight items shown at once.

How to play Slot (Mind Loft)

1. Open mindloftdaily.com/slot and press Start to see the scale and the first item.
2. Decide where the item falls on the scale and tap an open slot, or press a number key.
3. The placement locks at once; the next item then appears.
4. Place all ten; the last one takes the remaining slot.
5. See the true order and figures, with your exact placements counted against par.

Screenshots

Tips

• Keep the end slots free for items that could be extremes; an early middling item belongs near the middle.
• Think about how many of the remaining items are likely to fall above and below the one in hand.
• Leave gaps around uncertain placements so later items have room.
• Use the number keys for speed: 1 to 9 and 0 for slot ten.

Questions