I’ve been working on a daily word game for awhile now, and I settled on something that has a spiritual connection to Zendo and Eleusis: “there’s a hidden rule, figure it out from evidence.”

It’s called Surmise. Each day there’s a hidden rule. You’re shown two similar words, and told that one of them is ‘in’ while the other is ‘out.’ You probe by presenting your own words, predict IN or OUT before each one, then declare when you’re confident that you’ve figured out the hidden rule. The game then gives you a five-word test. If you correctly categorize all five as in or out based on the hidden rule, you win. If not, you lose.

When you finish, you get a result you can share, similar to Wordle, without spoiling the rule for others:

SURMISE · practice 🟩🟩🟨🟨🟩 Solved in 5 REGRET was in. REGGAE was out. Why? www.playsurmise.com

It’s free to play in the browser, no install required.

Here’s a quick example round. First, the game shows an IN/OUT word pair, and asks the player to start probing.

Here, the player has made several guesses, and is about to declare that they know the rule and are ready to take the test.

Now the player has correctly categorized all five items on the test. They’ve won!

It’s still early, but initial feedback has been good. I would love it if a few of you would give the game a try and let me know your thoughts. I’m mainly hoping to learn your thoughts on:

Does the induction loop feel satisfying and fair, or does it lean too much on guessing? Are there rules or mechanics that feel off to you? Any bugs or confusing moments you run into. Anything else you’d like to share.