The games
Sojourner is a game of geography. Five places a day, an unlabelled globe, and a story for every place you find — each one checked against a museum, a university or a library, and linked so you can read the original.
Word Chain is a word puzzle. Eight words, every neighbouring pair a compound, first letters only, and the clock is the score.
How it works
Everything is one page in your browser. There is no app to install, nothing to download, and no account needed to play — open a game and it starts. Your scores and settings live in your own browser until you decide otherwise.
An account is optional and does three things a single browser cannot: it keeps your streak when you change phone, it syncs your laptop and your phone, and it lets you compare a day with a friend. Signing in is a six-digit code by email, or Google if you prefer. There are no passwords on this site, which is the most reliable way of never leaking one.
The day rolls over at midnight UTC, the same instant for every player everywhere, so nobody's "today" is anybody else's yesterday.
What this site does not do
- No advertising, and no advertising network.
- No analytics, no tag manager, no session recording, no tracking pixels.
- No global leaderboard. Boards are friends-only, on purpose — the privacy page explains why.
- No selling or sharing of personal information. There is one email address per account and it never goes anywhere.
- No consent banner, because there is nothing to consent to.
Word Chain takes submissions
If you make a chain you are pleased with, you can submit it. Accepted chains are published as daily or practice puzzles, credited to you if you want the credit. What happens to a submission is set out in the terms.
Who makes it
PlaySapien is made by [your name or business name]. It is a small project, run by [a person / a few people — say which], and it is paid for out of pocket rather than by advertising.
Corrections, bug reports, a place that deserves to be in Sojourner, or a chain that deserves to be in Word Chain: [your contact email]. Mistakes get fixed.
Credits
Sojourner's map is built from Natural Earth, public domain. Flags come from public-domain sources. Facts are summarised from institutional sources and linked back to them. Typefaces are Fraunces, Public Sans and IBM Plex Mono, all open licensed. The site is hosted on Cloudflare.