Using the site
Play as much as you like. Every game’s daily puzzle is free, and none of them needs an account. An optional paid subscription, Sapien, adds more, and nothing on this site will ever charge you unless you choose to subscribe. We ask only that you do not attempt to break, overload or disrupt the site, that you do not use automated means to hammer it, and that you do not try to reach other people's accounts or data.
Using the site means accepting these terms. If you do not accept them, do not use it.
Accounts
An account is optional and free. A Sapien subscription is optional too.
To have an account you must be 13 or older and give an email address you actually control, because that address is the only way back in if you lose your device.
You are responsible for what happens under your account and for the security of the mailbox that can sign in to it. If you think someone else has access, sign out and write to us at info@playsapien.com, and we will end every session on the account.
You may delete your account at any time from your profile; what that removes is set out in the privacy policy. We may suspend or remove an account that is being used to abuse the site, to harass someone, or to submit prohibited content — see below.
Sapien: price, renewal, cancellation and refunds
Price. Sapien costs $2 a month, billed annually: $24 a year, plus any sales tax or VAT that applies where you live. What it includes is described on the Sapien page.
Who you pay. Our order process is conducted by our online reseller, Paddle.com. Paddle is the Merchant of Record for all our orders: it takes the payment, collects any tax, issues receipts and handles refunds, under its own buyer terms, which you will see at checkout.
Renewal. A subscription renews automatically each year, at the price then shown on the Sapien page, until you cancel. A change of price will be announced before it applies to a renewal.
Cancellation and refunds. You can cancel at any time from your Profile or by writing to us. You are refunded every whole month of the current year you have not used, with a two-day grace period, as set out in the refund policy. Your Sapien access ends when you cancel.
Free trial. The first time an email address signs up for Sapien it gets two days free, with no payment details; it then returns to Free unless you subscribe. One free trial per email address.
Promotion codes. Sapien can also be granted for a limited time by a promotion code: that access ends on the date the code states, a code can be used once per account, and a code can be withdrawn before it is used.
Scores, rankings and leaderboards
What counts. Your first result in a game on a given day is that day’s result. A past day played later (a Sapien feature) counts for your own record only, not for that day’s rankings or your streak. A Word Chain time set while offline counts for your own record, but times are ranked only for games played online.
How results are checked. Your moves are saved as you play, and a result counts in rankings and on leaderboards only once our server has checked it against the moves that produced it. A result the moves do not support does not count.
How you compare. A day’s result is compared with everyone else who played that game that day, as the share of players you finished ahead of. In any group of fewer than 20 players — a small friend group, or a quiet day — you see your rank instead (“2nd of 5”). The day’s figures are provisional until midnight UTC, while people are still playing.
Leaderboards are public by default. Your results can appear on leaderboards that every player can see, beside your display name and avatar — never your email address. You can change this to friends only, or off, from your Profile; the privacy policy sets out what each setting does. Leaderboards are not live yet, and that setting will be on your Profile before the first one is.
Fair play. Do not try to post a result you did not earn. We may recalculate, correct or remove results and streaks that are clearly not real. Streaks are a number about a game, not a possession, and nothing here is a promise that any particular number will survive a bug, a migration or an outage — though we will try.
Things you submit
Sapien members can make puzzles of their own — today, that means Word Chain chains — and submit them, with an optional credit line. Two things follow from that.
You keep it, and you let us use it. You keep whatever rights you have in what you submit. By submitting it you give us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to store it, review it, edit it for length or clarity, publish it as a daily or practice puzzle, and show it alongside your credit. You can ask us to withdraw an unpublished submission at any time; a chain already published as a puzzle stays in the archive, because removing it would break days other people have already played.
It has to be yours to give. Do not submit anything you do not have the right to submit, and do not submit anything hateful, sexual, harassing, threatening, or aimed at a real person. Submissions are reviewed automatically and, where needed, by a person. A rejected submission for a safety reason is logged; the privacy policy explains what that log keeps and for how long. Repeated abuse ends in the account being blocked from submitting.
We are under no obligation to publish any submission, and we do not have to explain a rejection.
What belongs to whom
The games — their code, their design, their writing, the way the globe behaves, the way the chain resolves — belong to PlaySapien. You may share screenshots, score cards and links freely; that is what they are for. Republishing a game itself, or a substantial part of one, needs permission.
Sojourner's map is built from Natural Earth, which is in the public domain. Flags are drawn from public-domain sources. Several United States state flags have been altered to paint out lettering that would give the answer away; they are not accurate reproductions and should not be used as such.
Each fact in Sojourner cites the source it came from, and those sources belong to their authors. The facts are summarised in our own words and linked back so you can read the original.
Accuracy
Every fact in Sojourner has been checked against an institutional source, and every source is linked. Even so, these are games and not reference works: borders shown are cartographic conveniences drawn from one public dataset, not a statement about any territorial dispute, and mistakes are possible. Word Chain's judgements about what counts as a compound come from a lexicon and, sometimes, a language model; both are occasionally wrong. If you find a mistake, please say so — it will be fixed.
Availability
PlaySapien is offered as it is. It may be unavailable, it may change, games may be added or retired, and the whole thing may one day stop. We will give notice before deliberately shutting an account service down, and where we can we will let you take your data with you. We do not promise uptime.
No warranty, and limits on liability
The site is provided without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose or non-infringement. To the fullest extent the law allows, PlaySapien is not liable for any indirect, incidental or consequential loss arising from using the site or from being unable to use it. Nothing here limits liability that cannot lawfully be limited.
Changes to these terms
These terms may change as the site does. The date at the top shows the current version, and a material change will be announced on the site before it takes effect. Continuing to play after a change means accepting it.
Governing law
These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Georgia, United States, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules, and the state and federal courts located in Georgia have exclusive jurisdiction — except where the law where you live gives you the right to bring a claim locally, in which case it does.
Contact
PlaySapien · Georgia, United States