One Streak Freeze a Month

A month can hold one quiet miss

Pathwords keeps a calendar streak for players who like a small mark that yesterday and today both had a finished board. The mark is optional. The board is the game. This note is about one rule on that mark. Each calendar month includes one automatic streak freeze, and that freeze covers a single missed day.

You don't press a button to spend it. You don't buy a second one. If the first miss of the month arrives, the freeze is applied for you, and the Stats page shows that it happened. A second miss in that same month breaks the streak. When the next month starts, another freeze is there for a miss inside the new month.

That's the rule. A separate note, A Daily Habit Without the Streak Trap, talks about why a counter should stay small and why skipping a loud day is allowed. This page doesn't replay that argument. It walks through what the freeze covers, what a second miss does, and what an old board in the archive cannot change.

What Pathwords is, in one pass

Pathwords at pathwords.co is a letter-path puzzle you play for enjoyment. You spell a word by moving through tiles that touch, in any of eight directions: up, down, left, right, and the four diagonals. A tile can't be reused inside one word. The same tile is free again for the next word.

Every board has a list of everyday words. Listed words score 2 points per letter. Those points move your rank through Start, Good, Great, Awesome, and Genius. Genius is 100% of the listed-word maximum. Other real words you find are bonus words. They score 1 point per letter in their own pot, count toward a fifth star, and never change Genius.

There are three sizes. Mini is a 3×3 board with a three-letter minimum. Classic is 4×4 with a four-letter minimum. Mega is 5×5, also with a four-letter minimum. The official daily is untimed. Everyone gets the same board that day, and it flips at your device's local midnight. There's no public leaderboard. Progress is saved in this browser only.

pathwords.co is published by Pathwords and is not ThinkFun PathWords, not pathwords.co.uk, and not other lookalike apps.

What the freeze does

The calendar streak follows official days you finish on the day they are official. The finish has to happen in this browser, for that mode. Today's Classic counts for the Classic streak when you finish today's Classic on the day it is today's board. Mini and Mega keep their own streaks the same way. A day you do not finish is a miss for that mode.

One automatic streak freeze per calendar month covers one of those misses. The freeze is not measured as a rolling thirty days, and you can't buy another one.

The first miss in the month doesn't break the streak. The freeze covers that day. The Stats page shows that the freeze was applied.

The second miss in that same month is past the cover. The streak breaks. A later sitting can begin again from the day you return. It doesn't reach backward and repair the second gap, and it doesn't borrow the next month's freeze to do it.

Each month stands on its own. You get one freeze in it. Next month you get another. You don't collect unused freezes into a stack, and you don't spend a token to keep the number alive.

The freeze covers the streak only. It doesn't fill in a score for a board you never finished. It doesn't grant a Genius rank, a star, or a list of words for the day you missed. Those belong to a sitting you actually play. The covered day is still a day you did not finish. The streak simply doesn't break on that one gap.

A made-up March

Here's a calendar example. It's invented for this note. It isn't a player's real history, and it isn't a live daily.

Picture a Classic streak in March. From Monday, March 2, through Wednesday, March 11, the player finishes the official Classic board on each of those days, on the day each board is official. Ten finished days, one mode, one browser. The streak is intact going into Thursday.

Thursday, March 12, is a miss. The player doesn't finish Thursday's Classic. That's the first miss of March. The March freeze covers Thursday. The streak holds. Nothing about Thursday has to be replayed for the cover to count, because the freeze is applied for that miss on its own.

Friday, March 13, they finish Friday's official Classic. The streak is still going. The only miss so far was Thursday, the day the freeze covered.

The month stays quiet until Saturday, March 21. Saturday is a second miss. Classic is not finished on the day it is official. March's freeze was already used on the 12th, so Saturday isn't covered. The streak breaks on that second miss.

Sunday, March 22, they come back and finish that day's Classic. The Sunday board can start a new run from Sunday. It doesn't erase Saturday. It doesn't reopen Thursday's freeze. April's freeze isn't available yet, because April hasn't started.

One covered Thursday. One uncovered Saturday. Sunday starts a new run and doesn't repair Saturday. That's the whole month for the freeze.

What the archive leaves alone

Past official boards stay in a free archive. Opening one is a normal way to play. Archive play is streak-neutral. It doesn't spend the calendar streak, and it doesn't extend it. It doesn't spend the monthly freeze, it doesn't earn an extra freeze, and it doesn't count as finishing today's official board.

Take the made-up March again.

On Friday, March 13, suppose the player feels like last month's Mega and opens that old board from the archive. The Mega is a real puzzle, and it is a fair evening. It is not Friday's official Classic. Friday's Classic is still unfinished until they finish Friday's Classic on Friday. The archive night didn't touch the freeze that covered Thursday, and it didn't make Friday count.

After Saturday breaks the streak, they might open both missed days from the archive on Sunday night. Thursday's board and Saturday's board are still there to play, each with its own sitting. Enjoying them doesn't put the Classic streak back together. The archive can't rescue a freeze you already used. It also can't spend one you haven't used. The two jobs stay apart. The archive is the shelf of past boards. The freeze is one cover inside the current month.

The other streak, in brief

Speed Streak uses the same word and tracks something else. Inside a single sitting, three quick finds in a row can light a short multiplier. That mark lives on the board you have open. A missed calendar day doesn't put it out, and lighting it doesn't spend the monthly freeze. The note on Speed Streak is the place for that in-sitting rule.

The day flips at local midnight

The official day follows your device's local midnight. Thursday's board is still Thursday at 11:40 p.m. At 12:10 a.m. the device has entered Friday. Thursday's board is no longer the official board of the moment. It has moved to the archive, and Friday's board is the one that can count for Friday.

If you finish Thursday's official board at 11:40 p.m., that finish belongs to Thursday. If you first open the site at 12:10 a.m. and play the board that was Thursday's, you are playing an archive board. That play doesn't finish Thursday on Thursday, and it doesn't finish Friday either, unless you also finish Friday's official board before Friday ends.

Where the month is stored

There's no Pathwords login on the web. Found words, scores, settings, and streaks live in this browser. The freeze lives with them. A second browser is a second save. A new phone doesn't inherit last month's streak. Clearing site data for pathwords.co clears the streak along with the rest of the local progress.

Skip when the day is loud

The freeze is there so one ordinary miss can stay ordinary. A Thursday with no board is allowed. If that Thursday is your first miss of the month, the freeze covers it and the streak holds. You don't have to reopen the site at 11:50 p.m. to protect the number. The cover is already the rule.

If you already used the freeze, a second skip breaks the streak. That break is still an ordinary month. You don't owe a make-up night, and you don't owe a string of archive boards as penance. Sunday's official board will be Sunday's board when you want it. The missed days will still be in the archive if you want them as puzzles.

Play Pathwords when the path sounds good. Leave it when the day is already full. The freeze covers one gap a month. It isn't a reason to open a board you don't want. Enjoyment is the reason to come back, on a day you pick, for a size that fits the time you have.

Open today's board

Play at pathwords.co. Pick Mini, Classic, or Mega. The official daily is untimed. If you miss one day this month, the freeze can cover that miss. If you miss a second, the streak breaks, and the puzzle is still there when you want it.

Published by Pathwords