Altitude
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On the runway
plaingame.net
Score
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The daily number game
Name the closest number. Fly to space.
7 rounds · 30 seconds each · the closer you get, the higher your plane climbs.
How to play ↓Seven rounds · thirty seconds · one plane
Plain Game — The Daily Number Guessing Game
Plain Game is a free daily number guessing game where every answer is a number and every good guess lifts your plane higher. Each round gives you a target, such as a population, a height or a year, and you name the thing that comes closest or estimate a single number. There are seven rounds of thirty seconds and no sign-up. Play the daily Plain Game with everyone else, or keep flying in Unlimited mode. Fans of playplain and other estimation games will feel right at home.
✈ Play Plain Game nowHow to Play the Plain Game
A Plain Game flight has seven rounds, and every round is one of two kinds. You can play the whole game with a keyboard or with your thumbs.
1 Read the target number
Most Plain Game rounds show a big number and a category, like a country with a GDP of $6,200 per person or a mountain 2,000 m high. Your job is to name a real country, city, mountain, river, building, company or film whose value is as close to that number as you can get.
2 Name it or estimate it
Start typing and pick your answer from the suggestions. Names are matched loosely, so small typos and words like Mount, River or Inc. don't matter. In estimate rounds Plain Game asks one question instead, such as how tall Mount Fuji is, and you type a number like 3.7k or 45 million. If an answer isn't in the list you get a hint and can try again without losing the round.
3 Lock it in and climb
Press Enter and the plane takes off. The closer you are, the higher you climb, and a near-perfect answer can lift you more than 12 km in a single round. After each round the Plain Game shows how far off you were, the true value and the best answers you could have given, so every flight teaches you something.
How Plain Game Scoring Works
Plain Game rewards being close, not just being exactly right. For most categories closeness is a ratio, so being 10% off counts the same for a tiny country and a huge one. For years it counts how many years you missed by. If you know playplain, this closeness scoring will feel natural. Each Plain Game round is worth up to 100 points, and every point lifts your plane 100 metres.
- ACE!Within about 1.5%, or the exact year. Earns a 25-point bonus and a burst of confetti.
- SmoothWithin about 10%. A strong climb.
- SteadyWithin about 30%. Still a decent gain.
- BumpyWithin about two times the target. A small lift.
- StallFurther off than that, or the timer ran out.
★ The golden round
One round in every Plain Game is secretly golden and worth double. You only find out which one after you answer, so give every round your best guess.
🚀 How high can you go?
A perfect Plain Game flight reaches 100 km, the edge of space. What you pass on the way up, and what waits above the airliners, is for you to discover.
Daily Plain Game or Unlimited Flights
Two ways to play Plain Game, both free and both in your browser.
☀ Daily puzzle
The daily Plain Game gives every player in the world the same seven questions. A new puzzle opens at midnight UTC and you get one flight per day. Your result is saved on this device, playing each day builds your streak, and when you land you can share your flight as an emoji grid without spoiling the answers.
∞ Unlimited mode
Already finished your daily playplain? Unlimited builds a fresh Plain Game every time you press play, with new targets and new categories. It is the best way to practise Plain Game, find out which countries are bigger than you think, and chase a perfect flight to the edge of space.
Plain Game Categories
Every Plain Game flight mixes different categories, so you never get the same topic twice in one game.
- Country PopulationHow many people live in a country today.
- GDP per PersonA country's yearly output per person, in US dollars.
- Life ExpectancyHow long people live on average at birth.
- Country AreaTotal area of a country in square kilometres.
- Mountain HeightsSummit height above sea level, from hills to Everest.
- City PopulationPeople living in the city proper, not the wider metro area.
- Skyscraper HeightsHeight of the world's tallest buildings.
- River LengthsRiver length from source to mouth, in kilometres.
- Founded InThe year a well-known company was founded.
- Movie YearThe year a famous film was first released.
Tips for a Higher Flight
A few habits that separate a bumpy Plain Game flight from a smooth one.
- Think in ratios. Being 20% off on a city of five million costs the same as being 20% off on a town of fifty thousand.
- Anchor on what you know. If you know France has about 68 million people, you can place many other countries around it.
- Use the suggestions. Type the first few letters and pick from the list instead of spelling a long name in full.
- Read the scope line. Cities count the city proper, not the metro area, and mountains count height above sea level.
- Watch the clock. Thirty seconds goes fast, and a round that runs out of time stalls the plane.
- Bring your playplain instincts. The same ratio thinking that works in playplain works here, and Unlimited mode lets you practise it as often as you like.
- Learn from every landing. The Plain Game result card lists the best answers you could have given, so the next flight goes higher.
Plain Game for playplain Fans
If you came here looking for playplain, welcome. Plain Game is an independent game made for plaingame.net, not the playplain puzzle itself, but the core idea will feel familiar: answer with a number and score for being close. Many playplain players want more than one puzzle a day, so Plain Game is the playplain alternative for days when one flight isn't enough. It adds an Unlimited mode, a pixel-art plane that climbs with your score, and questions built from open data. We are not affiliated with Plain or its makers. More about the project.
Every Plain Game number comes from open data. Country figures are from the World Bank's World Development Indicators, and mountains, cities, skyscrapers, rivers, companies and films come from Wikidata. Real-world numbers can be messy, since a building's height depends on whether you count the spire, so we list every dataset and its limits on the data sources page.
Plain Game FAQ
Quick answers about playing, scoring and the daily puzzle.
Plain Game is a free browser game about numbers. In each of seven rounds you name something whose value is closest to a target, or estimate a single number, and your plane climbs higher the closer you get. It is in the same spirit as playplain, with a plane and an Unlimited mode.
No. Plain Game on plaingame.net is a separate, independent game. If you enjoy playplain you will recognise the closest-number idea, but the questions, scoring, artwork and Unlimited mode here are our own, and we are not affiliated with Plain.
Yes. Plain Game's Unlimited mode builds a fresh seven-round game every time you press play, so you can keep estimating after your daily flight. Scoring rewards closeness, just like the playplain format you may already know.
Plain Game is completely free and needs no account or email. Your daily results and your streak are stored only in your own browser.
A new daily Plain Game opens at 00:00 UTC. Every Plain Game player in the world gets the same seven questions that day, so you can compare flights with friends.
In Plain Game each round gives up to 100 points for how close you were, plus a 25-point bonus for an ACE. One golden round doubles its points. Every point is 100 metres of altitude, so 1,000 points takes your plane to 100 km.
Yes. Plain Game works in any modern mobile browser. On a phone the answer card sits at the bottom of the screen so your plane stays in view.
The daily Plain Game is one flight per day so every score is comparable, but Unlimited mode builds a fresh game each time and you can play as many as you like.