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v30 · jul 12
Download your data, any time
hack.codes now asks people to invest daily practice time, so it should let them take that investment with them. Account settings has a new "Download my data" button that generates a single JSON file with your account profile plus everything you've built across the apps — Studio review history, Notestar goals/notes/journal, Math practice stats, and your followed Sports Bar teams.
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› one button in account settings downloads a dated JSON file (hack-codes-export-YYYY-MM-DD.json)
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› covers your profile, Studio Theory/Reading/Ear Training review history and settings, Notestar goals/notes/journal, Math practice stats, and followed Sports Bar teams
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› strictly your own data — every query is scoped to your account, and a fresh account exports cleanly with empty sections
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› hidden while an admin is viewing your account in read-only impersonation mode
download your data →
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arcade
v29 · jul 11
Pong gets a second player
Pong was the one Arcade game with no way to play against another person — Sudoku offers co-op, Jigsaw too, but Pong dropped you straight into vs-AI. Now there's a mode toggle right on the Pong screen: stick with vs AI (unchanged), or pick "2 players, one keyboard" for couch co-op — player 1 keeps W/S, player 2 gets the arrow keys, same first-to-11 scoring either way.
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› a mode toggle on the Pong screen: vs AI (default) or 2 players, one keyboard
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› distinct controls for local co-op — P1: W/S, P2: arrow keys — documented right in the UI
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› score and win flow are unchanged in both modes
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› desktop-only for now: the toggle is hidden on phones, which keep the same vs-AI experience
play pong →
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studio
v28 · jul 10
Your Music Studio progress, charted
Signing up for Music Studio promised progress tracking — now the hub delivers on it. A new Progress section on the hub turns your existing Reading and Ear Training review history into an accuracy trend, a response-time trend, and a list of the cards you keep missing ("leeches"), with a link straight into practicing them. No new data collection: it's all built from the review log that was already being kept every time you rated a card.
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› 8-week accuracy and response-time sparklines for Reading and Ear Training
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› a leech-card list surfaces what you keep getting wrong, with a link to drill it
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› new accounts see an honest empty state instead of a blank panel
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› Theory tracks mastery today, not per-review history, so it gets its own honest placeholder rather than fake charts
see your progress →
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studio
v27 · jul 9
See it before you sign up
Music Studio and Study used to hand a logged-out visitor a bare login form — no context, no reason to sign up. Both now show a real landing page at their root instead: what the app does, a sample you can try right there (a theory flashcard, a math drill), and a clear sign-up/log-in CTA that drops you right back in the app once you're in. Signed-in visitors see no change at all.
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› studio.hack.codes and study.hack.codes now show a public preview instead of redirecting straight to login
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› try a sample question on the spot — no account needed
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› sign up or log in from the landing page and land back in the app, not somewhere random
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› deep links (e.g. a bookmarked lesson) still redirect to login as before
see the studio preview →
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arcade
v26 · jul 9
Neon Drift gets a real night sky
The city you drift through just got richer. Neon Drift's flat backdrop is now a full night sky — a starfield with faint nebula wisps and city-glow on the horizon — and every tower wears a new, more detailed set of lit windows with actual depth. The neon signs are real glowing tube shapes now, not just bars. Same buttery 60fps, same zero-download boot: the new artwork streams in behind the scenes and the game never waits for it.
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› a baked equirectangular night skybox — stars, nebula wisps, and horizon glow that blend into the fog
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› richer building facades: inset windows with depth and varied cyan/magenta/amber interiors
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› neon signs upgraded to glowing tube shapes in pink, cyan, and violet
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› textures load asynchronously with the old procedural look as an instant fallback — no boot delay, no jank
take a night drive →
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lab
v25 · jul 8
Watch the machine think
The Lab's OTP demos have always run on real processes — now you can watch them. A new Live OTP X-Ray panel streams real telemetry as it happens: GenServer calls, room startups, and LiveView event dispatch scroll by in a CRT-styled log while you interact with the Messaging or GenServer demos in another tab.
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› new Live OTP X-Ray panel under Elixir & OTP — a live, scrolling log of real :telemetry events
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› watch GenServer.call round-trips, Room.init, and LiveView event/info dispatch as they happen
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› read-only: it only observes, and keeps just the most recent 100 events per session
watch it think →
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v24 · jul 3
Enter the matrix (and meet the city)
The hacker theme now rains — green zeros and ones fall quietly behind every page, straight out of the movie, tuned to stay out of your way while you read. Love the night-city homepage from yesterday? It has its own home now: a sixth theme family, city, a faithful clone of hacker that keeps the skyline. Switch any time from the theme picker in the header.
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› hacker theme: an animated matrix digital-rain backdrop on every page (dark mode) — deliberately dim, with the occasional bright glyph leading a column
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› new city theme: yesterday's hacker look, glow and all, plus the animated night-city homepage skyline
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› pick either from the header theme menu — six families now, each with light and dark modes
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› both backdrops respect reduced-motion and pause when the tab is hidden
pick your sky →
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v23 · jul 3
The homepage after dark
The homepage now settles into an animated pixel-art night city — quiet streets, warm apartment windows winking on and off, drifting rooftop steam, and a few neon signs (open 24/7, naturally). The app icons on the cards breathe with a soft phosphor glow and the occasional glitch. Hacker theme, dark mode — the city comes out at night.
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› a full-screen animated night skyline behind the app grid — windows flicker, steam drifts, stars twinkle, and every ~100 seconds a shooting star slips by
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› legible little neon signs: OPEN 24/7, BAR, and a buzzing VACANCY
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› app-card icons now glow and glitch, gently and never in unison
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› respects reduced-motion (a still night scene) and pauses entirely when the tab is hidden
see the night city →
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study
v22 · jul 3
New York, rebuilt to scale
The Geography flyover of New York City is now geographically real: true borough coastlines from actual map data, Manhattan's famous tilt, golden-hour light over a dense skyline of thousands of buildings, all seven iconic bridges, and a dozen new places to discover — from JFK to the Verrazzano-Narrows.
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› real coastlines on a to-scale board — Brooklyn and Queens finally share Long Island, and the harbor islands are all there
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› golden-hour lighting, street grids (including Broadway's diagonal), and skyscraper cores with lit windows
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› all seven iconic bridges, both airports, and 12 new points of interest with facts
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› smarter labels that hide behind skyscrapers instead of floating through them
fly over new york →
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studio
v21 · jun 27
Maestro now works on iPad — play your piano through the mic
Maestro now works on iPad and iPhone. Safari has no Web MIDI, so instead of connecting over Bluetooth you tap “Listen to my piano” and Maestro hears the notes you play through the microphone — your acoustic or digital piano works with nothing to pair. (This also enables desktop Safari and acoustic pianos everywhere.)
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› tap “Listen to my piano” on iPad/iPhone and play — Maestro detects each note you play through the mic
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› no MIDI cable or Bluetooth pairing needed; an acoustic piano works too
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› Web MIDI over Bluetooth is still used automatically on browsers that support it (Chrome, Edge)
play maestro →
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studio
v20 · jun 23
Maestro: play sheet music on a real piano
A new Music Studio game that connects to a real digital piano over Bluetooth (Web MIDI). Read a scrolling staff and play the notes in time — Practice mode loops any bars you choose so you can drill a tricky passage, Perform mode scores a full run and awards up to three stars. No piano? Use the on-screen keys or your computer keyboard.
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› connect a MIDI keyboard (e.g. a Roland FP-60X) over Bluetooth and your notes are recognized live
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› Practice mode loops a chosen range of measures; Perform mode scores timing and accuracy for stars
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› five public-domain etudes, an adjustable tempo, and a metronome mascot that reacts to your playing
play maestro →
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studio
v19 · jun 17
Cadence Keep: a richer battlefield
Cadence Keep's battle scene got a detailed 16-bit pixel-art makeover — a dithered night sky and glowing moon over a deep, lit city skyline, a brick-built keep with banners and braziers, distinct reinforcement towers, and bolder enemy creatures marching the lane.
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› a denser, deeper parallax cityscape with hundreds of lit windows under a dithered indigo sky and a glowing moon
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› the keep is now brick-built with battlements, an arched gate, a waving banner and a conducting Maestra
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› reinforcement towers have distinct silhouettes by tier, and the Dissonance are bolder, shaded creatures that stay easy to read
play cadence keep →
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v18 · jun 17
a richer look: more detailed animated banners
Every app's homepage banner got a high-detail 16-bit pixel-art glow-up. The cozy scenes you know are all intact — just redrawn with far more detail, warmer layered lighting, and little characters who now have faces and personality.
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› the same scenes, far more detailed — wood grain, fabric folds, plants, neon, books, and rain on the windows
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› the characters now have subtle faces and personality: a friendly bartender pulling a glass, a musician lost in the music, a maker peering into a glowing open machine, a writer pausing to think, a listener settled in with a mug
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› sleeping pets, denser set-dressing, and cozier, warmer lighting in every room
see the apps →
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studio
v17 · jun 17
Cadence Keep: a gentler opening
Cadence Keep no longer throws you to the wolves. The opening calm is longer and now shows a countdown to the first wave, and reinforcements come quickly at first — your very first tower needs just one correct answer — so you can build a real wall before the Dissonance arrives.
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› the opening grace period is longer (12 seconds) with a visible countdown bar to the first wave
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› reinforcements scale: your 1st tower needs 1 correct answer, the 2nd needs 2 in a row, the 3rd needs 3, and so on
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› the gentle early ramp lets you stack up a starting defense during the calm instead of facing the first wave bare
play cadence keep →
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studio
v16 · jun 17
Cadence Keep: a real fight
Cadence Keep's battle got a proper rebalance and a clearer look. The Dissonance now grows stronger the further you progress, reinforcements are earned by chaining correct answers (and can be destroyed by enemies that break through), and the enemies themselves are big, detailed, and easy to track.
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› enemies get tougher, faster, and more frequent the more questions you answer — the run can actually be lost now
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› reinforcements are earned by a 5-answer combo (no longer one per correct answer), and they're scaled back in power
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› your reinforcements are a destructible wall: enemies that reach the keep tear them down before they touch your health
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› redesigned, high-contrast enemy creatures with health bars and a boss crown — and the muddy fog is gone for a clear battlefield
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› Cadence Keep is now pure play — it no longer records reviews to your spaced-repetition schedule, so a fast, pressured game can't skew your study data
play cadence keep →
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studio
v15 · jun 16
Cadence Keep goes realtime
Cadence Keep is now a true realtime tower defense. After a brief calm to build up, the Dissonance marches on your keep in waves — raise reinforcements before they arrive, because enemies that reach the keep are what cost you health now, not wrong answers. The whole battlefield got a detailed night-time pixel-art glow-up too.
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› a grace period opens each round so you can build reinforcements before the first wave arrives
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› enemies that reach the keep drain its health — stronger foes hit harder
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› wrong answers no longer cost health or score; they cost a reinforcement instead (and nothing if you have none to spare)
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› a richer scene: a glowing moon, drifting fog, parallax skyline, lit braziers, and a defensive line that lights up as it grows
play cadence keep →
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studio
v14 · jun 16
tune your flashcard sessions: shuffle, audio, timed mode
a new settings gear on every Music Studio section (Theory, Reading, Ear Training) lets you shuffle the order, control audio, set your session length, and turn on a timed mode that scales the pressure.
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› shuffle cards to break out of the same review order
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› control audio — mute the chord on reveal in Theory, or auto-play the prompt in Ear Training and Reading
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› set how many cards a session draws so you can do a quick burst or a long sit
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› optional timed mode with Slow / Medium / Fast countdowns — run out of time and the card counts as a miss
open the studio →
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studio
v13 · jun 16
new Theory deck: Thirds & Sevenths
a new Theory flashcard deck drills the guide tones — the 3rd and 7th — of major-7, minor-7, and dominant-7 chords across all twelve roots, in both directions.
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› name the 3rd and 7th of any maj7, m7, or dom7 chord — the two notes that define its color
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› all twelve roots, fully reversible (chord → guide tones, and guide tones → chord)
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› hear the chord and see it on the keyboard on reveal, just like the other Theory decks
study thirds & sevenths →
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studio
v12 · jun 15
Cadence Keep: turn theory drills into a tower-defense game
Music Studio has a new optional game mode. Cadence Keep turns your theory flashcards into fast multiple-choice rounds that power a tower-defense battle — answer correctly to build your towers, slip up and the Dissonance marches on your keep.
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› every theory card becomes a clear, self-contained question ("Spell the A dominant 7th chord") with four answer choices
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› correct answers build and upgrade towers; wrong answers send tougher waves — combos and boss cards score big
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› it's real study: answers feed your spaced-repetition schedule, with a casual mode if you'd rather just play
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› lose a round and you get the exact cards that tripped you up, plus a "Defend again" rematch
play cadence keep →
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study
v11 · jun 15
Geography lands in Study: explore New York City
Study has a new Geography section — starting with an interactive 3D map of New York City. Scroll to fly across the five boroughs and tap any landmark to learn its story.
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› a new Geography section on the Study hub
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› New York City as a scroll-driven 3D map — fly from a bird's-eye view down into each borough
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› tap landmarks, neighborhoods, and boroughs for a quick description and a fun fact
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› fully keyboard- and screen-reader-friendly: a "browse all places" list covers every spot, with a static map for reduced-motion
open geography →
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sports
v10 · jun 14
Soccer kicks off: MLS + the World Cup
the Sports Bar now follows the beautiful game — live MLS scores with a real points table, plus full World Cup coverage with group standings, the knockout rounds, scores and schedule.
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› MLS: live scores and a points-based table (W-D-L, goal difference, and PTS), sorted the way the standings actually work
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› World Cup: group standings, knockout matches grouped by round, plus scores and the full schedule
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› a soccer glossary and rules to explain offside, stoppage time, VAR, group stage and more
open the sports bar →
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sports
v9 · jun 13
sports bar navigation, on every screen
the Sports Bar now has a primary navigation bar at every size — a tab bar pinned to the bottom on phones, and a top navbar tucked under the site header on tablets and desktops.
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› desktop & tablet: Hub, Live, Standings, Schedule, and More are always one tap away from a top navbar
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› mobile: the bottom tab bar stays put and reserves room for the iPhone home indicator
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› the site footer now stays pinned to the bottom of the screen on short pages too
open the sports bar →
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radio
v8 · jun 12
desert rock joins the dial
98.3 Desert Rock is on the air — Queens-of-the-Stone-Age-inspired fuzz vamps and straight-driving drums, generated live in your browser.
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› desert rock: heavy fuzz guitar riffs, locked-in driving drums, and that wide open desert space
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› every station now plays a distinct track every time — different instrument palettes, tempos, and production so no two songs sound alike
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› the radio powers its display lights down when you pause it
tune in →
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arcade
v7 · jun 12
jigsaw hints, on your terms
a new toggle on the jigsaw board turns the piece-placement outline on or off — bigger puzzles now stay unspoiled by default.
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› third board button (next to the picture ghost) shows or hides the slot outline while dragging
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› hints start on for 24-piece casual, off for 60 and 108 — flip them any time
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› the site menu now opens above the board instead of hiding behind it
solve one →
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v6 · jun 12
what's new has a home
every shipped feature on one page — open it any time from the account menu.
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› the full changelog lives at hack.codes/whats-new
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› opening the page clears the pulsing dot — read is read
see everything →
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radio
v5 · jun 12
the radio got a body
a 1930s cathedral radio you tune by dragging the dial — static crackles between four all-new stations, generated live in your browser.
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› lo-fi, trip hop, cool jazz, and delta blues — rebuilt from the ground up to actually groove
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› drag the dial (or tap a preset); the needle sweeps and static plays between stations
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› blues comes through a gramophone: band-limited, mono, warm and crackly
tune in →
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arcade
v4 · jun 11
two new arcade games
jigsaw and neon drift join pong and sudoku. signal and cartographer have retired.
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› jigsaw — solo or co-op puzzles; every image procedurally painted from a seed; invite a friend mid-game
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› neon drift — 3D neon night city; drift-charged signal scanner; light up districts, unlock trim colors
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› signal and cartographer retired (links redirect to the arcade hub)
play now →
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v3 · may 31
what's new, delivered
this panel — and a showcase email whenever something ships.
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› version-stamped news that follows you across every app
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› one-click unsubscribe on every announcement
got it →
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radio
v2 · may 30
the radio dock follows you
start a station and the mini-player rides along across every app.
open radio →
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zoo
v1 · may 30
the zoo is open
feed koi, trumpet with an elephant, watch a peacock fan its tail.
visit the zoo →