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Puzzle Party

Monday, 31 August 2026

Digit Drop

Place twelve falling digits into three four-digit numbers and make the biggest total.

No undo. Every digit is placed for good the moment you tap a slot, and you only ever see one digit coming. That is the game.

In your hand3
Next, and no further5

10 more to fall after those, and you will not see them until they arrive.

The three numbers

Thousandsx1000Hundredsx100Tensx10Unitsx1firstsecondthird

Running total 0, with slots still to fill

Digit Drop

Place twelve falling digits into three four-digit numbers and make the biggest total.

  1. Tap an empty slot to drop the digit in your hand into it.It stays there. Nothing can be moved, swapped or taken back later.
  2. Look at the digit showing behind it before you commit.That one digit is all the warning you ever get. The rest are hidden until they fall.
  3. Spend the high digits on the thousands columns and the low ones on the units.A slot multiplies its digit by its column, so waiting all round for a 9 can leave you putting a 2 up there.

Scored on total.

What the words mean
Slot:
one place in one of the three numbers. Twelve in all, and each takes one digit
Place value:
what a slot multiplies its digit by: thousands, hundreds, tens or units
Lookahead:
the one digit you can see coming after the one in your hand. There is never a second
Greedy baseline:
what you score by never looking ahead: high digits into the best empty slot, low digits into the worst. Matching it is worth 50
Hindsight best:
the biggest total these twelve digits could ever have made, if you had seen them all first. Matching it is worth 100
Luck converted:
how much of the gap between those two you took. Some days deal better digits than others, and this is the number that does not care
Digit Drop · Puzzle Party