A complete guide to the daily history guessing game
Circa is a free daily game where a new historical image — a painting, photograph, illustration, or print — appears every day. Your goal is to guess the year it depicts in five attempts or fewer.
Each day at midnight, a new puzzle unlocks for all players worldwide. You see a single historical image and must type a year into the input field. Hit Submit (or press Enter) to lock in your guess.
You win if your guess is within 5 years of the correct answer. You have a maximum of 5 guesses per day. Everyone plays the same image on the same day — compare your score with friends!
After each guess, you receive two pieces of feedback: a temperature hint telling you how close you are, and a directional arrow telling you whether to guess earlier or later in history.
Your score depends on how few guesses it took to win. Guessing correctly on the first try earns 1000 points. Each additional guess deducts 200 points, with a minimum score of 100 points for a 5th-guess win. If you don't win, you score 0 for that day.
Start with a broad anchor guess. Your first guess should be a rough estimate based on the visual style of the image — don't try to be precise right away. If the image looks like it could be from the 1800s, guess 1850 and see where you land.
Use the arrows strategically. The directional arrows (↑ go earlier / ↓ go later) are just as important as the temperature. If you get "Warm ↓ go later", you know you're within 100 years and need to move forward in time.
Learn the visual clues. Certain styles, techniques, and subjects are associated with specific eras. Oil paintings with dark backgrounds and religious themes often date from the 1400s-1600s. Sepia photographs typically date from 1850-1900. Bright, flat illustration styles often suggest the late 1800s or early 1900s.
Pay attention to clothing and technology. When people appear in images, their clothing is one of the most reliable dating clues. Similarly, any visible technology — vehicles, machinery, architecture — can help narrow your range significantly.
Circa tracks your performance across sessions using your browser's local storage — no account needed. You can see your total games played, win rate, current streak, and best streak. Your streak increases by one for every consecutive day you win. Missing a day resets your streak to zero.
After finishing a puzzle, you can share your result using the Share button. This copies a spoiler-free emoji grid to your clipboard — perfect for posting to social media or sending to friends. The format shows how close your guesses were without revealing the answer.
Can I play previous days' puzzles? Not currently — Circa is designed as a daily game. One puzzle per day keeps everyone on the same level.
What if the image won't load? Try refreshing the page. If the problem persists, the image may be temporarily unavailable — try again in a few minutes.
How are images chosen? Images are selected from public domain collections and arranged in a fixed random order. The selection prioritises variety across time periods, regions, and image types.
Is Circa free? Yes, completely free to play. The site may show advertisements to support development costs.
How do I reset my stats? Your stats are stored in your browser. Clearing your browser's cookies and site data for circaplay.com will reset them.
Play today's puzzle →