Free Game

Free Game

Here at Global Team Building, we love creating new team activities. And activities within activities. And one of these “inner” activities has developed into a new daily free game to play. We call it “Panic Grid” and you can play it for free here.

The likes of Wordle has taken the Internet by storm. And the New York Times purchase of Wordle has really expanded its daily games section. Panic Grid follows in Wordle’s illustrious steps. Like Wordle, it’s a free game, changes daily and doesn’t require you to register to play it. Also like Wordle, if you do register you’ll never lose your stats. Unlike Wordle, though, it allows you to create your own leaderboards. Yes, plural. So, you can play competitively with friends, family and colleagues and keep them separate on different leaderboards.

It came about from one of the fun challenges that we often set teams within our VirtuWall activity. We call that challenge “Panic Buttons”. Weirdly, that domain name was taken. We renamed it Panic Grid, bought the domain and started work on creating a version suitable for individuals to play at times that suit them. As opposed to teams having to play online together at the same time. People can play Panic Grid at the same time, though. But they don’t have to!

A free game

So what is it? Other than another free game to play, that is. It’s not word based, like Wordle and all of its clones out there. It is number based. It’s easy to play but challenging to get good at. You start with a 5 x 5 grid. Each cell of the grid has a number in it between 1 and 25. And you simply have to press (or click on, if you choose to tackle this from your laptop or desktop) on each number in the usual sequence in turn.

Panic Grid
You start this addictive game with a 5 x 5 grid and work your way up to more challenging sizes

But that would be too easy if the numbers were arranged sequentially, of course. So, they are mixed up in a random order. That order is constant for every player throughout the day. This allows people to learn that day’s grid order and get faster and faster at it. The next day, however, the grid changes to a different random order. Presenting a new challenge every day.

Different Grid Sizes

Waiting a day for the grid to update isn’t the only way to add to the challenge though. Once you have completed a grid, it automatically unlocks the next grid up. Complete the 5 x 5 grid and you can access the 6 x 6 grid. And so on up to the maximum grid size of 10 x 10.

Scoring

Every time to have a go at a grid, you get a score. Each grid size has a different time to complete it within. The 5 x 5 grid allows you 45 seconds, for example. Your score is equal to the number that you reach within the grid. So, in the 5 x 5 grid, if you reach the number 23, you’ll score 23.

But if you complete all the numbers in the grid (25 in the 5 x 5 grid of course), your score is doubled. Plus you get bonus points for every second that you best the time allocated. Complete the 5 x 5 grid in 40 seconds and your score will be 25, doubled to 50 plus 5 bonus points = 55.

Panic Grid will remember your top scores (for both today and overall) on each device you play it on. Register, and it will remember your scores across devices. And your score is saved on our server infrastructure as well as your local device. Meaning you’ll not accidentally or otherwise lose your score if you clear (or lose) your device.

Optional

But registration really is optional. If you prefer not to register, you can still play. We will only use the email address of players who register to send them a reset password link if required. And to see if anyone updrades from Panic Grid to one of our paid activities. For our own interest, only.