I've built a game. It lives at wayneatkinson.com/transmute, it takes about two minutes a day, and it's free forever. This post is the full set of instructions — though honestly, you'll pick it up in one round.
The rules
Every day at midnight (UK time) a new five-letter word forms in the crucible. Everyone in the world gets the same word. You get five attempts to find it.
Type any real five-letter word and press Enter. The crucible marks every letter:
- Gold — the right letter in the right place. Transmutation.
- Violet — the letter is in the word, but it's sitting in the wrong seat.
- Ash — not in today's word at all. Burned away.
Use what the fire tells you, refine your next guess, and turn the whole row gold. The on-screen keyboard remembers everything the crucible has shown you, so you always know which letters are spent.
The part that makes it different: the cards
Solve the word and you draw a card from the Masher Arcana — the deck of nineteen hand-illustrated tarot cards that represent everything I've built, from I · The Swarm to XV · The Transmission. The card flips over, tells you its story in one line, and joins your collection.
The draw always favours cards you don't own yet, so every solve grows the collection — fifteen cards to gather in all. Collect the lot and you'll have met every tool in the workshop without once being shown an advert. That's the deal: you play, the deck introduces itself.
Streaks, scores and the leaderboard
Solve on consecutive days and your streak climbs. Miss a day, and the fire goes cold. Your current streak, best streak and collection all show above the board — and the leaderboard ranks the longest streaks among registered players.
Accounts (no password — ever)
You can play without any account at all: your streak lives quietly in your browser. But if you want it to survive anything — new device, cleared cookies, the passage of time — create a free account:
- Tap Sign in above the board.
- Give an email address and a display name.
- Click the link that arrives. That's it. No password exists, so no password can leak.
Anything you'd already achieved as an anonymous player — streak, cards, today's solve — carries over to the account automatically. There's also an optional box to receive my occasional field notes; leave it unticked and you'll never hear from me.
Sharing your result
After each game there's a Share button that copies a spoiler-free grid of your attempts — the same shape as the puzzle-game grids you've seen from friends, plus the card you drew:
TRANSMUTE #12 — 3/5 🜚
⬛🟪⬛⬛🟨
🟨🟨⬛🟪⬛
🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨
drew XV · The Transmission
wayneatkinson.com/transmute
It never reveals the word — only the shape of your battle with it.
The small print, plainly
The answer never leaves the server, so it can't be dug out of the page. The word list is common English words — no obscure jargon, UK spellings welcome. One puzzle per day per player; the countdown under the board tells you when the next word forms. And the whole thing was designed and built by an AI agent working over MCP, which regular readers will recognise as very much this site's way of doing things.
The crucible is lit. Come and turn something to gold.
— Wayne