Can an LLM solve a Redactle?

A Redactle article with hidden words represented by blocks

Redactle is a puzzle game where a redacted Wikipedia article is displayed. Guessing a word reveals all matches in the article, including variations like 1 and one. Once the entire title is revealed, the game is won.

One day I was pasting Redactle text into LLM chats from different providers and got wildly different results. I got nerd sniped and built a leaderboard to fairly evaluate as many as I could. $16.20 later, I now have this dashboard to answer that question.

The results are surprising. Reasoning effort did not help as much as I expected. Gemini and Grok are the best, not OpenAI and Anthropic models as I had expected. Gemini 3.7 Flash does exceedingly well, managing to snipe all 12 puzzles while being the cheapest and fastest.

Redactle results

Published Sep 3, 2026 · 35/36 attempts

  • One-shot
  • No-hint
  • Failed

The rewritten passages keep the same topics and factual basis but remove exact Wikipedia sentences and substantially change word lengths. Lower scores here are evidence that familiar source phrasing helps, not proof that a model searched the web or memorized an article.

#Model · reasoningAttemptsQualitySolve rateScoreCost / runTime / run
1 Gemini 3.7 Flash · low124/7/192%8.8$0.03961s
2 Grok 4.6 · low121/10/192%13.5$0.092107s
— Kimi K3 · low 11/12Partial results are shown without a rank.

Scroll sideways to see every measure.

Original text versus rewritten prose

Lower is better. Only configurations with all 12 synthetic attempts appear here.

Model · reasoningOriginal scoreRewritten scoreChange
Gemini 3.7 Flash · low0.08.8+8.8
Grok 4.6 · low1.513.5+12.0

Trade-offs

Each label is a complete model configuration. Lower and farther left is better; the shaded quadrant is below the median on both measures.

Cost versus score

Speed versus score

Method notes

A model must make Redactle word guesses until every meaningful title word is revealed. Scores measure accepted guesses above the article title's word-count par, so a model that reveals every title word with exactly one guess per title word scores 0. In the hint-enabled evaluations, every hint adds 50 points.

The 500-word evaluation stops after 30 accepted guesses. If a model is still solving at that point, the attempt receives a score of 60 guesses. That is a cost-saving shortcut, not an estimate of how many guesses the model would have needed to finish. Other configurations use the same rule at twice their own guess limit.

Results from incomplete configurations remain visible but are not ranked. Article titles, excerpts, and per-article outcomes are deliberately omitted so this page does not spoil Redactle puzzles.

View evaluation code on GitHub (opens in a new tab)

New Game

Settings

Your Statistics

What's New

Thanks for supporting Redactle!

Your support keeps Redactle running, removes ads, and lets you create unlimited collections.

Buy me a coffee Buy me a coffee

Rewritten-prose model results (Sep 3, 2026)

  • The LLM leaderboard now compares results on original Wikipedia excerpts with rewritten passages covering the same topics.
View the LLM leaderboard

LLM leaderboard (Sep 3, 2026)

  • See how language models fare at solving Redactle under the same rules, with results for short and long articles.
View the LLM leaderboard

Clearer Rush results (Aug 28, 2026)

  • Rush results now compare scores from the same day instead of mixing puzzles of different difficulty.
  • Each article shows how many players solved it, with average time, common alternative guesses, and an expandable Wikipedia image in the details.

Roman numerals, near misses, and how the crowd did (Aug 27, 2026)

  • Rush now accepts Roman numerals and digits interchangeably, so "Richard 1" counts for "Richard I".
  • A guess that is a single letter away from the answer earns half a point instead of nothing.
  • Once enough players have finished a day’s Rush, the results screen shows how the crowd did on each round, including what other people guessed.

Fairer answers and more helpful Rush clues (Aug 26, 2026)

  • Rush now shows six topic words and a little more of each article, while taxonomy rounds reveal the scientific name when the common name is the answer.
  • Conceptually close answers can earn half a point, shown in yellow on results and shared grids, and typo correction handles more realistic misspellings.
  • Refreshing during a Rush game now preserves your progress.

Clearer goal, and nominate from your results (Aug 21, 2026)

  • The guess panel now spells out what a guess actually matches and that revealing the title wins, matching whichever word-matching setting you play with.
  • New players get a one-off hint pointing at the title, plus a clearer goal in the how-to-play walkthrough.
  • Finishing today’s Rush now shows a direct link to nominate an article on the results screen, instead of only in the footer.

Fresh Rush articles and a proper end screen (Aug 20, 2026)

  • Rush multiplayer now draws from its own much larger set of articles, so you won’t run into ones you just played in the daily puzzle.
  • Playing again in the same room no longer repeats articles you’ve already had.
  • Finishing a Rush daily now gives you a rank for the day, from Recruit up to Director, instead of just a score out of ten.
  • Your score is compared against every finished game on record, so you can see how the day actually went.
  • Each of the ten cases can be opened straight from the results to read the start of its Wikipedia article, with a link through to the full page.
  • Shared results now lead with your rank.

Nominate an article for Rush (Aug 20, 2026)

  • Redactle Rush now takes article suggestions. Paste a Wikipedia link and it tells you straight away whether the article qualifies — most won’t, and the ones that do can take a while to appear.

Inviting friends is clearer (Aug 19, 2026)

  • Team Up now shows when it is creating your room, tries to copy the invite link automatically, and points you to the Invite button when it needs another tap.

A friendlier Rush (Aug 18, 2026)

  • Redactle Rush now starts each round with five helpful topic words revealed instead of four.

Faster, snappier puzzles (Aug 18, 2026)

  • Returning players can start guessing immediately again. Anonymous game history now stays on this browser, and previously downloaded games with no local guesses are cleared out.
  • Finished puzzles restored after signing in now reveal the article correctly instead of leaving the text redacted.
  • Starting another random puzzle now resets the article and guesses correctly.
  • The phone game buttons now sit clear of the guess box instead of having their lower edge clipped.
  • Long articles stay steadier while scrolling, and the guess box stays more responsive on phones while article text finishes loading.
  • The Redactle keyboard now shows a blinking cursor at the end of the word.

Steadier swiping (Aug 18, 2026)

  • Drawing a word on the Redactle keyboard no longer makes the page slide around under your finger on Android.

Team up without the mis-tap (Aug 18, 2026)

  • Team Up now asks before it converts your puzzle, so brushing the button no longer turns your solo game into a shared one.
  • Once you have teamed up the button becomes Invite, and it tells you it copies the invite link. The invite sentence that used to sit above the article is gone, giving that space back to the puzzle.
  • Tapping the globe button while typing no longer leaves both keyboards on screen at once — the one you switched away from now gets out of the way.

Swipe to type your guess (Aug 17, 2026)

  • On the Redactle keyboard you can now draw a word instead of tapping it: keep your finger down and glide over the letters, and the word appears when you lift off.
  • If it picks the wrong word, the close runners-up appear in the suggestion row above the keys.

Switch keyboards without leaving the game (Aug 17, 2026)

  • On phones, a globe button now sits beside Team Up. Tap it to swap between your phone’s normal keyboard and the Redactle keyboard with its word suggestions — no trip to Settings.

Streaks are back and games load reliably (Aug 17, 2026)

  • Restored the streaks that were reset to zero for signed-out players. Your streak is rebuilt from the games saved in this browser the next time you open Redactle, and it only counts dailies you finished on the day or the day after.
  • Every daily you finish in time is now permanently recorded in this browser, so a future change to how streaks work can never take a day back off you.
  • Fixed an update failure that could stop guesses from revealing words or prevent games from being saved.

Fixed the flickering puzzle (Aug 16, 2026)

  • Fixed a bug that made the page flicker between the solved and unsolved puzzle and stopped Puzzle Stats from opening.
  • Going forward, signed-out players stay attached to their own game history. Signed-in accounts were never affected by this.
  • While the bug was live, some signed-out players had their streak reset to zero, and it is still at zero for now. Those games have not been deleted, and a fix to restore the count is on the way.

Rush answers and clues are fairer (Aug 16, 2026)

  • Redactle Rush now accepts an answer with a dropped apostrophe or hyphen, and lets you leave off a title’s bracketed part — "Mercury" solves "Mercury (planet)".
  • It also stops handing you a round you did not earn: a bare surname that several famous people share, or the last word of a title that was never a name, no longer counts as the answer.
  • "Did you mean…?" no longer offers a spelling that would have lost the round anyway, and never quietly corrects a year or the name of a different article in the same game.
  • Rush clues now have to reveal a safe word tied to the article’s subject when one is available, rather than leaving you with only etymology or generic words.

A New Game menu you can actually read (Aug 15, 2026)

  • Every way to start a game now shows a little redacted article instead of an emoji, so you can tell the daily, a curated pick and a random article apart at a glance.
  • Redactle Rush, Rush multiplayer and Redactle JR now appear as real screenshots rather than another line of text, and sit above the other games rather than below them.
  • New "Play about anything" box: describe a theme and get a puzzle about it, or paste a Wikipedia link or Q-ID to play that article.
  • Shared game links are now shorter and no longer risk opening somebody else’s puzzle.
  • Redactle JR now has its own Today and Random buttons, so you can try an easier article with three clue words already revealed without changing any settings.
  • The daily row shows your streak, and whether you have already played today.
  • Added a Support link to the menu — supporters play without ads.

Reliable guess navigation on phones (Aug 15, 2026)

  • Tapping a guess now reliably jumps to its matches on mobile, including with the thumbable list or custom keyboard enabled.

A roomier article (Aug 14, 2026)

  • The article now flows freely across all the space available, without snapping between fixed widths as you resize your window.
  • New games start with the article text one size larger.

Tell us when a guess should have counted (Aug 13, 2026)

  • The thumbs-down feedback button now asks what went wrong, so you can report a guess that should have been accepted without retyping it — just pick it from your guesses. You can also flag a broken game or a bad puzzle from the same place.

Help is always available (Aug 13, 2026)

  • The “How to play” menu item now opens the right tutorial for every player. Outside a game, it takes you to the full guide instead.

Straight back to today's puzzle (Aug 13, 2026)

  • redactle.net opens on today's puzzle again. The home page that greeted you first has moved to redactle.net/play, where you can browse it when you actually want it. /daily still works.
  • The article was stuck at the same width on any screen between roughly 1500 and 1900 pixels wide, wasting up to 200 pixels of its own column. It now grows in step with your window.

Sticky titles (Aug 13, 2026)

  • New setting: sticky article title. Turn it on and the title stays pinned to the top of the article, underlined in purple, once you scroll past it.
  • Starting a random or recommended game was timing out and failing with an error instead of opening an article. It now picks one straight away.

Redactle Rush moves in (Aug 13, 2026)

  • Redactle Rush has moved off redactlerush.com and now lives at redactle.net/rush. Old links still work, they just forward to the new address.
  • Rush multiplayer is now a click away in the Play menu, where you and everyone else in the room race through the same ten articles with live scores. The Rush description was also wrong: there is no clock in single player, and in multiplayer it is optional.

A front door for redactle.net (Aug 12, 2026)

  • redactle.net now opens on a home page instead of dropping you straight into the puzzle. Today's game is the first thing on it, one tap away, with your streak and the countdown to the next puzzle right underneath.
  • The home page also points at the weekly collection and Redactle Rush, the three most played community collections, the other modes, and a few games to try when you have finished today.

The article uses your whole screen (Aug 12, 2026)

  • On large monitors the article now spreads across the space it was already given instead of sitting in a narrow column with a wide empty margin beside it. The bigger your screen, the more of the puzzle you can read at once.
  • New optional setting: "Horizontal multi-column article". It lays the article out in newspaper-style columns that fill the height of your screen, so you scroll sideways through the puzzle instead of down. Turn it on under Settings > Preview.

Discover more games, clearer highlights (Aug 11, 2026)

  • A new "More games" option in the menu and footer opens a picker of other browser games to try when you have finished your puzzle.
  • On the Wireframe theme, the word you tap in the article is highlighted in pink again instead of a grey that was hard to pick out.
  • Guesses with an apostrophe now count. Typing "McDonald's" (or just "mcdonalds") on a puzzle like McDonald's reveals the word and solves it, instead of scoring zero hits.

Daily puzzles arrive on time (Aug 10, 2026)

  • The Daily button now switches to the new puzzle within two minutes of its release instead of sometimes showing yesterday's puzzle for much longer.
  • The multiplayer player stats in the end-of-game popup now fit on a phone screen instead of scrolling sideways.
  • Sharing a multiplayer result now says "we" solved it and mentions how many others you played with.
  • The end-of-game screen now shows the article you were hunting under the result, and multiplayer games get "you all solved it" wording.
  • The custom phone keyboard now uses a full English dictionary plus word forms, without drawing suggestions from the hidden article.
  • On phones the page no longer jumps upwards a second after loading when there is no ad to show.

A new keyboard, and a smoother game on phones (Aug 9, 2026)

  • Phones can now use a custom Redactle keyboard with richer English suggestions, including places and words related to the current puzzle. The separate thumb-scroll guess list works in every language and can be folded or swiped aside when you want more reading room.
  • Solving a puzzle no longer makes the article jump around, and the title now reveals the moment you win instead of after the rest of the article catches up.
  • The top-bar buttons, the guess panel, and the streak reminder no longer shift around while a puzzle is loading on phones, and the timer no longer flashes a pause icon when you step away. The end-of-game stats popup also stops jumping about as the calendar and global stats load in.
  • Tapping the guess box, scrolling, opening menus, guessing, and celebrating a win are noticeably smoother on slower phones.

Finding your words and supporting Redactle (Aug 6, 2026)

  • Tapping a word in your guess list now steps to the next place it appears every time, instead of sometimes doing nothing.
  • That word is now properly scrolled into view and stays there while the rest of the article finishes loading around it.
  • Ads now help fund Redactle on phones as well as computers. Supporters and educators remain ad-free.

Zen mode (Jul 31, 2026)

  • A new Zen button next to the guess box hides the guess list and the buttons above it, handing the whole phone screen to the article. Each guess flashes its hit count above the input instead, and the list is one tap away when you want it.
  • On phones, tapping Top now jumps you to the start of the article from anywhere, and the guess list no longer drags the page along when you scroll it.
  • Fixed the guess panel sliding up the screen when you scrolled past the end of the article.
  • Fixed the article text size and the guess panel flashing at the wrong size for a moment every time a page loaded.

More games to discover (Jul 31, 2026)

  • Redactle now recommends daily games from Nerdle, Globle, and Metazooa alongside the weekly collection.

Trying ads again (Jul 30, 2026)

  • I pulled ads because they were showing up over the game and the footer. The ad partner has since cut the worst formats, including interstitials, so I'm giving it another shot. If they misbehave, off they go again.
  • Supporters and educators still won't see ads.

Smart matching is back (Jul 30, 2026)

  • Smart word matching broke on recent puzzles, so guesses like "one" no longer revealed "1" and plural or past-tense forms of a word stopped matching each other. Word matching now works again on every puzzle.

No ads until they behave (Jul 29, 2026)

  • Ads are temporarily gone from Redactle. The ad agency kept serving intrusive ads over the game and footer, and they haven't been able to fix it. That's hostile to the site and frustrating for players, so I've pulled the plug while I consider a way forward.
  • Ad revenue helps pay the bills and gives me time to keep improving Redactle, so ads will probably return. But they need to support the game without ruining it.
  • Puzzles now show their text almost immediately instead of leaving you on a blank screen while the page loads. This is a big speed-up on phones and slower connections.

Smoother Scrolling (Jul 27, 2026)

  • The article now loads much further ahead of where you are reading, so scrolling no longer runs into blank gaps waiting for content to appear.

A Nudge Before You Quit (Jul 25, 2026)

  • When you give up, Redactle now offers you a hint first and shows how many guesses the puzzle usually takes. If a daily streak is on the line, it says so before you quit.

Freshest Redactle (Jul 25, 2026)

  • Redactle now lets you know when a new version is available, so you can reload when it suits you and keep playing with the latest improvements.

A Steadier Page (Jul 25, 2026)

  • Made typing guesses more responsive and stopped the page jumping around while articles and images load. The footer no longer shifts as the page settles.
  • The article image now appears only after the puzzle is finished, without leaving an empty gap during play or affecting the page stability score.

Stronger Account and Data Security (Jul 23, 2026)

  • Rebuilt the how-to guide for new players into a single screen: a three-tap K2 example that shows how Wikipedia first sentences give away the answer, plus a handful of opening words that tell you what kind of article you're solving. It also sets expectations up front, so newcomers know a typical solve takes around 35 guesses and 5 to 10 minutes.
  • Strengthened protection around account sessions, imported game history, and private collections.
  • League pages no longer expose internal account identifiers.
  • Corrected ad-free access for recent Ko-fi supporters whose donations were made during the ads transition.

Letter Counts On by Default (Jul 22, 2026)

  • Every redacted word now shows its letter count by default, giving you an extra clue at a glance. You can still turn this off in Settings.

Ads That Match Your Theme (Jul 19, 2026)

  • Sticky ads now blend in with your selected theme, including the close button.

Support and Go Ad-Free (Jul 16, 2026)

  • Subscribe for $5 a month to skip the ads, or chip in on Ko-fi. Every $6 donated adds a month ad-free, and larger gifts stack up.

A Faster, Steadier Game (Jul 13, 2026)

  • Stopped the page footer from jumping while the Wikipedia article loads.
  • Made guesses respond faster on mobile, especially in longer articles.

Your Guessed Words Stay Put (Jul 8, 2026)

  • Fixed a bug where the list of words you guessed could disappear from a game you just finished. Your guess history is now safe from being wiped during a background sync.

Tidier Ad-Free View (Jul 2, 2026)

  • Removed an empty strip that was showing above the game on mobile for players who do not see ads.

A Sustainable Redactle (Jun 25, 2026)

  • Redactle is starting a small, careful ads rollout to help cover hosting and keep improving the game. Contact me on Discord if you have any feedback.
  • Supporters do not see ads. As a one-off transition into ads, anyone who has already donated $10 or more can get lifetime no ads by logging in with the same email they used to donate, or by contacting me if it does not link up correctly.
  • The desktop navbar is now more compact, and the default article text size is one step smaller.

Double-Tap Annotations on iOS (Apr 24, 2026)

  • Double-tapping a word to annotate it now works on iOS Safari and iOS Chrome, which weren't firing the double-click event reliably.

Annotation Input Fix for Privacy Browsers (Apr 24, 2026)

  • Double-clicking a word to annotate it now works correctly on desktops in privacy-focused browsers (like LibreWolf) that hide whether the device has a touchscreen. The inline keyboard flow kicks in as soon as you press a physical key, and the choice is remembered for next time. You can also force it from the browser console: `localStorage.setItem("redactle_has_keyboard", "true")` (or `"false"` to force the popup).

Better Annotation Input on Hybrid Devices (Apr 24, 2026)

  • Annotations now pick the right input style based on how you actually opened the word: tapping brings up the familiar popup on phones and tablets, while double-clicking with a mouse keeps the inline keyboard flow on desktop and hybrid laptops.

Reliable Post-Game Links (Apr 23, 2026)

  • The "play another game" and Weekly Collection links at the end of a puzzle now load reliably again, no longer blocked by ad-blockers or cross-site fetch hiccups.
  • The streak grace reminder now disappears right away after you complete yesterday's puzzle in another tab or device, instead of lingering until the next reload.

Smarter Number Guesses (Apr 20, 2026)

  • Number guesses now reveal matching written-out numbers more reliably in German and other supported languages, so guessing digits like 2 can uncover words like zwei, deux, dos, and due.

Stability Recovery (Apr 15, 2026)

  • Game pages and stats now recover more reliably when the site is busy, reducing the chance of puzzle loads failing during traffic spikes.
  • Background cache and article loading now avoid one class of server-side connection and memory failures, helping the site stay available more consistently.

Solve Tracking Reliability Fixes (Apr 9, 2026)

  • Anonymous games now keep a stable browser identity more reliably on Daily, Random, and Junior pages, so solves are less likely to disappear after a reload.
  • Finished games that were saved only on this device can now backfill to the server once your browser identity is available again, helping previously missed stats catch up automatically.
  • When you sign in, local browser game records can now help reclaim older anonymous history that was split across multiple anonymous IDs, so more past solves follow you into your account.
  • The page bootstrap script is now emitted in a browser-safe format again, avoiding a malformed inline JavaScript block that could break startup in stricter browsers.

Faster Article Loading (Apr 8, 2026)

  • Long articles now load the opening sections much faster, so Daily and Random games feel quicker to start on slower devices.
  • The opening part of the article now arrives in the first page render more reliably and in a shorter initial chunk, so puzzles feel less blank while the rest of the article finishes loading.
  • The article handoff from the first server-rendered preview to the fully interactive article is now steadier, reducing the small nudge some players could see as loading finished.
  • Word letter counts now respect your setting immediately on load more reliably, reducing the flash where counts could briefly appear or disappear after the page hydrated.
  • Clicking a redacted word now toggles its own letter count without forcing the whole article to re-render, so count reveals and hides feel more consistent in long articles.
  • Word reveals now stay reliable even when a match only appears deep in the article, so later-section guesses still uncover the right text without needing to scroll there first.

More Languages + Cleaner Localized Links (Apr 8, 2026)

  • Redactle is now available in Italian, Turkish, Hebrew, and Arabic, expanding the full game UI to 10 supported languages.
  • Localized pages, sign-in flows, collections, leagues, and shared links now keep you in the language you are already using more reliably.
  • English remains on the clean default URLs like / and /login, while other languages now use more consistent locale-specific routes for navigation and SEO.

Daily & Sign-In Fixes (Apr 8, 2026)

  • Logging in now does a better job restoring finished games from this device.
  • Imported games now keep their original play dates more accurately.
  • Daily wins now register more reliably, including tricky title-word solves.
  • Using any hint now correctly rules out a snipe, and your snipe badges and stats stay in sync.

Snipe Title Fix (Apr 3, 2026)

  • Snipes now work properly for titles with apostrophes, such as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
  • Small title fragments no longer get in the way of a deserved snipe.

Snipe Rules Made Clear (Mar 29, 2026)

  • A snipe now means solving without using any hints.
  • Your badges, stats, share text, and win screen all follow that same rule.

Streak Grace Fix (Mar 27, 2026)

  • Solving yesterday's Daily within the grace window now updates your streak correctly the next day.
  • The grace reminder now behaves more reliably for affected players.

Faster Junior Games & Clearer Stats (Mar 26, 2026)

  • Reveal images now load more reliably after you solve.
  • Random Junior games start faster and are less likely to fail when the site is busy.
  • Stats now use the same Snipe rules as gameplay.
  • The old Perfect label is now called Snipe.
  • Snipe badges now appear across all solved games.
  • Added a JetArcs link in the stats window.

Collection & Stats Fixes (Mar 25, 2026)

  • Collection progress now counts all of your solves for that collection, even if you started elsewhere.
  • Accuracy is now shown more consistently across the app.
  • Games you played before signing in are now brought into your account history.

Better Sharing & League Setup (Mar 23, 2026)

  • Shared results now include your guess count and are less likely to break formatting on other sites.
  • Creating a league from a new collection now feels much smoother and matches the main league setup flow.

Leagues (Group Competitions) (Mar 22, 2026)

  • You can now run scheduled group competitions from a collection.
  • Players can join from a shared link and compete on solves, speed, guesses, and more.
  • League pages are translated in all supported languages.

Better Sharing & Daily Posts (Mar 21, 2026)

  • Finished collections now have a share card you can copy and post.
  • Shared results now show your guess count and whether you used hints.
  • Daily Discord posts are clearer, spoiler-safer, and include a direct play link plus the article image.
  • Collection playlist titles now reveal properly after you give up.

Profiles, Junior Safety & Stats Fixes (Mar 19, 2026)

  • Reopening a solved Daily after playing Junior no longer briefly shows empty results.
  • Public collections now show less personal info, and you can choose a display name for public areas.
  • Junior daily scheduling is easier to manage, with stronger kid-friendly filtering.

A new version of Redactle is ready

Reload to get the latest improvements before continuing your game.
deenesfrnlptittrhear