VINYLCRACK
Hangman, but with a record on the line. Guess the artist's name one letter at a time. Eight wrong picks and the vinyl shatters — and your daily streak with it.
One letter at a time.
Reveal
The artist's name appears as blanks. Sometimes you get a hint — a genre, a decade, a one-line clue.
Guess letters
Hit letters that you think are in the name. Right ones fill in. Wrong ones crack the vinyl.
Don't shatter
Eight cracks and the record breaks. Solve before that and the day is yours.
How Vinylcrack works.
Vinylcrack is hangman for music. The day's mystery artist appears as a row of blanks. Pick letters one at a time. Each wrong letter cracks the record further. Eight wrong letters and the vinyl shatters — round over.
The rules
- One mystery artist per daily round.
- Letters reveal across all positions where they appear.
- Wrong letters add a crack to the record.
- Eight wrong letters ends the round in failure.
- Solve the full name (including any spaces, hyphens, or numerals) to win.
How points work
Solve with fewer wrong guesses to score higher. A clean solve (zero wrong letters) earns the maximum, typically around 5,000 points. Each wrong letter knocks a chunk off. Failure scores zero, but your streak still counts because you played the daily round.
A worked round
The blanks are _ _ _ _ _ _ _ (seven letters). You start with vowels: E reveals nothing, A reveals two letters in positions 2 and 5. The pattern is now _ A _ _ A _ _. You guess R — reveals position 4: _ A _ R A _ _. You guess N (common consonant) — wrong, one crack. You guess T — reveals position 7: _ A _ R A _ T. You realize it's "Mozart" — but that's six letters. So it must be a longer name… you guess O (still trying), reveal nothing — two cracks. Eventually the pattern resolves to "Lamarrt" (made-up example) and you solve with three wrong guesses for a mid-range score.
Where the artists come from
The day's mystery artist is hand-picked from a curated pool that spans eras and genres, with difficulty calibrated to mostly-known names rather than obscure deep cuts. Ambiguous spellings (e.g., the.wave vs. The Wave) are normalized; report mismatches to support@criticscale.com.