How to play KINO

The aim of KINO is to work out the day's film or TV title from as few clues as you can. Everything else is detail.

When you open a puzzle you get two things: a blurred piece of artwork and your first clue. You type a guess into the box, and as you type, matching titles come up as suggestions with their release year next to them. That year is more useful than it looks, but that's one for the tips. Pick a title, and if it's wrong the artwork sharpens a little and the next clue appears.

The clues always come in the same order, easiest to hardest:

1. The year it came out.
2. The box office, for a film, or the number of seasons, for a TV show.
3. The director, or for TV the creator and the network.
4. A supporting actor and the character they played.
5. The lead actor, and a hint at their role.

By the fifth clue you've been handed a lot, so most people who don't get it early get it by the end. You can skip a clue if you fancy a gamble, or give up, and either way the answer is revealed, so you always find out what it was.

Scoring rewards nerve. The earlier you name it the higher you score, and even if you leave it to the last clue you still finish, just further down the board. There's no penalty for taking your time beyond the lower score.

There's one puzzle a day, and you get one proper go at it, the same as everyone else. When you've finished you can share your result as a row of squares, green for the clue you got it on. That's usually where the comparing starts.

Want to practise? The back catalogue is open. Try #0006 to get a feel for how the clues build, then see how few you need on the next one.