Daily Brains · watch five steps of a tiny clockwork world, then build it at step 2026.
Futureproof is the prediction puzzle in Daily Brains (/daily). A small board runs like clockwork: pieces drift across it and wrap around the edges, ride looping or ping-pong tracks, turn, and cycle through colours, and a ring of lamps follows one neighbour rule. You may watch steps 1 to 5 as often as you like. Then you build the board exactly as it will look at a later step, from step 6 on Easy to step 100 to 2026 on Genius. Counting forward works on the easy tiers. On the hard ones you need to see how often each thing repeats and divide.
STORY & LORE
Everything does the same thing again
There is one rule: every step, each part of the machine repeats the change it made last step. A drifter moves by the same offset (and wraps around the board), a turner turns the same amount, a colour cycle steps along its loop, a rider moves along its drawn track at a steady speed (lanes bounce at the pink end stops), and every lamp in the ring follows the same rule. That rule looks only at the lamp and its two neighbours. Each part is independent of the others.
Fair by construction
Five steps can be read more than one way. A rider moving straight along a track could also be a drifter, and a lamp pattern can fit several neighbour rules. Every puzzle is checked by a validator. It lists every rule in the family that fits steps 1 to 5: any drift, any way of riding any track the piece sat on, any turn, any colour cycle up to the palette size, and all 256 lamp rules. If two of those rules disagree about step T, the puzzle is thrown away. The answer you build is the only one the five steps allow.
HOW IT PLAYS
Watching
The timeline under the board has steps 1 to 5 and the target step. Tap a step to see it. The step before it shows as a dashed outline, so you can see what moved. Play runs 1 to 5 as an animation. Each puzzle plays it once on first open.
Building
Tap the target step to build. The board starts as a copy of step 5. Tap a piece to pick it up, then tap a square to move it. You can also drag a piece, and dragging onto another piece swaps the two. The chips set the colour (pips count one to five, so colour is never the only cue) and Turn rotates the piece a quarter-turn clockwise. Tap lamps to switch them. Undo and Reset are free. On a keyboard: 1-5 to watch, B to build, Tab to pick a piece, arrows to move it, R to turn, C to recolour, Z to undo.
Checking
Each puzzle allows three checks. A wrong check marks every wrong piece with a red cross and says how many lamps are wrong. It does not say which lamps. After the third miss the answer is shown, and Show mine lets you compare it with your build. A solved or revealed puzzle can be run as a time-lapse from step 5 to step T.
Modes
Today has four puzzles, one per tier, the same for everyone that day. Practice gives endless new puzzles at any tier with no score. Classics holds the four handmade puzzles: First Light, Merry-go-round, Clockwork and Year 2026.
TIERS
| Tier | Board | Build step | What is in it | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Easy | 5×5 | 6 (the next step) | 2-3 pieces: drift, turn or a 2-colour cycle | 100 |
| Normal | 5×5 | 8-12 | 3-4 pieces, sometimes a track; colour cycles up to 3 | 200 |
| Hard | 6×6 | 16-40 | 4-5 pieces, 1-2 tracks, lamps 6 in about 2 days of 5; 3+ different rhythms | 300 |
| Genius | 6×6 | 100-2026 | 5-6 pieces, 2 tracks, 7 lamps; whole machine repeats only after 12+ steps | 400 |
SCORING
| Result | Share of the tier's points |
|---|---|
| Solved on the first check | 100% |
| Second check | 60% |
| Third check | 30% |
| Missed | 0 |
REWARDS
| Event | Reward |
|---|---|
| Finish the day with at least one tier solved | 15 Tickets |
| All four tiers on the first check (perfect) | +25 Tickets |
| Oracle: the Genius puzzle on the first check | achievement |
| Streaks of 3 / 7 / 30 days | achievements |
VERSION HISTORY
- Prototype launch in Daily Brains.
- Four tiers a day from a seeded generator (versioned seeds), endless Practice, and four handmade Classics.
- Validator lists every rule that fits the five shown steps and keeps only puzzles where they all agree at the target step. scripts/test-futureproof.mjs re-proves this with its own simulator for the Classics and 800 generated puzzles.
- Builder with tap-to-move, drag-to-swap, colour chips with pips, quarter turns, lamp toggles, undo, reset, three checks with wrong pieces marked, and a time-lapse to the target step.