Poople Scoring | Par, Extra Guesses and Streaks
Scoring in Poople is refreshingly simple once you get the one idea behind it: the game cares about how many extra moves you take beyond the shortest possible path. There's no point system, no bonus tiles, just par and how far over it you went. Here's exactly how it all adds up.
Par is the baseline
Every day has a par, the fewest moves it takes to reach POOP from that day's starting word. Finishing in exactly par is a perfect score. There's no way to do better than par, so once you've matched it, you've beaten the day, full stop. The number is the same for everyone, so you can compare your run against the whole world on equal footing.
Extra guesses count against you
Every step you take above par is an "extra guess," and that's the number the game actually tracks. If today's par is five and you take seven moves, you've got two extra guesses. The goal is to push that number to zero. Your average extra guesses over time is the best single measure of how much you're improving, because it strips out the luck of whether a given day happened to be easy or hard.
Wins and streaks
Alongside extra guesses, the game tracks your wins, your current streak, and your best streak, all saved locally in your browser. A win is simply finishing the day's puzzle, and the streak counts consecutive days you've solved it. Because it's all stored on your own device, switching browsers or clearing your site data resets the counters, so don't panic if your streak vanishes, it wasn't stored on a server.
How difficulty levels work
Each day is rated by its par. Easy is five moves or fewer, Medium is six to seven moves, and Hard is eight or more. Most days land in the four to six range, which is why par five feels typical, while a Hard day can genuinely stretch to eleven moves. The difficulty is about the starting word's shape, words with awkward consonant clusters or unlucky vowels tend to force longer ladders.
What a good score looks like
If you're matching par most days and your average extra guesses sits below one, you're doing better than the bulk of players. Hitting par on a Hard day is genuinely impressive, because those ladders require planning several moves ahead rather than just feeling your way through. The best way to lower your average is deliberate practice on old puzzles, which is exactly what the archive is for.