How MindDuel works

How do I take a turn?

Tap an empty square. A question appears with four options and a countdown. Answer correctly and the square is yours. Answer wrong, or run out of time, and your turn passes to your opponent.

How do I win?

Line up three of your marks in a row, column, or diagonal. In Scale Up the board grows, but the goal stays the same.

What are hints?

Three per match, free. They can remove two wrong answers, reveal the category, show the first letter, add time, or skip the question entirely.

What is the difference?

Ranked matches move your points up or down and appear on the leaderboard. Casual and vs-AI change nothing: they are for practice and for fun.

How are points calculated?

Everyone starts at 1000. A win takes points from your opponent and adds them to you, so the ladder stays balanced. Beating a stronger player is worth more than beating a weaker one.

Do I need an account?

No. You can play straight away as a guest. Guest results are not saved between devices, so connect a wallet if you want your rank to follow you.

Does it cost anything?

No. There is no entry fee, no deposit, and nothing to buy. You never pay to play a match, and you cannot lose money by losing a match.

What is a wallet used for?

Only as your name and your save file. It identifies you on the leaderboard and keeps your rank and badges. Nothing is ever taken from it.

Where is my rank stored?

Ranked results are written to a smart contract on the Celo blockchain. That means the leaderboard is public and nobody, including us, can quietly edit it after the fact.

Who pays the transaction fees?

We do. A backend service (the relayer) submits each ranked result and covers the network fee. That is why you never sign a transaction or need funds in your wallet to play.

How do you stop cheating on the answers?

The correct answer is never sent to your browser with the question. The server stores a fingerprint of it and only checks your choice against that fingerprint once you have committed to an answer.

Are badges NFTs?

No. Badges are records tied to your address in our database, not minted tokens. They cannot be traded or sold.