What is Bracket City?
Bracket City is a clue-solving game where the clues live inside each other. Each day's puzzle is a sentence about something that happened in history, but key words have been replaced by clues in brackets, and some of those clues contain smaller bracketed clues of their own. You start with the innermost brackets, and each answer you type slots into the clue around it, slowly unlocking the next layer. Some clues are wordplay, some are general knowledge and some use emoji. When everything is solved you are left with a complete historical fact, and the game links to more reading if it catches your interest. Your result gets a rank, from tourist up to power broker, depending on how much help you needed. Bracket City was created by Ben Gross and is now published by The Atlantic, where it is free to play. It suits people who enjoy cryptic-ish clues, trivia and the pleasure of watching a puzzle unfold.
How to play
- Start with the innermost bracketed clues.
- Each answer fills in the clue around it, revealing the next layer.
- Solve everything to uncover the day's historical fact.
Quick facts
- Typical time
- 5–10 min
- Difficulty
- Medium
- Price
- Free to play.
- Account
- Not needed. You can play without signing in.
- Past puzzles
- Free. Every past puzzle is open in a calendar archive.
- On a phone
- Works in your phone's browser. Nothing to install.
- Scoring
- You get a rank that depends on how much help you needed.
Tips to get better
- Find the innermost brackets. Only a clue with no brackets inside it can be solved straight away. Each answer then completes the clue around it.
- Solve in any order. If one inner clue stumps you, do a different one. The sentence fills in from several places at once.
- Read the outer clue with a gap in it. Before you solve a bracket, read the clue it sits inside. It often tells you what kind of word has to fit, so you can work backwards.
- Use the sentence. The finished puzzle is a fact from history. As words appear, guess where it's heading: a date, a name, an invention. That helps with the last few clues.
- Try it as a phrase. Some clues are trivia, some are puns and some are everyday phrases with a word missing. If the trivia reading doesn't work, try the others.
- Ask for help last. Help lowers your rank, so try every other open bracket before you use it.
Who it's for
Crossword fans who want something that doesn't look like a crossword should try Bracket City. Watching the clues collapse into a sentence is very satisfying, and you pick up a small fact every day. It looks confusing for the first minute, and after one puzzle it clicks. The clues have an American flavour, and the knowledge they ask for is broad rather than deep.
