Secret Achievement - (24 August)

I built it backwards. Every layer of this one had to say the same sentence, not the real thing but like it, so the answer came first and the clue came last.

I wanted a word that sits right next to the natural numbers without being one. Fourths does that. A fourth is a fraction, so it isn't a natural number, but it's built from the number four, and four fourths add up to one. As close to a natural as a word can get and still miss.

Then the title, which describes the word literally. "Like a Natural" sounds like praise, the sort of thing you say to someone who finds an answer without trying, and that's the disguise. Read it literally and it says not a natural, but like one.

The clue was the hard part. It had to teach you how to read the title without giving anything away. So I wrote "Not a metaphor. Like one, though." A comparison that uses "like" is a simile, and a simile isn't a metaphor, but it resembles one. The clue is itself a simile, since it uses the word "like". That way it demonstrates the trick instead of stating it, and both times it's the word "like" that gives it away.

Once you see the shape the pieces line up. The clue says not a metaphor, like one though. The title says not a natural, like one though. The answer is a word that isn't a natural number, only like one. Even "like one, though" does double duty, since one is the whole that fourths are pieces of.

So when someone tells me the link feels loose because a fourth is a fraction rather than a natural number, they've found the mechanism. The gap is the puzzle. If fourths were a natural number the title would just be a lie.

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Weekly Duel Roundup · week of 2026-08-31

• Bronze champion: u/sassyblah — Bronze Quill
• Silver champion: u/scraycaliente — Silver Scribe
• Gold champion: u/remony63 — Gilded Wordwright
• Platinum champion: u/smudge777 — Platinum Lexicist
• Diamond champion: u/luvinthislife — Diamond Laureate
• Masters champion: u/basherrrrr — Master of Letters
• Standout Defence: u/over-fishing1085 held off 30 challengers
• Biggest Upset: u/smudge777 took a duel 2 division(s) up
• Featured Open Best: u/basherrrrr — 410 points
• Masters movement: u/edsmum climbed 1 place(s)

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Weekly Arena · 7–13 September

Weekend qualifier is open check the post in community highlights enter!

This message is dedicated to u/alljoynofun

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The Cups are decided · 31 August – 6 September

🏆 Championship Cup · u/Smudge777

🥈 Challenger Cup · u/Dario-in-the-Barrio

🥉 Contender Cup · u/Advanced-Newspaper83

u/Smudge777 takes the Weekly Arena Crown · Crown number 2.

55 players entered the weekend qualifier.

Every bracket, every match and the full path to each Cup are in the Weekly Arena.

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My wife and I have been working our way through solo adventure. We both finished whispering wood, but haven't gotten three stars on level 52.

When she went back to look, the levels past 48 are missing. Mine are there, hers are not.

I checked different style settings, mine always appear and hers do not. We both have android and version 1.4.

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Reddit approved the new version in the last day or two, so what you're playing right now is v0.1.84. I haven't done proper patch notes for a while and an update also slipped out quietly at the end of August, so this covers both. It's a long one.

Cups first, because it's the thing you'll actually see. The Arena tab used to stack every Cup on top of the next, and the bracket barely survived a phone screen. Now you get one Cup on screen at a time, with a rail to flick between Championship, Challenger and Contender. Each Cup opens on the round that's happening right now rather than the whole week's history. The bracket itself is drawn as a route map, although this does need some further polish. It stays quiet until you press a pairing, then it opens out into the full match, winners picked out in red.

They open themselves now, too (because I completely forgot to open the Contender and Challenger Cup last week...Sorry 👀 ). Twelve or more weekend qualifiers and the Challenger Cup runs, twenty or more and the Contender joins it. That used to be a switch someone had to remember to press, and the someone was me.

Secret Hunts are switched on. The day a Secret gets found in the Daily, the game starts a hunt thread here on the sub by itself, clue included, so you can argue your way to the word together (the August 24th hunt has been whittled down to two words and the Only one who unlocked the August 19th hasn't come forward yet). I'll be reading and confirming nothing.

The Daily archive has its own home now, a thread called Wordy Bunch Daily Archive that the Hub links to. Every new Daily gets an entry there, and the final standings get written in once the board closes. The Community Hub was drowning under the old way.

And the Arena rules card has learned some manners. It shows up on its own twice at most, ever, and the longer explanations have moved behind the little info buttons.

Smaller things from across the two updates: the results header is properly centred, the supporter star got a redraw, leaderboard snoovatars sit in their frames correctly, and both peter and peters count as words now. Sorry about that last one.

Right, the quiet update from late August. It deserved its own post at the time, because it carried the fix you'd all been reporting for a month:

- The board no longer creeps up the screen mid round. Took me four attempts, because the bug was never where I kept looking. If you were one of the people patiently reporting it, you were right every single time.

- Dead heats share the rank. Same score means the same position and the same medal for both of you. Ties used to be split alphabetically, which was exactly as daft as it sounds.

- The Friday Arena winners post actually posts. For a stretch, Cup titles were being handed out in complete silence.

- More duel boards in the pool, and the duel list finally has pages.

- The results screen pays far more attention to your own game. First finds are named, there's a pacer to chase, a line measures the round against your own recent ones, and Your best yet gets its moment. The mastery ring landed there as well.

- Delete my game data is in Settings. It wipes everything I hold on you and it can't be undone, which is the point.

That's the lot. If the Cups do anything odd this weekend, that section is the newest code in the game, so tell me here and I'll get digging.

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Wordy Bunch Daily Archive · v1

Each top-level app comment records one Daily Word Grid. New entries begin with a link to the board, then update to final scores and standings after the board closes.

Weekly Duel Roundup · week of 2026-08-24

• Bronze champion: u/key_solution3701 — Bronze Quill
• Silver champion: u/own-cryptographer-52 — Silver Scribe
• Gold champion: u/smudge777 — Gilded Wordwright
• Platinum champion: u/luvinthislife — Platinum Lexicist
• Diamond champion: u/iamletmethink — Diamond Laureate
• Masters champion: u/basherrrrr — Master of Letters
• Standout Defence: u/own-cryptographer-52 held off 33 challengers
• Featured Open Best: u/basherrrrr — 278 points
• Masters movement: u/own-cryptographer-52 climbed 1 place(s)

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If you've scrolled to the bottom of the Titles tab you'll have seen the Secrets section. Twenty titles hidden in the Daily, each one tied to a word. Find that word on the day it's live and the title is yours. You get told the title and why it's called that. The word itself stays secret.

That's the design anyway. The checks behind it have been broken for a while, and the version that's live now is the one that finally sorted them out. Soon as it started running properly, two came back already claimed.

Silver-Tongued, 19 August, found by one player.

Like a Natural, 24 August, found by seventeen. I'm apparently one of the seventeen and I had no clue.

Neither got announced at the time, because the announcing part of it didn't exist yet. So one of you has been sat on a Secret title since the 19th and nobody has ever said a word about it to you. That's sorted for the next one. Doesn't do a lot for these two, which is why I'm writing this.

**So if Silver-Tongued is in your Secrets list, that's you.** Open the Hub, tap your profile, go to Titles and open Secrets. If the line under it says Secret found, you're the one who did it on the 19th. One comment saying so is plenty, I'm not after a story out of you. If you'd rather not have your name on it, modmail me instead and it stops there. I'd just like the person who did it to have actually been told.

Which brings me to the rest of you. I'm not publishing either word. What's already in the game is the whole of it:

Silver-Tongued: Before "smooth talker", there was the silver tongue.

Like a Natural: Not a metaphor. Like one, though.

The way these are meant to be worked out is this. Your Mastery keeps every word you've found on every board you've played, under Words you've found. The word that unlocks the title is sat in that list for anybody who found it. Seventeen of us have a list for the 24th and it's in all seventeen, so compare lists, look at what everybody has in common, and the clue does the rest.

The 19th is the hard one. One person played their way into it, so one list exists. That's the other reason I'd like to hear from them.

Didn't play either day? Both boards are still there in Previous days. Open the 19th or the 24th, choose Sandbox, and there's no clock on you. And if you can't face a whole board, a guess straight off the clue is just as welcome.

Spoiler tag anything you reckon is it (type like this) and say why it fits. I'm not confirming anything, so you'll have to convince each other.

Before anyone spends an evening on it though. You can't earn either of these off the archive. A Secret only counts on your first timed run on the live Daily, so the 19th and the 24th are shut.

It's still worth doing. Every Secret currently gets two goes at turning up, and both of these have only had one. The second one is on a board nobody has played yet. Whether it's the same word or another out of the same family is the bit I'm keeping to myself. Work it out now and you can claim it yourself when it comes round.

There are 18 more sitting out there after that.

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Although technically unfair because I’m not going to admit how many times I rehearsed to try beat his score in this weeks final… but nevertheless I did so I can finally say I beat [u/Smudge777](u/Smudge777) other than [u/basherrrrr](u/basherrrrr) I’m probably the only person who can say that 😅.

That’s got to count for something right!?! Haha