puzzleparty-changelog

Staging Releases

What to test in each TestFlight staging build, newest first. Entries are added automatically when a staging deploy ships.

← Back to Main Index

---

August 24, 2026 — Splash icon, signup disclosure, invite fix

• Cold-start the app: the splash screen should show the branded PuzzleParty icon instead of a blank void.
• Run through a fresh signup: the email step now says up front what we’ll send you before you hand over the address.
• Open a party invite link and join: after signing in you should land on Home, not a dead end.

August 24, 2026 — Avatar packs + paste primer

• Open the avatar picker’s Pack tab: every pack now sits fully expanded in one list, and the store tile is gone.
• Fresh install on iOS: copy a puzzle result and open the app — a one-time explainer should appear before the system “Allow Paste” prompt, then never again.
• Skim the Credits screen; a certain AI assistant has been politely shown the door.

August 23, 2026 — Clipboard auto-submit + credits

• Copy a puzzle result, open the app, and hit the + button: the result should submit itself, no paste required. Copy something that isn’t a puzzle and + should behave as before.
• Settings, About, Credits: a new screen listing the fonts and libraries we borrowed. Riveting reading.
• Link a computer: the instructions are clearer, the pairing code formats itself as you type, and you can share it straight to the computer.
• Send a party invite from an iPhone: the share sheet should actually appear now instead of silently giving up.
• Assorted housekeeping; if you can see it, it’s a bug.

August 20, 2026 — Linked computers + Stats Hub fix

• Settings, Linked computers, Link a computer: open puzzleparty.dev/paste on a computer and type in the code it shows you.
• Paste a puzzle result into that page; it should land on your phone exactly as if you had shared it there.
• Unlink the computer again from the same screen. The next paste should send it back to the pairing code, no reload required.
• Open the Stats Hub from the store: it should sit on top of the app rather than swallowing the navigation, and Back should return you where you came from.
• The address the app tells you to visit should match the one above, exactly. Earlier builds of this release named the wrong host, where your code would have been quietly unusable.

August 19, 2026 — Strands themed tiles

• Paste a Strands result from a day NYT swapped in novelty tiles (July 4 used fireworks and a flag; Aug 19 used a picnic basket and a hot dog). It should score as a solve, not a zero.
• Open the scoreboard for July 4 or Aug 19: those Strands rows now carry real scores instead of goose eggs.
• Share an ordinary blue-and-yellow Strands board too. Nothing about the normal case should have moved.

August 19, 2026 — Repeatable tip jar

• Open the Store tab: all three tip tiers show a price button, even ones you tipped before — the green “Owned” state is gone.
• Tip a tier, then tip the same tier again; both purchases should complete, each with a “Thanks for the tip!” card.
• Tiers you’ve tipped show a small Supporter heart; your badge still reflects your highest tier.
• Tap Restore Purchases: Plus and avatar packs come back, tips don’t — note the new caption explaining tips are saved to your account.
• Assorted housekeeping; if you can see it, it’s a bug.

August 19, 2026 — Store fix + Catalogues support

• Open the Store tab: it should load subscriptions, support tiers, and avatar packs with real prices, instead of the “check your connection” dead end it has been serving on device.
• Share a Catalogues result from The New Yorker; it should parse, score, and appear on the party scoreboard like any other game.
• Log one by hand too: manual entry should offer Catalogues with the right fields, DNF included.
• Check its stats page after a couple of entries: a Catalogues-specific trend, not a generic “Avg Score” shrug.
• Assorted housekeeping; if you can see it, it’s a bug.

August 4, 2026 — Invite sign-in fixes + auth diagnostics

• Open a party invite link as a fresh install: the preview should show the real party name, host, and games — not a network error.
• Sign in with Google or Apple from that invite flow: you should land in the app and join the party without force-quitting.
• Cancel a sign-in midway, then retry: the buttons stay usable, and genuine failures now show an actual error message instead of silence.
• Assorted housekeeping; if you can see it, it’s a bug.

August 1, 2026 — One Word Search support

• Solve One Word Search (puzzlist.com/onewordsearch) and share the result into PuzzleParty; it should land as a timed score whose party rating matches the game’s own stars — 5-star sparkle rows and streak-milestone hashtags included.
• Log one manually too: time picker with a DNF toggle, filed under Word Games.
• Check its stats page after a couple of entries: solve-time trend, not “Avg Score”.

July 30, 2026 — Nerdle support

• Paste a Nerdle result (nerdlegame 1653 3/6 plus its grid); it should parse, score like Wordle, and land on the scoreboard.
• Try a mini or speed nerdle share; the app should politely decline rather than file it under classic.
• Log a Nerdle manually, including the unsolved toggle — a DNF is the only way to record a loss, since Nerdle never shares one.
• Check Nerdle’s stats page after a few entries: guess distribution and a trend graph, not “Avg Score”.

July 29, 2026 — partner page links

• Open the avatar menu and scroll the Games tab to the bottom; both now carry a “Partner with PuzzleParty” link that should open the partner page in your browser. If you run a puzzle game, we’d love to hear from you; if you don’t, enjoy the field trip.

July 27, 2026 — reaction hardening + avatar frames

• Add several different reactions to a DM, as fast as you like; all of them should appear and stay. Previously the second one performed a brief cameo and vanished.
• Tap two different reaction emojis in quick succession (DM or party feed); both should register, and a failed request no longer takes a neighboring reaction down with it.
• Equip an avatar frame, then check the People tab and a head-to-head header; the frame should render there too, not just on your profile.

July 26, 2026 — reactions + Plus borders

• As a Plus subscriber, pick a ring-style avatar frame; it should render as a full inset ring around your avatar, with the picker tidily sorted into categories.
• React to a party message with several emojis, then long-press to reopen the picker: every one you’ve already used shows a green ring — including picks from the Plus set — and tapping one again removes it.
• In a DM, fire off two different reactions in quick succession; both should stick, instead of the second flickering and vanishing.

July 24, 2026 — Reaction picker Plus upsell

• As a free user, open the reaction picker: the premium reactions should now pitch a Plus upsell instead of silently doing nothing. Plus users still get the full picker.
• Poke the head-to-head Plus gate too; it shares the same upsell now, so it should look and behave identically to the reaction one.
• Assorted plumbing; if you can see it, it’s a bug.

July 23, 2026 — Account deletion

• Delete your account from Settings: you’ll be asked to sign in again, then everything local should vanish along with it. Use a throwaway account unless you’re feeling brave.
• Open the FAQ and find the People & Messages topic; its icon should be an actual icon rather than a blank space.
• Check Settings for “Spoiler Prevention” — same switch as before, better name.

July 19, 2026 — DM reactions + premium picker

• Long-press a message in a DM thread; the reaction picker should appear, and reactions should show up on the other person’s phone without a refresh.
• Tap the plus at the end of the picker; a sheet of reaction packs opens — owned packs are tappable, locked ones show a padlock and a sales pitch instead of posting.
• Buy a pack (sandbox); its emojis should unlock in the picker without restarting the app.
• Post the star or disco ball from an owned pack; those two used to fail silently, so them landing at all is the test.
• Assorted housekeeping; if you can see it, it’s a bug.

July 16, 2026 — Scrandle

• New game: Scrandle, scrandle.com’s daily stadium-food showdown. Finish the daily, tap the clipboard icon on its results screen, paste into PuzzleParty — expect a proper 4/10-style score, not a shrug.
• No share handy? Manual entry: pick 0–10 correct on the selector, or flip Failed if you bailed mid-scran. Failed keeps your participation streak and breaks the solved ones.
• After a few entries, open Scrandle in Stats: score histogram with a Failed row, plus a Score Trend graph — a first for any game.
• Practice-mode and Super Scrandle shares should be politely declined.

July 8, 2026 — Head-to-head Plus gate

• Open head-to-head comparison as a Free user; it should now sit behind a PuzzleParty Plus gate rather than opening.
• Repeat as a Plus member; the comparison should open as before, no gate in sight.

July 7, 2026 — avatars, sparkle, party looks

• Open Avatar settings and pick one of the new default glyphs plus a frame; the four free frames equip, while the two Pioneer ones read “Pioneer exclusive” and stay locked (no Store detour) unless you’re a Pioneer.
• Glance at the Home wordmark — it should pick up a small daily sparkle and otherwise behave itself.
• Give a single party your own personal icon/theme without changing how it looks for everyone else.

July 6, 2026 — party icons + head-to-head polish

• Open a party’s settings and pick an icon: it should tint to the party’s theme colour and show up on the party card and header, not just in the picker.
• Pull up a head-to-head: the game name should sit centered at the top, and the day’s winner gets a green highlight instead of a polite shrug.
• Visit a person’s comparison screen; expect an overall win/loss record summary with color-coded labels.
• “Spoiler Mode” is now “Hide spoilers” everywhere it showed up (settings, FAQ, landing). Same switch, calmer name.

July 2, 2026 — July 4th Easter egg

• On July 4th — judged by your profile timezone, not the device clock — the home screen should serve a one-time Independence Day celebration and tint the hero card. Dismiss it once and it stays gone for the rest of the year.
• Any other day: no fireworks, no accent, business as usual.

July 2, 2026 — spoiler threads + People refresh

• Turn spoilers on in a party, then reveal a spoiler comment (solve the puzzle, or flip spoiler mode off). It should now label which puzzle it’s about — “Wordle · Today” — instead of leaving you guessing.
• Tap that badge on today’s spoiler; you land on a “[Game] Activity” screen with the day’s entries and spoiler talk for that game, in order. Prior-day badges are for looking, not touching.
• Open People, dive into a DM, then come back. The list refreshes on its own instead of clinging to stale unread counts.

June 30, 2026 — streak visibility

• Tap the streak flame on a party card (also the home-screen flame and a party’s header chip); each opens a modal that now spells out exactly what the streak is counting.
• Tap a puzzle entry in the party feed; if you’re on a run for that game, the detail popup now shows the streak badge too.

June 30, 2026 — home hero + polish

• Your home hero now counts only party puzzles — the big number, flame streak, and end-of-day confetti ignore games played outside your parties. Those show as violet pills at the tail of the progress bar; tap them for a quick explainer.
• Open your Pips stats; the time-based histogram should now appear, Failed row and all.
• Glance at a party chat header for Cameron’s new Scoreboard glyph.
• Spoilers now wear a softer lavender mask instead of the old loud grape.
• Settings has a new Direct Messages notification toggle; flip it and confirm DM pushes fall in line.

June 27, 2026 — People tab & feed

• People tab: tap someone’s name to drop straight into a DM. Head-to-head now lives behind the scoreboard icon on each row.
• Party feed: tap anyone’s avatar (yours included) to open their profile.
• Bottom nav is reordered to Home, People, Games, Store. The People tab grows a live unread badge that clears once you read the thread.
• Standings and head-to-head now show the actual game result instead of a percentage.

June 26, 2026 — Direct Messages: push deep-link

• Tap a direct-message push notification; it should drop you straight into that conversation instead of the home screen.
• Tap a DM notification for a thread you already have open; it should stay put rather than stacking a second copy.
• If the conversation has since been blocked or deleted, tapping its notification should land you on home with a brief “couldn’t open” note — not a crash or a blank screen.

June 26, 2026 — Direct Messages + People tab

• People graduates to its own bottom tab: your active-party co-members, searchable by name, sorted by most recent chatter.
• Tap someone for a “You vs them” comparison, then hit Message to open a 1:1 chat — send, delete, and watch the typing dots.
• Mute a chat from its overflow to silence its notifications (it still racks up unread); block or report from the person screen or the chat menu.
• Blocking is silent and quietly drops the person from People; review and undo the fallout under Settings → Blocked Users.
• Share a Crossclimb result copied straight from the app (newline format, no pipes); it should now parse instead of shrugging.

June 25, 2026 — People surface

• On the Home tab, tap the new “People” toggle beside “Your Parties”: you should get a list of folks you share a party with, each tagged with what they last played and when.
• Tap a person to open “You vs [Name]”: the games you both play, with your win-loss record per game. Tap a game to drill into the day-by-day head-to-head.
• Someone you’ve never overlapped with on a puzzle still appears, just with nothing to compare yet. That’s expected, not a bug.

June 24, 2026 — Your Games + per-game standings

• Open the home hero dropdown: games you’ve played lately now appear under “Your Games,” separate from your party games. Nothing played yet? You get a nudge toward the Games tab instead.
• On a party scoreboard, use the new game-selector dropdown to switch from “Overall” to a single game; the list re-ranks by that game and defaults to an All-time view.
• Members with no plays sit in a muted “Hasn’t played” footer; if nobody’s played it, you get an empty state instead of a blank table.
• Tap a member in a per-game standings list to open the head-to-head: your record, shared days, and a day-by-day who-won breakdown.
• Tap a player’s per-game row in the detail sheet; it should jump straight to that game’s standings.
• Assorted housekeeping; if you can see it, it’s a bug.

June 21, 2026 — Failed results, recognized

• Paste a Pinpoint loss (the five-thinking-faces “X/5” share); it should record as a failed attempt instead of greeting you with “Unrecognized Format.”
• Mark a timed LinkedIn game (Queens, Zip, Tango, and friends) as “didn’t solve it” via manual entry; the miss should now show up as a “Failed” row in that game’s time stats instead of quietly disappearing.

June 20, 2026 — Word Search

• Solve the Daily Mini at wordsearch.com (or the bigger Daily Max at /max), share the result, and it should land as a timed game under a new “Word Search” family, scored by how fast you finished.
• Add a Word Search by hand from manual entry; the minutes:seconds picker and the give-up (DNF) toggle should both behave.

June 20, 2026 — Help guide + Stats polish

• Tap your avatar: Help and Support are now separate items. Help opens a multilevel guide — pick a topic, drill in for answers; Support is just ticket stuff.
• Open a game’s solve-time histogram in Stats; bucket labels should read as mm:ss, not a wall of raw seconds.
• Check the Stats Games tab: games now sort by how often you’ve played them, and ones you’ve never touched collapse out of the way.

June 17, 2026 — game stats fixes

• Open a Waffle, Number Waffle, or Stackdown stats screen — the star distribution and history are back instead of a blank grey void, now with a “Failed” row for the ones that got away.
• Stackdown stats gain a solve-time distribution chart beneath the stars.
• Strands stats with no hints used should show a tidy empty-state row instead of nothing at all.
• Dialed Daily’s average score now reads on its native 0–50 scale, not a mystery percentage.

June 16, 2026 — NYT Pips

• Share an NYT Pips result (Easy, Medium, or Hard); it should parse, land on the right difficulty, and score on the clock like the other timed games — quicker is better, with cookie credit where earned.
• Assorted housekeeping; if you can see it, it’s a bug.

June 15, 2026 — Wend/Patches + home fixes

• Share a Wend or Patches result (the LinkedIn newcomers); they should parse, score, and land on the board like the regulars.
• Share a Zip result; its score should now agree with the backend instead of inventing its own math.
• Add or remove a game from a party; the home hero should notice and refresh instead of clinging to the old lineup.
• Your own avatar on the home bar and party sheets should show your photo, not fall back to initials.

June 13, 2026 — LinkedIn share parsing

• Share a Zip, Tango, Queens, or Pinpoint result straight from LinkedIn; it should finally parse and score instead of vanishing into the void.
• Manually log a Pinpoint you didn’t solve; it should save as a did-not-finish rather than bouncing back with an error.
• Tap Play on the Home hero card; it should route you to the right place via the standard /home link.

June 12, 2026 — five LinkedIn games

• Share results from the five new LinkedIn games — Mini Sudoku, Tango, Crossclimb, Pinpoint, and Zip. Each should parse, score, and land on scoreboards and stats like any other game.
• Manual entry works for all five: time picker (with DNF) for the timed four, a 1-5 guess picker for Pinpoint.
• Zip records backtracks; they break ties between equal times but never move the score itself.
• “and flawless” shares count toward flawless stats — including Crossclimb, which it turns out has them.

• Paste a mangled share like “Queens #650

  1:590” and it should be politely declined, not scored as 1:59.

June 11, 2026 — Queens time, Mini dates, stat trends

• Tap a Queens result in party chat; the detail popup now shows the solve time instead of pretending you finished instantly.
• Open per-game stats for a guess game (Wordle) and a star game (Waffle); each should show a trend chart of your recent results.
• Share a Mini Crossword result in the old text format; the puzzle date should match the date printed in the share, not whatever day your phone thinks it is.

June 11, 2026 — Queens + visual fixes

• Share a LinkedIn Queens result, or type one in by hand; it should score on time like the other LinkedIn games, flawless and DNF included.
• On the Games tab, crank text size and browse by category; long names like “Memory & Visual” should no longer clip their game counts.
• Open any game’s detail screen; the tinted header should now reach the very top of the screen, no white strip above it.
• Assorted housekeeping; if you can see it, it’s a bug.