Career Arc

How to play Career Arc

1. Each day has one real player and one stat, with their seasons across the bottom of an empty chart.
2. Draw the career season by season: drag across the chart, and redraw any part as often as you like.
3. Lock it in to see the real line. The closer your line runs to it, the more of the 1,000 points you score.

Questions

How is it scored?

By how far your line is from the real one, season by season, on average, measured against the player's best season (being 10 homers off is worse for a 30-homer hitter than for a 70-homer one). Right on the line is 1,000; off by 40% of the best season or more is 0. 500 or more counts as a win.

Why is basketball per game?

So a lockout year or a season with a few games missing doesn't dent the line. Baseball, football and hockey are season totals, and the seasons cut short (strikes, lockouts, 2020) are shaded on the chart.

Which players?

For each stat, the 120 players with the biggest career totals and a long enough career to have a shape (ten seasons; eight in football). Baseball comes from the Lahman Baseball Database and the MLB Stats API, basketball from regular-season box scores, hockey from the NHL's own stats back to 1917, and football from nflverse, which starts in 1999, so only careers that began in 1999 or later.

When does a new puzzle come out?

Every day at midnight Pacific time. Everyone in the world gets the same puzzle, so you can compare results with friends.

Can I play past puzzles?

Yes. Every past day is in the archive. Sign in with a free account to play the last 7 days, or go Premium for every past puzzle. Archive games don't count toward your streak or the daily leaderboard.

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