I'm always on the lookout for a new daily game I can play on my phone because, quite honestly, I'll do just about anything to delay getting out of bed for just a few more minutes in the morning. If you're into games like Wordle but are looking for an interesting new twist, here's a pitch:
Wordle, but it's about pricing used cars
Congratulations on your new job at The Daily Lowball, a used car lot where you have to prove to your boss that you know how much second-hand vehicles are worth. Each day in the puzzle, you're served up five real cars complete with photos and stats: the make and model, what year it's from, how many miles it's got on it, and how much it sold for when it was new.
Then you enter a guess how much you think each used car was sold for on the date shown. You're graded from A-F on your guesses by your virtual boss, and if you want to keep your daily streak intact, you'd better be accurate. Perform poorly enough on any given day, or string a few bad days together, and you're fired—you'll have to start your streak over.
It's an easy game to grasp but boy, we here at PC Gamer sure stink at it. My first day on the lot wasn't so smooth after I completely misjudged the resale price of a 2014 Audi Allroad Quattro and utterly biffed my guess on a cherry red 2005 Dodge Neon SRT-4. I did a little better on the 2008 Mercury Grand Marquis and the 2001 Porsche Boxter, and actually nailed the 2001 GMC Yukon. That gave me a C average for the day, so at least my streak has begun.
The other members of PC Gamer I sent the puzzle to didn't fare that well, either. I won't name and shame but there were two Ds and one F among my coworkers. If I'm the lone car guy at PCG, we're all in trouble.
Turns out it's fun to peer at used cars and try to figure out what they're worth, or at least what some real-world person thought they were worth when they bought them. And questions abound while I played a few more past puzzles, like "How does someone only have 8,000 miles on their 1985 Mazda RX-7? What, do they live in a walkable city or something? Insanity."
The site has a few other daily car-based games, like "Steal or Bad Deal" where you judge whether someone paid an acceptable amount for a used car or got ripped off, "Higher or Lower" where you're presented with two cars and have to guess which is more expensive, and a licence plate slot machine game where you try to roll a rare plate every day. Check out The Daily Lowball for yourself, and feel free to share your results in the comments.