Chronophoto

Chronophoto hands you a real photograph from somewhere in the last century and asks one thing: what year was it taken? You answer by dragging a slider across a timeline that runs from 1900 up to a recent year, and your score depends on how close you land. Five photos make a round, with a flawless run worth 5,000 points.

What is Chronophoto?

Chronophoto is a daily photo dating game built around a single deceptively simple task: look at a real photograph and decide what year it was taken. Each round presents one image, and instead of typing an answer you drag a slider along a timeline that runs from 1900 up to a recent year. There is no list of choices to narrow things down and no hint about the decade, so every guess rests entirely on what you can read in the picture itself. A full session is five photos, and your score is the sum of how close each guess landed.

The scoring is what gives the game its tension. A perfect hit on the exact year is worth 1,000 points, and from there your points fall off the further your guess drifts from the truth, so being a few years off still earns a solid haul while a guess from the wrong decade barely registers. Add the five rounds together and 5,000 is the ceiling. Because the penalty curve rewards getting into the right neighborhood, the game becomes less about pinpointing one magic year and more about reading an image well enough to land in the correct stretch of the timeline.

What sets Chronophoto apart from the wider family of daily browser puzzles is that it leans on visual literacy rather than vocabulary or trivia recall. You are not solving a word or naming a country: you are studying clothing, car shapes, hairstyles, street signs, photographic grain, and color rendering, then translating those clues into a date. The same skill that makes someone good at spotting when a movie is set or when an old family snapshot was taken is exactly what the game tests. It rewards patient observation, and a single overlooked detail such as a license plate or a brand of soda can swing a guess by a decade.

Chronophoto was made by developer Weston Miro Tuescher and reached a wide audience after being shared on Hacker News in January 2023, where it drew a strong response and a fair amount of discussion. It is free to play in any browser and also exists as an iPhone and iPad app, where extra modes appear alongside the core experience. The website offers a Classic mode for a quick five-photo run, a Daily mode that gives everyone the same shared set of photos for that day, and a Party mode for competing against friends, with a Survival mode added on the mobile version. In Classic mode the slider's upper bound is actually a configurable setting that defaults to a recent year in the mid-2020s rather than perpetually tracking the current calendar year. Sessions are short, usually only a few minutes, which has made it a popular palate cleanser for history buffs, photographers, and anyone who enjoys guessing the age of an old image.

How to play Chronophoto

1. Open the photograph and study it closely for datable details such as clothing, vehicles, signage, technology, and the look of the image itself.
2. Zoom in to inspect small clues like car models, storefront brands, or text that can pin down a decade.
3. Drag the slider to the year you believe the photo was taken, anywhere from 1900 up to the timeline's upper bound in the mid-2020s.
4. Submit your guess to lock it in and reveal the actual year.
5. Collect up to 1,000 points for that photo based on how close your year was to the truth.
6. Repeat through all five photos and add up your total, with 5,000 the maximum for a perfect run.

Tips and strategy

• Hunt for vehicles first: car body shapes and models are one of the most reliable ways to fix a photo within a single decade.
• Read the technology in frame, since phones, televisions, computers, and cameras changed fast and each generation brackets a tight range of years.
• Treat the photo's own qualities as evidence, because heavy grain and faded tone suggest older film stock while crisp, saturated color points to later decades.
• Look for text you can date, such as signage, posters, license plates, or product packaging, and zoom in rather than guessing from the overall mood.
• Aim for the right decade before fine-tuning the exact year, since the scoring rewards getting close and a near miss still earns most of the points.
• When clues conflict, anchor on the most modern object visible, because a photo can only have been taken after the newest thing in it existed.

Good to know

Resets

Daily, a new shared photo set each day

Rounds

5 photos per game

Scoring

Up to 1,000 points per photo, 5,000 maximum

Timeline

1900 to a recent year (mid-2020s upper bound)

Cost

Free to play

Creator

Weston Miro Tuescher

Platform

Web browser, plus iPhone and iPad app

Chronophoto FAQ

Is Chronophoto free?

Yes. Chronophoto is free to play in any web browser with no account required, and it is also available as a free iPhone and iPad app.

How does scoring work in Chronophoto?

Each photo is worth up to 1,000 points, awarded based on how close your guessed year is to the real one. A run is five photos, so the maximum possible score is 5,000.

How many photos do you get in Chronophoto?

A standard game is five photos. You guess the year for each one in turn, then see your combined score at the end.

Is Chronophoto related to Wordle?

No. It belongs to the broader family of daily browser games inspired by Wordle, but instead of guessing a word you guess the year a photograph was taken using a timeline slider. It was created by Weston Miro Tuescher and gained attention after being shared on Hacker News in early 2023.

What is the difference between Daily and Classic mode?

Daily mode gives every player the same fixed set of photos for that day, so everyone is working from the same images. Classic mode lets you play a fresh five-photo run on demand whenever you want, and its slider also exposes a configurable year range. The website additionally offers a Party mode for playing with friends.