Banners

A new flag every day

Everyone gets the same flag each day, and a new one arrives at midnight your time. Monday and Tuesday it belongs to one of the world's best-known countries, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday a well-known one, and Friday and Saturday a less familiar one.

You get one try a day: name it within six guesses, or the day's game, and your streak, are over. If you're stuck, you can give up and see the flag, and that ends the day's game too.

Find it on consecutive days to build a streak, then share your result. A shared result shows how many guesses you took, never the flag.

How to play Banners

1. A country's flag is hidden behind a grid of tiles. Name the country.
2. Each guess lays its own flag over the hidden one: every tile where the two have the same color in the same place turns over and stays showing. Your guesses also show how much of the flag they matched.
3. You have six guesses. Name it within six and you've solved it. Stuck? Give up, and the flag shows.

Colors count by name, so a navy blue and a sky blue are different, but two reds are the same. Indonesia's and Monaco's flags are alike tile for tile: if a guess matches all of the hidden flag and isn't the answer, the answer is its twin. Other look-alikes, such as Australia's and New Zealand's, differ in a few tiles. Territories such as Greenland and Aruba count as countries here, but the ones that fly another country's flag, as French Guiana flies France's, are never the answer.

Tips

• Start with a busy flag. A flag with many colors and shapes, such as South Africa's, can show more of the hidden one than a plain one.
• Look at where the tiles are. A row of tiles across the top says stripes; tiles in a corner suggest a canton, such as a Union Jack or a star.
• Use a guess to test a color. If you think the flag has green, guess a flag with green where you think it is.