Sorta Game — the daily ordering puzzle

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Put the world in order… sorta.

Three quiet rounds, five things each, and one hidden way to arrange them. Trust your instinct and see how close your order comes to the truth.

Sorta Game puzzle #44 · August 23, 2026

Three rounds of five things, each with a hidden scale to sort them by — then one last guess at the theme tying all three together. Here’s what this puzzle asks.

  1. Round 1

    Order these entities from slowest to fastest peak physical speed

    • A commercial Zamboni machine resurfacing an ice rink
    • The vertical growth of a running bamboo shoot
    • A common banana slug crawling across a forest floor
    • The creeping drift of the Pacific Tectonic Plate
    • The Mars Perseverance rover driving at top speed

  2. Round 2

    Order these explosive or concussive events from lowest to highest total energy release

    • The 1883 catastrophic volcanic eruption of Mount Krakatoa
    • The detonation of a US military MOAB (Mother of All Bombs)
    • The pop of a standard M-80 consumer firecracker
    • A 16-pound solid iron cannonball fired during the Revolutionary War
    • The Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet (Fragment G) striking Jupiter in 1994

  3. Round 3

    Order these systems from lowest to highest average daily water consumption

    • An adult domestic housecat
    • The municipal public water system of New York City
    • A high-volume automated tunnel car wash
    • A human athlete completing a summer marathon
    • An active commercial paper manufacturing mill

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