Paperclip
Trade a red paperclip up to a prize in the fewest swaps
- #3 Product of the Day
About Paperclip
In 2006 Kyle MacDonald traded one red paperclip, swap by swap, all the way up to a house. Paperclip turns that into a daily puzzle. Every day there's a new market. Each trader wants one thing, gives another and trades only once. You start with the red paperclip and try to reach the day's prize (a windmill, a lighthouse, a vintage car) in as few trades as you can. Some trades lead nowhere, and every item can go more than one way, so working backwards from the prize won't hand you the route. Match the best route without undoing and you get three stars. Sundays are a bigger Grand Fair, and some days have a rule, like stalls that only open after a few trades. Kyle's real 14 trades are a market too: playpaperclip.app/kyle It's free, with no sign-up and no ads, and takes a couple of minutes. A one-time $1.99 unlock adds practice markets, harder Expert markets and the archive. I'm blind and built it with VoiceOver, so it plays the same with a screen reader as without one.
Updates
New today: every item in the market can now go at least two ways. Two traders want it, two sell it, so working backwards from the prize doesn't give the route away anymore. This week stays gentle while people get used to it. Also shipped: your first win no longer gets buried under a stack of badge pop-ups, so tomorrow's prize is the first thing you see, and you can ask for a 9am nudge right in the browser. Today's prize is a hot-air balloon, 5 trades: playpaperclip.app
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