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Basic Digital unlocks all Meridian journalism. All Access adds every game, the full FIVES archive, our cooking and review sections, and all subscriber-only newsletters. The standalone Games plan unlocks the games and archive only.

All Access Family covers up to four people, each with their own login and their own game streak. Individual plans are for one reader.

You can cancel anytime from your account settings; access continues until the end of the billing period. Because this is a demonstration site, checkout runs in free mode — no card is charged and no real subscription is created.

Readers get a fixed number of free articles in a rolling window, tracked in your browser. When you reach the limit, we ask you to subscribe. FIVES and other games are always free and never counted against your meter.

The meter counts each article you open. If you cleared your allowance, you can reset the demo meter from any paywall screen — this is a demonstration site, so the meter is yours to experiment with.

FIVES resets at your local midnight. Everyone playing on the same calendar date gets the same word, so you can compare grids without spoilers.

Your streak counts consecutive days with a solved puzzle. Miss a day, or fail to solve, and the current streak resets to zero — but your longest-ever streak is kept. Create a free account to carry your streak across devices.

Yes. The share text contains only coloured squares showing the shape of your solve — never the letters or the answer. Paste it anywhere.

No — and we won't pretend otherwise. FIVES draws its daily words from a public word list. The craft here is in the game, not in handmade puzzle authorship.

No. You can read (up to the meter) and play FIVES with no account at all. An account exists mainly to carry your game streak and stats across devices.

No. The Meridian is a fictional demonstration built as a design reference. All articles are invented, evergreen features — there is no real news here, and none is intended.