Plain categories we can actually name
The about page on playplain.app says Plain has 64 categories, from box-office grosses and mountain heights to salaries, Big Mac prices and Pokémon weights. I counted the category labels on archive pages 1–7 on 2026-10-25. The union is 36. The remaining names are unpublished. This page will not fill them in.
A category is a unit plus a list. The unit is the part that changes your score: per 100 g versus one piece, city proper versus metro, total area versus land area, 2019 tourism receipts versus the latest year. The official sources page is where those measurement choices are spelled out. I used it as the glossary, then checked which labels had actually appeared in a finished puzzle.
36 labels, first seen in puzzles 1–7
| Category | First example we saw |
|---|---|
| Famous Lives | Plain #1: target 90 years. Source domain wikidata.org. |
| Caffeine Kick | Plain #1: target 45 mg. Source domain cspi.org. |
| Drama Binge | Plain #1: target 35 episodes. Source domain en.wikipedia.org. |
| Big Mac Index | Plain #1: target $4.50. Source domain github.com. |
| Pokémon Weight | Plain #1: target 100 kg. Source domain pokeapi.co. |
| Country Area | Plain #1: target 50,000 km². Source domain en.wikipedia.org. |
| City Population | Plain #1: target 400,000 people. Source domain wikidata.org. |
| Food Calories | Plain #2: target 35 kcal per 100 g. Source domain fdc.nal.usda.gov. |
| Box Office per Minute | Plain #2: target $1 million per minute. Source domain en.wikipedia.org. |
| Box Office | Plain #2: target $200 million. Source domain en.wikipedia.org. |
| GDP per Person | Plain #2: target $2,000. Source domain api.worldbank.org. |
| Olympic Medals | Plain #2: target 10 Olympic medals. Source domain en.wikipedia.org. |
| Sport by Numbers | Plain #3: target 305 cm. Source domain assets.fiba.basketball. |
| Busiest Airports | Plain #3: target 45 million passengers. Source domain en.wikipedia.org. |
| Calories Burned | Plain #3: target 150 kcal per hour. Source domain pacompendium.com. |
| Books & Words | Plain #3: target 1.08 million words. Source domain wordcounter.net. |
| Fruit & Veg Weight | Plain #3: target 50 g, one piece. Source domain fdc.nal.usda.gov. |
| Distance from Berlin | Plain #3: target 4,500 km. Source domain wikidata.org. |
| Olympics & World Cup | Plain #4: target 23 gold medals. Source domain olympics.com. |
| Million-Plus Cities | Plain #4: target 2 million people. Source domain en.wikipedia.org. |
| Big Stadiums | Plain #4: target 60,000 seats. Source domain en.wikipedia.org. |
| Tourism Money | Plain #4: target $4.5 billion in 2019. Source domain api.worldbank.org. |
| YouTube Subscribers | Plain #4: target 75 million subscribers. Source domain en.wikipedia.org. |
| What It Sold For | Plain #4: target $19 billion. Source domain sec.gov. |
| Body & People | Plain #4: target 9%. Source domain worldatlas.com. |
| Guess the Year | Plain #5: target 2007. Source domain apple.com. |
| Landmarks by Numbers | Plain #5: target 132 rooms. Source domain whitehouse.gov. |
| Distance from Tokyo | Plain #5: target 7,500 km. Source domain wikidata.org. |
| Everyday Numbers | Plain #5: target 13.7 billion searches. Source domain searchengineland.com. |
| Country Population | Plain #5: target 30 million people. Source domain population.un.org. |
| America's Top 100 | Plain #5: target $50 billion sales. Source domain en.wikipedia.org. |
| Famous Moments | Plain #6: target 12 people. Source domain science.nasa.gov. |
| Flight Time from London | Plain #6: target 14 hours 45 minutes. Source domain wikidata.org. |
| Planet & Space | Plain #6: target 16 orbits. Source domain nasa.gov. |
| Flight Time from New York | Plain #7: target 3 hours 25 minutes. Source domain wikidata.org. |
| Mother Tongues | Plain #7: target 500 million people. Source domain en.wikipedia.org. |
How to read a label
- If the prompt says a year, ignore the ratio formula. Three years off is Close. Only the exact year is Dialed.
- If the prompt names a place or a thing, you are picking from a list. The closest listed value wins, not the closest fact you remember from outside the list.
- Population, area, and money prompts usually name the dataset in the source link on the archive page. Follow that domain before you argue with the number.
- Subscriber and price counts move. The YouTube round on 21 October 2026 is explicit that the count is for that month.
Questions this page answers
Are there 64 categories?
The about page says yes. No public index lists them. After 7 daily puzzles we can name 36. We are not guessing the rest.
Do categories repeat?
Yes. In the first six days, seven categories appeared twice: Big Mac Index, City Population, Famous Lives, GDP per Person, Guess the Year, Landmarks by Numbers, and What It Sold For.