The five fixed target times in Clock Time Puzzle total exactly 1,000 points at 200 each, with the minute angle computed as 6m and the hour angle as 30(h mod 12) + 0.5m — those formulas let you verify any setting before you submit and avoid the second-wrong deadlock that closes a run. Clock Time Puzzle is a deterministic five-card analog-clock game rendered on a real Canvas, and every card names a target time while you adjust the hour from one through twelve and the minute in five-minute steps from 0 through 55. The route is fixed in the order 3:00, 6:30, 9:45, 12:00, and 2:25. Two distinct wrong submissions close the clock file, but resubmitting the same wrong setting is a no-op, so you can recover from your first mistake by simply choosing a different time. The hints below cover the score, the angle math, the exact target list, and the route order so you can clear all five cards and walk away with the full 1,000.
How the Score, Mistakes, and Deadlock Work
Each of the five cards awards 200 points for an exact match, so a perfect run totals exactly 1,000 points. The game tracks errors by round, hour, and minute, and your first wrong submission creates one recoverable mistake. If you submit that same wrong time again, the game treats it as a no-op and your mistake count stays at one — only a second, distinct wrong setting closes the clock file for that round. Hitting that lockout freezes both time adjustment and submission on the card, so the run is over for that clock. Restart is always available with the R key when focus is outside an editing control, and the shared game shell also supplies a Boss Key. Because every score, formula, and target is visible on the screen at all times, you do not have to memorize anything to recover from a bad submission.
The Two Hand-Angle Formulas the Game Uses
The Canvas behind every clock redraws the hands from two formulas that match what Cambridge NRICH and a Rutgers University explanation of analog clock geometry describe. The minute hand covers a full 360-degree turn in 60 minutes, so its position is exactly 6 degrees per minute, giving minuteAngle = 6 × minute. The hour hand moves 30 degrees per hour but continues to drift between the numbered marks at 0.5 degrees per elapsed minute, so the game computes hourAngle = 30 × (hour mod 12) + 0.5 × minute. Both formulas use the standard 12-hour dial, and the game rejects hours outside 1 through 12, minutes outside 0 through 55, noninteger values, and minutes that are not divisible by five at the input layer. If you want to verify your pick before pressing Enter, plug your numbers into these two expressions and check them against the table in the next section. A deeper walkthrough of the same geometry is covered in the Clock Time Puzzle angle math guide.
A single worked example for the trickiest target, 2:25:
- minuteAngle = 6 × 25 = 150 degrees
- hourAngle = 30 × (2 mod 12) + 0.5 × 25 = 60 + 12.5 = 72.5 degrees
That is the only calculation shown step by step on the page. For the remaining four targets, the angles come straight from the same formulas and are listed in the table below.
Five Target Times With Their Exact Angles
The fixed route asks for the five times below in this exact order. The angles are written as minute angle over hour angle in degrees, rounded only where the formula requires it.
| Target time | Minute angle | Hour angle |
|---|---|---|
| 3:00 | 0° | 90° |
| 6:30 | 180° | 195° |
| 9:45 | 270° | 292.5° |
| 12:00 | 0° | 0° |
| 2:25 | 150° | 72.5° |
Every row in that table comes from the two formulas in the previous section, not from the puzzle's own renderer, so you can sanity-check the game by submitting these times and watching the displayed current angles match. The five targets are original Lizely fixtures, and the hand-rate formulas are externally cross-checked at Cambridge NRICH and Rutgers. The minute angle for 6:30 sits at the 30-minute mark pointing straight down, and the hour hand sits halfway between 6 and 7 at 195 degrees — a useful mental anchor that confirms the continuous-motion formula is doing what the citations describe.
Reading the Analog Display Before You Submit
Before you press Enter, look at the Canvas and read both hands as if you were solving a math test. The minute hand is the longer one and points exactly at a numbered minute mark because only multiples of five are valid in the game; if it appears to land between marks, your arrow keypress did not register and the minute is still on the previous multiple. The hour hand is the shorter one and almost never lines up with a number once the minute is non-zero, which is the most common source of wrong submissions. Treat the visible angle readout as ground truth: it shows minuteAngle over hourAngle in degrees, and matching it to the row in the table above is the fastest way to confirm your pick without second-guessing the analog drawing.
Set Each Clock in the Correct Order
Follow this sequence in Clock Time Puzzle to reach the 1,000-point finish without triggering the lockout.
- Open the first card and set the clock to 3:00. Use Up to reach hour 3, leave the minute at 0, then press Enter. You should see 0° and 90° in the angle readout and 200 points added.
- Move to the second card and set 6:30. The minute angle is 180° and the hour angle is 195° because the hour hand has moved halfway from 6 toward 7.
- On the third card, set 9:45. The minute hand points to 9, which is 270°, and the hour hand has crept 22.5° past 9 toward 10, landing at 292.5°.
- Set the fourth card to 12:00. Both angles are zero because the minute hand sits at 12 and the hour hand sits at 12, so this is the cleanest visual check of the route.
- Finish on the fifth card by setting 2:25. The minute hand points at 5, the hour angle is 72.5°, and submitting adds the last 200 points for a 1,000 total.
If you press Enter on the wrong time, you have one recoverable mistake remaining. Look at the feedback line, change the hour or minute, and submit again before trying a third distinct setting on the same card.
Keyboard Shortcuts That Speed Up the Route
Pointer and touch input both work, but keyboard players can finish the route much faster with a consistent set of bindings. Up and Down arrows change the hour by one, while Left and Right arrows move the minute in five-minute steps. Enter submits the currently selected time, and pressing R restarts the whole run only when focus is outside an editing control. The Canvas itself contains no animation loop, so the hands redraw only when the selected hour or minute changes; that means every arrow press is a discrete update rather than a tween, and you can predict exactly where both hands will land before you submit. Because invalid values are atomic no-ops, you can mash the arrows without ever corrupting your selected time — the game simply ignores any minute that is not a multiple of five or any hour outside 1 through 12.
Hints That Keep the Route Alive
The most common reason players miss the 1,000-point finish is forgetting the continuous hour-hand motion and submitting 6:00 instead of 6:30 or 9:00 instead of 9:45. The hour hand never parks at a whole number between minute submissions, so the displayed angle readout is the only ground truth. The second most common error is treating a wrong submission as final — it is not, but only if the next attempt is a different hour-minute pair. If you cannot tell which minutes are valid, remember that the controls accept only 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, and 55; any other minute is rejected as an atomic no-op. Finally, the route is fixed in order, so do not skip ahead: cards must be cleared one at a time and the score accumulates as you go,
If you're weighing options, Color Gradient Puzzle for Beginners: Learn the Hue Arc covers this in detail.