For a while now, starting a game on Pokédle felt like the wrong kind of puzzle. You clicked into Draw That Pokémon or the gym reveal, the page loaded, and then you had to scroll down to find the actual game. On a phone it was worse. The canvas or the cards were so big that the title and instructions above the game got pushed off the screen. You would start guessing before you had even read the prompt.
That is not how a daily game should feel. A daily game should appear, ready to play, the moment the page loads. So we spent some time on the layout and the scroll behaviour. This post is a quick rundown of what changed and why.
The scroll problem
The issue was simple. When you opened a game page, the browser stayed at the top of the page. The game itself was below the fold, so you had to scroll down to center it on your screen. It was only one scroll, but it was one scroll every single time you played.
Our first attempt was to call the browser's scroll-into-view function and center the game area. That worked on some pages, but it was not reliable. On a direct page load, the browser sometimes reset the scroll position after hydration, which shoved the game back out of view. It also did not account for the sticky header at the top of the page, so the game title could end up hiding underneath it.
The mobile problem
On a small screen the games were simply too large. The drawing canvas was the worst offender. It took up so much vertical space that the prompt text, the timer, and the submit button could not all be visible at once. You had to choose between reading the Pokémon name and seeing the canvas, which is not a choice a player should have to make.
The other games had the same issue to different degrees. The gym reveal had four Pokémon cards that pushed the heading out of view. The zoom and cry games had large interactive panels that left no room for the intro text. The page felt cramped, not compact.
What we changed
We replaced the basic scroll-into-view with a smarter approach. The game page now measures the height of the sticky header and scrolls the game title to sit just underneath it. That means the heading and the instructions are always visible, and the game starts right below them. We also added a small retry with a delay so the positioning works even when the browser resets things after hydration.
On mobile, we tightened the spacing around the game area and reduced the size of the drawing canvas. The canvas is now smaller on phones but still large enough to draw comfortably. On bigger screens it expands back to the previous size. The same responsive idea applies to the other games. Less padding, smaller gaps, and the game board takes only the space it actually needs.
Why this matters
A daily puzzle is supposed to be a tiny ritual, not a navigation exercise. The fewer taps, pinches, and scrolls between you and the answer, the better the game feels. These changes are small, but they remove a constant low-level annoyance that happened every time anyone played.
They also make the games easier to discover. A friend can send you a link, you open it on your phone, and the game is already framed correctly on your screen. That first impression is worth a lot.
What is still coming
We pulled the ad placeholders out for now. They will come back later, but only in spots that do not push the game out of view or add extra scrolls. Layout first, ads second.
We will also keep testing on a range of phone sizes. Screens keep changing, and the goal is the same for all of them: open the page, read the prompt, play the game. No scrolling required.