Hold the Dike

You let go.

Who is holding

Your country comes from your connection, not from anything you type. Minutes reset at midnight UTC, and the country with the most minutes is written down as that day's winner. "Per million" divides today's minutes by an approximate population, so small countries can win too.

Flood logbook

Flood bulletin

Dijkpaspoort

Today's job

Start at

Stamps

How this works

• There is one dike and one water level. Everyone on this page sees the same one.
• Press and hold your hole to plug it. Let go, hide the tab or lose your connection, and it leaks for 12 seconds.
• The number of holes follows the number of people at the dike. When the sea gets rough there are more holes than hands.
• If more than a quarter of the holes are open, the water rises. At 100% the country floods and the pumps start.
• Every day at 19:00 UTC there is a spring tide: three minutes with far more holes than hands. That is 21:00 in Amsterdam in summer and 20:00 in winter.
• There are three sections of dike, each a real one. Hold 30 seconds at Westkapelle and you are sent to the Hondsbossche Zeewering, where the leak creeps along a crack. Hold a minute there and you get the Afsluitdijk, where muskrats keep digging you a new hole.
• Holding earns you help: a sandbag after one minute, a cork after three, chewing gum after five. Each covers your next slip for a few seconds, so you can switch thumbs.
• Every day has one job. Do it on consecutive days and your passport counts the streak.
• After a while a second hole opens next to yours on a touch screen. Your other thumb counts as a second hand.
• Notifications that drop in while you hold are part of the dike. Answering one means letting go.
• When nobody is at the dike, the sea waits. No made-up players are added.

The boy with his finger in the dike is from an American novel of 1865. Most Dutch people have never been told the story. This site has no accounts, no names and no cookies. It keeps your best time on this device only.